New Poem from Poem-a-Day/Long lines

I Have Not Come Here to Compare Notes But to Sit Together in the Stillness at the Edge of This Wound David Kirby

Asked if it isn’t weird to be at an awards ceremony with Gregory Peck, Dylan says, “Well, listen, everything’s weird. You tell me something that’s not weird.” He might as well have said “big,” that his songs are a witness to magnitude, that your poems are. And why shouldn’t they          be? Look at the epic of your life, at the people in it, all heroic. And to think it began with an accident. Somebody looked up at the night sky and            saw a star, somebody in Cracow or Belgrade, maybe, or the city where you live              now. Carbon, nitrogen . . . there was an explosion, and now you have to pay        attention to everything. At the party, everyone was talking about the crappy TV          series that’s so popular, and you didn’t say you wanted better, wanted more. That same night, you met the man you’d love so hard it made your              teeth hurt. He said, “Hey, baby,” and you snapped, “I’m not your baby.” I have nothing to say to you, really. I just want to see what I’m looking        at. I want so much not to listen to you after all this time but to hear.    Copyright © 2016 David Kirby. Used with permission of the author. Work on sestina, villanelle and Favorite poem project. Happy Holidays!

Poem a Day--Tercets

To Live in the Zombie Apocalypse   Burlee Vang

The moon will shine for God knows how long. As if it still matters. As if someone is trying to recall a dream. Believe the brain is a cage of light & rage. When it shuts off, something else switches on. There’s no better reason than now to lock the doors, the windows. Turn off the sprinklers & porch light. Save the books for fire. In darkness, we learn to read what moves along the horizon, across the periphery of a gun scope— the flicker of shadows, the rustling of trash in the body of cities long emptied. Not a soul lives in this house & this house & this house. Go on, stiffen the heart, quicken the blood. To live in a world of flesh & teeth, you must learn to kill what you love, & love what can die.

SOKOL, GANNON, etc.

AGENDA:

Continue to work on sestina and villanelle, Favorite poem project, etc.

SOKOL:      http://www3.libraryweb.org/ffrpl/programs.aspx?id=494591

GANNON:  http://www.gannon.edu/Academic-Offerings/Humanities-Education-and-Social-Sciences/Undergraduate/English/Poetry-Contest/

MLK Jr. Essay Contest:


http://www.rcsdk12.org/cms/lib04/NY01001156/Centricity/domain/1/bulletin%20board/MLK%20ESSAY%20CONTEST.pdf




Prose poem (poem-a-day):

What Is It You Feel I Asked Kurt Diane Seuss

What is it you feel I asked Kurt when you listen to Ravel’s String Quartet in F-major, his face was so lit up and I wondered, “the music is unlike the world I live or think in, it’s from somewhere else, unfamiliar and unknown, not because it is relevant to the familiar and comfortable, but because it brings me to that place that I didn’t/couldn’t imagine existed. And sometimes that unfamiliar place is closer to my world than I realize, and sometimes it’s endlessly distant,” that’s what he wrote in an email when I asked him to remind me what he’d said earlier, off the cuff, “I don’t recall exactly what I said,” he began, a sentence written in iambic pentameter, and then the rest, later he spoke of two of his brothers who died as children, leukemia and fire, his face, soft, I’m listening to Ravel now, its irrelevancy.    Copyright © 2016 Diane Seuss. Used with permission of the author.

The Villanelle

AGENDA:

Continue to work on sestinas and Scholastuc entries  and Favorite Poem script.


Another form:  The Villanelle

Villanelles

The form, according to Turco:

A1  (refrain)
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1
A2 (refrain)

«

EXAMPLES:

Mad Girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary darkness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said.
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

--Sylvia Plath

«

The Waking

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

--Theodore Roethke

«

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing further, losing faster:
places and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

--Elizabeth Bishop

«

Villanelle for D.G.B.

Every day our bodies separate,
exploded torn and dazed.
Not understanding what we celebrate

we grope through languages and hesitate
and touch each other, speechless and amazed;
and every day our bodies separate

us farther from our planned, deliberate
ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,
not understanding what we celebrate

when our fused limbs and lips communicate
the unlettered power we have raised.
Every day our bodies' separate

routines are harder to perpetuate.
In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,
not understanding what we celebrate;

wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late
morning as the wind tears off the haze,
not understanding how we celebrate
our bodies. Every day we separate.

--Marilyn Hacker

Scholastic/Sestinas

AGENDA:


http://academyofamericanpoets.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/y/570461C051BCD4F1/FF0EB04BBFA2CA21A2432AF2E34A2A5F

Work on Scholastic entries and sestinas

Poetry calendar:

https://www.poets.org/sites/default/files/poetry-classroom-calendar-16-17.pdf

Sestinas

AGENDA:

Scholastic entries--Dec. 15 DEADLINE!

Favorite poem script: Pick a favorite poem to read.    Your script should be an introduction to who you are and why this poem has special meaning for you.  It doesn't have to be a long script.  Just think about where you want to videotape it and how you want your presentation to look using Moviemaker.

SESTINAS

/www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5792

Check out the Ashbery Sestina!

Here's another famous one

Elizabeth Bishop's Sestina
www.poemhunter.com/poem/sestina/  


And there's also a tritina!
Go to:
http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/wd-poetic-form-challenge-tritina

1 KNOW THE PATTERN. A sestina consists of six sestets (6-line stanzas) and one tercet (3-line stanzas). Each sestet contains the same 6 end-words, but in different a order for each stanza. The final stanza, the tercet, contains 2 "end-words" per line. Following is the pattern for the sestina ==> stanza 1: 1,2,3,4,5,6; stanza 2: 6,1,5,2,4,3; stanza 3: 3,6,4,1,2,5; stanza 4: 5,3,2,6,1,4; stanza 5: 4,5,1,3,6,2; stanza 6: 2,4,6,5,3,1; final stanza: 1&2,3&4,5&6.

2

CHOOSE YOUR 6 WORDS. When deciding on your 6 words, focus on versatility in terms of parts of speech, meaning, and usage. For example, the word "hand" can be a verb or a noun (as in the sentences "Hand me the towel" and "We shook hands," respectively.) "Hand" can be used in idioms (e.g. give me a hand, on the other hand). And finally, "hand" just has a plethora of definitions (e.g. a poker player's cards, a worker).

3

REVIEW & REVISE YOUR 6 WORDS. Are all of your words nouns? Are they all verbs? Do they seem to point to one specific subject matter you're planning to write about? If so, I'd suggest diversifying. Throw some adjectives in there; open a magazine or book, put your finger on the page, and write whatever word it lands on; or add a word that seems completely unrelated to the others.

4

ORGANIZE. Although it might seem tedious to organize ahead of time, it will save you from the grief that comes when realizing you've finally perfected your sestina, but you accidentally messed up the pattern in the third stanza, making the patterns in stanzas 4, 5, 6, and 7, also incorrect. So, on a piece of paper, make 3 columns. The first column is for the number pattern, the second is for the end-words, and the third is for your lines of poetry. If you are staring at a blank computer screen, make a table with 3 columns and 7 rows. Go to your TABLE panel or dropdown, click "Insert Table," and enter the number or columns and rows. (READ STEP 5 before writing the end-words down.)

5

WRITE. There are many ways to start a sestina, so experiment and find what is right for you. As for me, I like starting the first stanza without a particular order in mind for my 6 words. I just make sure one of the 6 words is at the end of each line. Only after writing that first stanza do I fill in my end-word column.

6

USE OTHER DEVICES. Don't let the end-words fool you; they are not necessarily the most important part of the sestina. Don't be afraid to repeat other words, too. This can actually draw some attention away from the end-words, adding a different type of rhythm and also warding off the dreaded monotony that can result from a sestina gone wrong. Enjambment can also create this effect.

7

BE FLEXIBLE. If you are accustomed to writing free verse, the sestina's constraints may seem to take away from what you want to say or what you're trying to do in your poem. However, I suggest that instead of not quite writing the poem you wanted to write, allow yourself to write a different poem than what you'd imagined when you began. There are many surprises to be found when writing in forms.