April 20, 2017

I occasionally have dry periods when the pen won't leak a decent word for me, am sort of in one now and, although I have come up with a couple of good things, I have x-ed out pages and pages immediately after writing them. Did so three or for days in a row. I could blame it on a lot of things but I think it is the fact that I'm on the third floor and cannot see the trashman, the mailman, the milkman (even imaginary), and the crow that crows making me want to shoot it. I can see part of a pine tree and I have heard that deer walk past but I haven't seen any. I will learn to write here but I don't like to think the muse has something better to do than grease the ink that currently clots my pen. I have written the assignment and didn't like what I wrote and so extracted from my trove to bring to the meeting an old poem done as the assignment called for (he said rather clumsily).

The following poem I found interesting for its original usage of brackets, pauses and // breaks. If you look/listen carefully you'll find surprising metrics supporting the strange graphical elements.

[Somewhere in Los Angeles] This Poem is Needed

She charges her ankle bracelet // from the kitchen chair
& Sunflowers in the white wallpaper [begin to wilt].

I wilt with them // before my sister // & her probation
Officer [who comes over to the house unannounced].

Just as we are // preparing dinner // & what are we supposed to
Do now. Cook for him?! Invite him to eat with us??

I am hacking the heads [from broccoli stems] & pretending
His body is spread across the cutting board. [Ugh].

This officer keeps talking nonsense & nudging his eyes around
The apartment. Looking for—drugs, alcohol

Alchemy. My sister waits for him to leave & then begins to rant.
Ramble about // her childhood // & how she used to be

[Before house arrest]. The confines of these plastered walls
& Her monitored route to work // where

Every corner has a cop [coddling a liquor store]. Protecting their
Notion of freedom. // My neighborhood eats fear.

Mothers are getting // handcuffed & harassed. Homes are being
Crushed [like cigarette butts]. Everyone I know

Hates the racist police & wants a revolution. // But we seldom
Aim the gun… Have you heard // how the bullets

Sing their anthem // throughout the body?? // It sounds like
God shutting the door— Bang. Bang.

When it’s dinnertime in heaven [& your officer’s knocking]
Ignore him sister— let the door bruise.

[Let the bears devour our enemies]. We have no obligation
To open // ourselves // for those who do us harm.

“[Somewhere in Los Angeles] This Poem is Needed” was originally published in American Poetry Review (January/February 2016)

This project was co-curated by the journalism nonprofit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and its Puffin Story Innovation Fund.

TOPICS: ARTS & CULTURE

TAGS: ARTS, CIVIC POETRY, CULTURE, POETRY

CHRISTOPHER SOTO

Christopher Soto aka Loma is a poet based in Brooklyn. He is the author of Sad Girl Poems (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016) and the editor of Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color (Nightboat Books, 2018). In 2017, he was awarded the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism by Split This Rock. In 2016, Poets & Writers honored Christopher Soto with the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award. He frequently writes book reviews for the Lambda Literary Foundation. His poems, reviews, interviews and articles have appeared in The Nation, The Guardian, The Advocate, Los Angeles Review of Books, American Poetry Review, Tin House and more. He is currently working on a full-length poetry manuscript about police violence and mass incarceration. He co-founded the Undocupoets Campaign and worked with Amazon Literary Partnerships to establish grants for undocumented writers. Learn more about his work at his website and follow him on Twitter: @loma_poetry.

Terza Rima

Edward Hirsch also writes about the terza rima in his book A Poet’s Glossary (Harcourt, 2014): 

terza rima: A verse form of interlocking three-line stanzas rhyming aba, bcb, cdc, etc. The terza rima form was invented by Dante Alighieri for the Commedia (The Divine Comedy, ca. 1304–1321), using the hendecasyllabic (eleven-syllable) line common to Italian poetry. In De vulgari eloquentia (“On eloquence in the vernacular,” 1304–1307), Dante called rhyme concatenatio (“beautiful linkage”), and the triple rhymes beautifully link together the stanzas. Rhyming the first and third lines gives each tercet a sense of temporary closure; rhyming the second line with the first and last lines of the next stanza generates a strong feeling of propulsion. The effect of this chain-rhyme is both open-ended and conclusive, like moving through a series of interpenetrating rooms or going down a set of winding stairs: you are always traveling forward while looking back.
Here is a poem written in terza rima by Robert Frost. Following is a much looser use of something like terza rima in a selection from "Gabriel" written by Edward Hirsch, a poem in which he eulogizes his son. More info here: http://www.edwardhirsch.com/books/gabriel-a-poem/. 

Acquainted with the Night

Related Poem Content Details

BY ROBERT FROST

I have been one acquainted with the night. 

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. 

I have outwalked the furthest city light. 

I have looked down the saddest city lane. 

I have passed by the watchman on his beat 

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. 

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet 

When far away an interrupted cry 

Came over houses from another street, 

But not to call me back or say good-bye; 

And further still at an unearthly height, 

One luminary clock against the sky 

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night" from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1964, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine. Copyright 1936, 1942 © 1956 by Robert Frost. Copyright 1923, 1928, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Co. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt & Company, LLC.

Source: Twentieth-Century American Poetry (2004)

from Gabriel
I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night

The mountaintop is not in sight
Because there is no mountaintop
Poor Sisyphus grief

I did not know I would struggle
Through a ragged underbrush
Without an upward path

Because there is no path
There is only a blunt rock
With a river to fall into

And Time with its medieval chambers
Time with its jagged edges
And blunt instruments

I did not know the work of mourning
Is a labor in the dark
We carry inside ourselves

Though sometimes when I sleep
I am with him again
And then I wake

Poor Sisyphus grief
I am not ready for your heaviness
Cemented to my body

Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders

That’s why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day

[Previous Poem] [Next Poem]
[Return to the book Gabriel: A Poem]

To Poetry
Don’t desert me
just because I stayed up last night
watching The Lost Weekend.

I know I’ve spent too much time
praising your naked body to strangers
and gossiping about lovers you betrayed.

I’ve stalked you in foreign cities
and followed your far-flung movements,
pretending I could describe you.

Forgive me for getting jacked on coffee
and obsessing over your features
year after jittery year.

I’m sorry for handing you a line
and typing you on a screen,
but don’t let me suffer in silence.

Does anyone still invoke the Muse,
string a wooden lyre for Apollo,
or try to saddle up Pegasus?

Winged horse, heavenly god or goddess,
indifferent entity, secret code, stored magic,
pleasance and half wonder, hell,

I have loved you my entire life
without even knowing what you are

or how—please help me—to find you.

You might find this, "Bey the Light" interesting for it's source:

Words by Beyoncé

Remixed by Forrest Gander

It's my daughter, she's my biggest muse.

There's someone, we all find out soon,

more important than ourselves to lose.

I feel a deep bond with young children --

all those photos in my dressing room --

especially those who've been stricken,

Children I've met across the years --

they uplift me like pieces of moon,

and guide me, whispering in my ear

I'm turned to spirits, the emotions of others.

And I feel her presence all the time

though I never met my grandmother.

I learned at a very young age,

when I need to tap some extra strength,

to put my persona, Sasha, on stage.

Though we're different as blue and red,

I'm not afraid to draw from her

in performance, rifts, even in bed.

I saw a TV preacher when I was scared,

at four or five, about bad dreams,

who promised he'd say a prayer

If I put my hand to the TV.

That's the first time I remember prayer,

an electric current humming through me.

You call me a singer, but I'm called to transform,

to suck up the grief, anxiety, and loss

of those who hear me into my song's form.

I'm a vessel for all that isn't right,

for break-ups and lies and double-cross.

I sing into that vessel a healing light.

To let go of pain that people can't bear.

I don't do that myself, I call in the light.

I summon God to take me there.

Utopias, they don't much interest me.

I always mess things up a bit.

It's chaos, in part, that helps us see.

But for my daughter I dream a day

when no one roots for others to fail,

when we all mean what we say.

The next meeting will be May 4, 2017 from 1-2:30. See you then. Show up and bring three friends!