Poets’ Roundtable
Welcome
Alpha will not be here. She is recovering from an inoculation received yesterday.
In this cyber age, we are able to be in someone’s face without being in their presence. What we have here is a place to be present in a most profound sense.
News and Jabber
Grammarly?
Also, check out “Blood Soup” by Mary Ruefle. If you chance to read her essays, do so; and should you be able to attend a lecture, also do so. She’s wonderful and refreshing, innovative.
The Current Assignment
The Next Assignment
The assignment for next time is to write a prose poem: Here are a couple of links:
At the last meeting we briefly discussed prose poetry, especially, I think in light of Rich’s poem about the earth, water, etc. So, I said, what if we all write a prose poem. It’s the kind of assignment that isn’t easy but may have some surprising rewards. I have lengthy notes to post to the blog with examples and links to further information. The Wikipedia entry gives an interesting history and has a lot of links to poets noted for their prose poems if not to the poems themselves.
Introduction to Prose Poetry
Have you ever encountered something that claims to be a poem but looks like prose? For instance, maybe it reads like a lyrical poem, but it's written in paragraph form? If so, you might have come across a prose poem. A prose poem, also known as prose poetry, is an example of a hybrid genre of writing. Prose poems occur when someone writes prose using poetry techniques.
Prose Poems Defined
Before we can understand what prose poems are, it's important to understand the genres of prose and poetry independently. Prose is anything written down that does not possess any poetic meter. Well, that's an easy enough definition, but what is meter exactly?
Poetic meter is the rhythm of a poem. Whether you've heard any of Shakespeare's famous sonnets or the latest hip-hop song burning up the charts, chances are that you've noticed that many poems or songs have a certain rhythm to them. This rhythm is based on different factors, including the syllables per line and what syllables are naturally emphasized or stressed if someone were to read the poem out loud.
There is more to poetry than poetic meter, of course. Poems are often image-driven and emphasize visual descriptions, including metaphors, while prose tends to focus on aspects such as narrative, characters, and plot arc. In addition, poems also play with the sound of language using repetition and rhyming.
To rephrase that: prose contains narrative and does not follow any set rhythm, while poetry is rhythmic and image-based. So, what is prose poetry then? It's quite simple. Prose poetry is anything that combines these elements into a single piece of writing! If you want a stricter definition, prose poetry is poetry that is not written in verse and contains other poetic attributes, such as rhythm and metaphors.
Characteristics of Prose, Poetry & Prose Poetry
Prose:
Written in paragraphs
Tells a story rather than describes an image or metaphor
Generally has characters and a plot
Poetry:
Written in verse
Written in poetic meter
Focuses on image-driven metaphors
Might have a narrative, but it might not or it might be harder to understand
Prose poetry:
Looks like prose (written in paragraphs)
Focuses on images
Includes instances of poetic meter
Contains language play, such as repetition
Gary Young
An example of a prose poem written by Gary Young, Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz county, is called 'I discovered a journal'.
'I discovered a journal in the children's ward, and read, I'm a mother, my little boy has cancer. Further on, a girl has written, this is my nineteenth operation. She says, sometimes it's easier to write than to talk, and I'm so afraid. She's offered me a page in the book. My son is sleeping in the room next door. This afternoon, I held my whole weight to his body while a doctor drove needles deep into his leg. My son screamed, Daddy, they're hurting me, don't let them hurt me, make them stop. I want to write, how brave you are, but I need a little courage of my own, so I write, forgive me, I know I let them hurt you, please don't worry. If I have to, I can do it again.'
Be Drunk
Charles Baudelaire, 1821 - 1867
You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”
The Dog
BY MATTHEW SWEENEY
BTW, Matthew Sweeney recently died. He was an Irish poet of some note. Here is a link to an article about him: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/aosdána-poet-matthew-sweeney-dies-at-66-of-motor-neurone-disease-1.3587403
I used to be a dog. What kind? Oh, a mongrel. Nothing poncy like the black cocker spaniel called Bonzo I had as a child. And certainly not one of those four-footed, aloof snakes that go by the name of greyhound. I remember each and every one of the lice that lived on me.
Where did I live? In Sicily, where the sun shines like a fried egg every day of the year. I had the nose of an angel — I could smell porcini fifty trees away. I knew the man who would start a fight with my master the moment he walked in the bar door. I drank a saucer of red wine every day. I loved eating the butterflies that floated past me — one pounce and they were gone. And they were delicious. Better than the bones of a donkey whose meat provided salami for my master and his family. The boy was very good to me — he used to take me down to the sea and let me splash in the waves; then I’d come out onto the sand, barking, and I’d shake all the seawater onto him, wetting his clothes. He loved laughing, and I loved barking. Those were the days.
I never saw a kennel. My home was an old blanket under a gnarled vine that had been there since Dante wrote his only sestina, in homage to the troubadours. The heat was often scorching. The boy found it funny to put a straw hat on my head, one dyed in the colors of the Italian flag. I was up early, out scouting for rats to frighten away.
I once peed on a hedgehog to see what it would do. I ran along the clifftop, barking at the wheeling seagulls, and at the fishing boats they flew above. I sometimes ate my master’s leftover spaghetti bolognese in the taverna. My tail would wag like a fan revolving from the ceiling. I was taught party tricks that I’d be asked to do when the grappa was being downed. I’d lie down on the floor and die, to great applause. I’d sit up and beg, to coos and laughter, and I’d be rewarded with a sausage, and those were sausages to swim the Adriatic for.
I’d sometimes go down to the harbor to look for an attractive gray bitch I liked the smell of. I’d have to fight off other dogs, but I was good at that. I ate one of their ears. Once I followed her onto a boat that was heading out to fill up with fish. I had to swim back and I lay on the sand and slept. When I got home my master whipped me. I ran to my blanket, whimpering.
I was once brought to a circus, and into the tent of a one-eyed woman with black hair who had a pet parrot. I barked at it, and the parrot expertly returned my bark. I lay on the multi-colored mat and observed the strange bird who observed me. I was glad to leave that tent.
I enjoyed hearing the boy play his flute in the evenings. I heard those notes flutter up into the air, and I tried to see them, but never could. I never stopped trying, though.
The one thing I couldn’t eat was cheese. The few times I tried it I vomited. On the first occasion that happened I tried to eat it again. If I got the chance now I’d manage it, I’m sure. Who would not like to be a dog in the sun? A dog in the sun, like I used to be, long ago. It was an honor.
Source: Poetry (January 2017)
The Next Meeting
The next meeting will be on September 6, 2018. That’s three weeks, plenty of time to write a prose poem.
