The editors on coffee house writers challenged the poetry department to write a sestina. That is so out of my wheelhouse, so I am very proud of the result. So proud that I used it for my post this time.
So, first I apologize for the lateness, today has been incredibly busy.
Emily Dickinson was the first poetry I ever read. I was amazed by the images her words… After her I found other greats such as Poe, Shakespeare, Blake, and other such poets. Still she was the first and still one of my favorites.
I think that the teenager I was fell in love with the idea of a teen girl poet. Her words spoke to me deeply. Btw… My apology for missing Sunday. I slept all day.
Sara Teasdale is one of two poets that I found through Irene Hunt’s coming of age novel. I fell in love with the poem “I shall not care” and had to search for more by her. Admitted, I have not researched the poet as well as I did her work.
Her writing is flowing and feels like love poetry with out the sappy nature of some love poetry. I chose four of her poems to share as my favorite of hers. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do.
And a side note… I thoroughly recommend Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt. The story is dated, but it holds up well. The lessons the main character learns are just as valid sixty years later. I really felt like I was with her as she grew and matured.
So I have been thinking about this week and how much Tuesday has thrown off my schedule. My daughter was definitely more important and I have spent as much time as I could with her for her sweet 16th. So I also kinda missed my Monday poetry by telling y’all about my family.
A conversation with a friend of mine, another author, got my mind going. There are a few women poets who have been a big influence in my life. They helped me to survive and become me. So I am going to, until I cover each of them, share information about these poets daily. Yes it is going to include the weekend. I am also going to do next week’s normal posts if I have not finished by then.
I am starting with a legend. Maya Angelou.
Picture from snopes.com
I feel like her voice when she finally found it was what every survivor needed. A good deal of her poetry is about being a better person, about growing into something more. She was a woman of her age, and a activist who was an example for her community. For women, for women of color, for survivors, for people who are struggling. She was all of this, and more. She used this to leave words to inspire that will continue to help those who read them.
Her writing has a very lyrical quality. You can feel the rhythm as it is read. For me, there are several of her poems that resonate. I chose the three that I love most to share here. Her autobiography is a very interesting read. She was someone worth reading.
Today my newest poem on Coffee house Writers posts. The posting rules for Coffee House are slightly different for the poetry department. In the poetry department there are two types, the type I am is devoted to poetry and rarely post else. Coffee House is devoted to growth of their writers. So, the poetry department that I am a part of does a weekly assignment. A challenge if you will. The weeks that you post you are required to at least attempt the assignment, and to comment on other attempts. This way we grow, we learn.
I have written free verse my whole life. I am I think comfortable, overly so sometimes, with free verse. I love the lack of restrictions on my writing.
The poet ee cummings used a lack of following the syntax rules to separate his poetry from the mainstream. I am in no way comparing my poems to his, but it was an argument that I used in high school when the teachers wanted me to follow all of the poetic rules. I have learned the rules since, because it is easier to break rules if you know them. In high school though, I was not worried about the rules of what I was writing. It was a coping mechanism. I was writing pure emotional purge, without care of what I was truly putting into the world. It wasn’t until later, when I was safer, that I started to consider how to improve my words.
So I am thankful now to attempt the challenges to improve. A good many of them are new forms. As poets, we often stagnate in single forms because they become easy to write. (The reason why I have been taking on Haikus lately.) I hate stagnation. Poetry should be fresh. A new view.
This week the assignment was a Ghazal poem.From the internet search “Ghazal (Pronounciation: “guzzle”) Originally an Arabic verse form dealing with loss and romantic love, medieval Persian poets embraced the ghazal, eventually making it their own. Consisting of syntactically and grammatically complete couplets, the form also has an intricate rhyme scheme. Each couplet ends on the same word or phrase (the radif), and is preceded by the couplet’s rhyming word (the qafia, which appears twice in the first couplet). The last couplet includes a proper name, often of the poet’s. In the Persian tradition, each couplet was of the same meter and length, and the subject matter included both erotic longing and religious belief or mysticism. ” I did not follow the rules exactly… Wouldn’t be my poetry if I did. I did however try to get the setup right. Tell me what you think, did I get it close enough?
Pattimouse 