Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Writing Poetry

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”

― Robert Frost

Art by tenth grader Julia Wang from San Jose, California, who has won the inaugural National Poetry Month Poster Contest. Wang’s artwork was selected by contest judges Naomi Shihab Nye and Debbie Millman . . . . It incorporates lines from the poem "An Old Story" by current U. S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith.  
 Read more about Wang’s winning artwork.

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”

― Aristotle

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."   --William Wordsworth

Allegory of Poetry by Francisco Goya

Midweek Motif ~ Writing Poetry

Writing Poetry is what we do. Why?

According to Jane Hirshfeld: 

"One reason to write a poem is to flush from the deep thickets of the self some thought, feeling, comprehension, question, music, you didn’t know was in you, or in the world. Other forms of writing—scientific papers, political analysis, most journalism—attempt to capture and comprehend something known. Poetry is a release of something previously unknown into the visible. You write to invite that, to make of yourself a gathering of the unexpected and, with luck, of the unexpectable."   (Read the rest HERE.)

Is she right?  What is a poem? 

Your Challenge:  In a New poem, tell us Why Write Poetry? and/or What Is Poetry?  Consider limiting yourself to addressing one poem rather than generalizing.

🟍

Last Monday, Sherry gave us Poems of the Week ~ Three Poets on Poetry in which Sanaa, Rajani and Sumana answered that question.  Below I provide a few excerpts of the feature:

In POEM HOLDING ITS HEART IN ONE FIST*, Sanaa notes: 
". . . sometimes it’s better to counsel with our hearts alone. 

I have found that pink buds are perfect within  

and destined to open. . . . "

In THE POET HAS GONE, Sumana notes: 

". . . Things of beauty,  
Scattered everywhere 
Like a Mary Oliver page- 
Yet there’s an uncanny calm . . . ."

And in JUST MATH, Rajani notes:

"Even Rumi, who could fit the entire
universe inside his poem, was yearning
for the grace of the Beloved. The universe
is not enough. . . ."

Poetry Is the Gnomic Utterance from Which the Soul Springs, Fluttering

BY JOYCE CAROL OATES

At the podium

measured and grave as a metronome

the (white, male) poet with bald-

gleaming head broods in gnom-

ic syllables on the death

of 12-year-old (black, male) Tamir Rice

shot in a park

by a Cleveland police officer

claiming to believe

the boy’s plastic pistol

was a “real gun”

like his own eager

to discharge and slay

  

while twelve feet away

at the edge

of the bright-lit stage

the (white, female) interpreter

signing for the deaf is stricken

with emotion —

horror, pity, disbelief —

outrage, sorrow —

young-woman face contorted

and eyes spilling tears

like Tamir Rice’s mother

perhaps, or the sister

made to witness

the child’s bleeding out

in the Cleveland park.

We stare

as the interpreter’s fingers

pluck the poet’s words out of the air

like bullets, break open stanzas

tight as conches with the deft

ferocity of a cormo-

rant and render gnome-speech

raw as hurt, as harm,

as human terror

wet-eyed and mouth-grimaced

in horror’s perfect O.

The Parnassus: The whole room shows the four areas of human knowledge:
philosophy, religion, poetry and law, with The Parnassus representing poetry. 
by Rafael (1511)

Poetry

BY LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

Morn on her rosy couch awoke, 

   Enchantment led the hour, 

And mirth and music drank the dews 

   That freshen’d Beauty’s flower, 

Then from her bower of deep delight, 

   I heard a young girl sing, 

‘Oh, speak no ill of poetry, 

   For ’tis a holy thing.’ 

The Sun in noon-day heat rose high, 

   And on the heaving breast, 

I saw a weary pilgrim toil 

   Unpitied and unblest, 

Yet still in trembling measures flow’d 

   Forth from a broken string, 

‘Oh, speak no ill of poetry, 

   For ’tis a holy thing.’ 

’Twas night, and Death the curtains drew, 

   ’Mid agony severe, 

While there a willing spirit went 

   Home to a glorious sphere, 

Yet still it sigh’d, even when was spread

   The waiting Angel’s wing, 

‘Oh, speak no ill of poetry, 

   For ’tis a holy thing.’

Skyscrapers

by Matt Haig

I

Like

The Way

That when you

Tilt

Poems

On their side

They

Look like

Miniature

Cities

From

A long way

Away. 

Skyscrapers

Made out

Of

Words.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

                (Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Temptation)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Ode To Age

 

“….O! sweet to me the laughing hours,

When earth seemed gay, and heaven was fair;

When fancy culled her thornless flowers,

And pleasure reigned unknown to care....” — William B. Tappan

SOURCE

      “Why so scrawny, cat?

Starving for fat fish or mice….

Or backyard love?” — Basho

    Midweek Motif ~ Ode To Age

We are paying homage to Age.

In his essay “Of Youth and Age Francis Bacon says, “A man that is young in years may be old in ​hours, if he have lost no time. But that happeneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second.”

You may write about youth, old age or even about a distinct period of history or literature.

An eminent literary or historical figure in your poem is also most welcome.

Here is an ode to Age by Pablo Neruda:

Ode To Age

by Pablo Neruda

I don't believe in age.
All old people
carry
in their eyes,
a child,
and children,
at times
observe us with the

eyes of wise ancients.
Shall we measure
life
in meters or kilometers
or months?
How far since you were born?
How long

must you wander
until
like all men
instead of walking on its surface
we rest below the earth?
To the man, to the woman
who utilized their
energies, goodness, strength,
anger, love, tenderness,
to those who truly
alive
flowered,
and in their sensuality matured,
let us not apply
the measure
of a time
that may be
something else, a mineral
mantle, a solar

bird, a flower,
something, maybe,
but not a measure.
Time, metal
or bird, long
petiolate flower,
stretch
through
man's life,
shower him
with blossoms
and with
bright
water
or with hidden sun.
I proclaim you
road,
not shroud,
a pristine
ladder
with treads
of air,
a suit lovingly
renewed
through springtimes
around the world.
Now,
time, I roll you up,
I deposit you in my
bait box
and I am off to fish
with your long line
the fishes of the dawn!

translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden 

The Charge of the Light Brigade

by Alfred Tennyson

I

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

   Someone had blundered.

   Theirs not to make reply,

   Theirs not to reason why,

   Theirs but to do and die.

   Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

                       (The rest is here) 

London, 1802

by William Wordsworth

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

                (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Prayer.)