Sara gave us this month’s challenge, which was to write a French Dizain, a poem with a funky rhyme scheme, ten lines, and ten syllables per line — a square!
This made me think of my birthday — April 4th — 4/4.
I’ve always loved the date but almost aspirationally since it’s rather too orderly for me.
Thus, my dizain.
Enjoy…
Myself as Square: A Dizain Self-Portrait
To be born day four of month four, steady
like a kitchen table, solid and square
like the root, multiplying already
into parsed out parts, chromosomal pairs,
orderly goodness and everyday prayers.
But then I turned to fire – giant, hot –
I burned down all the systems I’d been taught.
No longer easily divisible
nor doused, what random figure had I wrought?
Mad entropy — it’s me made visible!
Please enjoy the other dizains here:
Tricia
Tanita
Sara
Rebecca
Andi, Laura and Kelly are taking a month off but will be back in June!
And our beloved Jama is hosting Poetry Friday at Alphabet Soup, so go see her for poems galore!
I adore this! I never realized (or ever thought of you) as a square birthday girl. You’ve always been a curly-haired blaze of light and goodness to me. And this poem proves it. I love every line, but especially: “No longer easily divisible.” Like you ever were….
To be honest, I like my birthday and the evenness of it, I feel like 4 is a lucky number. But in exploring it in this poem, I realized I don’t really claim (or want to claim) that which is proscribed by something so square. This was such a fun exploration, Sara — thank you!
So long ago, we teens called people ‘square’, those who didn’t make it in the social ‘circle”. You’ve shown me how that can be avoided with “I burned down all the systems I’d been taught.” Fun to see the reflection of your 4/4 self.
ha ha — yes — break free of the square!
Fun poem, you’ve always been passion and fires blazing to me. 🙂 Of course the squareness/evenness is also indicative of a very solid core, which allows/enhances all kinds of “breaking free” and creativity. Isn’t art the ordering of chaos?
This little inferno of a poem begins so calmly, and I love where it goes. You bring the fire… And you ARE the fire. It makes me smile to imagine that you ever imagined yourself “everyday” or “orderly” in any sense.
Oh, so good. And I love how you maintained the rules even when you started burning up!
Thanks for sharing your dizain, a new-to-me form. What a clever way to explore your birthday!
This is a first for me… the form of the poem, that is. The first thing I thought of was 10 syllables in each of 10 lines… that’s 100 syllables! Love the implications of your final line.
Love the contrast of order/disorder, rational/irrational…and the fire that burns through it all!
I love the transformation from order to chaos in your poem here.
What a fun poem! It’s a new form to me. Thanks for introducing it!