Oooooo, we are going to have so much fun this year!
Seriously, you should see our poetry calendar.
It is chock full of good ideas.
Here’s one:
Write a tanka (a 5-line Japanese form of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables) based on or inspired by one of the sonnets written by a poetry sister last month! I love how this prompt keeps us connected — to each other, and to what we’ve written before. (Thanks, Laura!)
So, I looked at Tricia’s poem DEEP BREATH. It’s a lovely mediation on breath — a baby’s first and the ones we all take each and every day to get through, well, life.
My tankas (yes, I wrote three) (no, I couldn’t stop at one) took a leap from breath and went right into the very bodily lungs that do the work of breathing. And, in particular, the fact that the left lung is smaller — has an indentation, an impression, a cardiac “notch” out of it, where the heart sits. Aren’t our bodies just wildly clever?
Anyway, enough about all that and here we go. Happy poetry Friday!
Three Respiratory Tanka
By Liz Garton Scanon, inspired by Deep Breath by Tricia Stohr-Hunt
Studying the lungs
with their wing-like symmetry:
thoracic balloons,
bronchus beautiful as trees,
dispensing and receiving.
They are nearly twins,
identical but not quite
(because of the heart).
The heart carves out its own space,
the left lung makes room for it.
Oh, imperfect lung,
the heart leaves its impression
on each one of us!
When we give it what it needs
it pays us back, beat by beat.
Well, the best news of all is, we’re doing it again —
another year of poetry prompts with my pals Kelly, Sara, Tanita, Laura, Tricia and Andi.
(I won’t even call it a New Year’s resolution because it’s so much fun that it’ll make other resolutions feel bad!)
Kelly’s kicking us off with sonnets this time around — and she suggested we might want to try a curtal sonnet. Well, I thought, since I haven’t the foggiest idea about curtal sonnets, I better try one. (Thank you, Gerard Manley Hopkins.) Extra-special bonus — they’re slightly shorter than your average sonnet!
So, without further ado…
Kin and Plot
by Liz Garton Scanlon
What we won’t do to keep the squirrels away!
We grease the poles and string the suet high;
we fantasize about a well-aimed shot.
They fly and stick their landings – branches sway –
these high-tailed gymnasts, they won’t be denied!
What hath a bag of seeds and millet wrought?
But there’s a moment when we just give in,
toss caution ‘cross the lawn and to the sky:
take what you need, take all that we have got!
More alike than different, we’re all kin,
the earth our plot.
As some of you know, I’ve become an increasingly bad blogger (in that I don’t blog very often at all). This site just springs to life once a month in honor of an ongoing poetry challenge I have with my Poetry Sisters and then usually goes full-on lively in April for my daily haiku.
But I’m making an exception, you guys. Because there’s the book — written, in fact, by one of those poetry sisters — and I want to tell you about it! And I want to give away a copy of the book! Do you want to win one?
I thought we could talk about fairy tale re-tellings or empowered girl heroes or combining scariness with beauty (because all of that is IN HERE), but instead I decided on music! Because that actually fits within this poetry-ish blog and because it’s a big (and impressive) part of this book.
So, without further ado, here’s my chat with Sara Lewis Holmes about the musical aspects of The Wolf Hour…
LIZ: This book is awash in music, beginning with the conjured-up piano Magia plays at her mother’s knee, moving onto the terrifying voice lessons at Miss Grand’s, and even into the howling, windy woods. Are you a musician yourself? If so, how did that inform the writing and if not, how did you manage? And why did you choose to use music as an important thread through this story?
SARA: I live in a musical family. Mike has played the guitar by ear since he was a teen, and both of our children play too—-and sing. It’s a jam session whenever everyone’s home. Sadly, I’m not in there jamming but usually in the kitchen, cooking a giant pot of soup and listening and leaking tears at the glory of it all. I took piano lessons, and know how to read music, but have always felt like I’m missing its essential elements, as I can’t hear or sing notes as I’m sure most of the world can. I think I gifted Magia with a gorgeous voice because I’ve always wanted one, or at least, the ability to stay on key. Ironically, she has the voice, but wants to use her other gifts.
Sara, obsessively playing her favorite song, Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Anyway, to compensate for my lack of musical chops, I did research, and I talked to people who live and breathe this stuff. For example, the Wolf Hour was inspired by many things, but one of them was a conversation with a musician I met on a trip to Croatia. He mentioned “wolf notes” in stringed instruments, and I instantly wanted to know more. Maybe it was the concept of a wild sound “escaping” a disciplined process? I’m not sure, but I took the idea—-which is highly technical—-and instead played with it as a both a theme and a repeating sound. So the idea that one girl’s (or one wolf’s) actions could reverberate beyond their original intent (or frequency) is definitely there, but also some pretty intense actual howling. Maybe every time Magia or Martin howls in the book, that’s me, singing. Heh.
LIZ: Oh, I love that idea! That’s how I’ll read it from now on. And, in fact, I did read the language of the woods to be its own kind of music. The wind through the trees and the chimney flue, the howling of wolves, the miraculous words that passed between Magia and Martin, and even the collegial conversation amongst pigs! I could hear it all. How were you able to bring those evocative sounds to life — and what knowledge of music, wolves or linguistics did you rely upon?
SARA: I loved writing that scene where the chimney howls, and Magia and Martin find a way to talk to each other. To me, it was their mutual hunger—-howled out to the world—- that caused them to connect, and to recognize a kindred soul. Isn’t that the way of it, in music, or otherwise? We think we’re the only one, alone and hungry, and it turns out, most of the world aches in the same key.
The pigs, too, were a kick to write, in that they are both dastardly AND bumbling, with all the language that goes along with those two comic archetypes. The pigs don’t howl, but they DO squeal… especially when they fight amongst themselves, as brothers will, and I had to keep a firm lid on their tendencies to show off. (They used to have names like Ham and such, for one thing.) Maybe they have a future on Broadway?
LIZ: Well, ok, speaking of those pigs… the question writers always have to ask themselves when doing a re-telling of a beloved myth or fairytale is how closely to hew to the original, and how and when to depart. Again, you handled this like music. You have written a soaring, symphonic variation that is its own piece altogether but then — every so often — the reader hits these deep, resonant and wholly familiar notes that anchor the experience to something old, something we know in our bones. What were the rules you laid out for yourself regarding Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, and the story you wanted and needed to tell?
SARA: Oh. I like that—-a novel as symphony—and hope I accomplished even a tenth of that brilliant description. As for rules, my main goal was to center the stories around the role that wolves play in them. After that, I gave myself permission to re-cast the parts, and to poke into all the places in the stories that I remember not understanding as a kid—-like what does it FEEL like to be swallowed whole and then rescued? Gross, right??
I also wanted to replicate the “rule” in fairy tales that things may veer from deeply disturbing to jauntily funny in the space of a drawn breath because that kind of world makes me believe I, too, can be more than I am at the moment. That I can “sing anyway” for lack of a clearer term. I’m still gonna make soup in the kitchen and cry when shared music-making drifts out from the other room, mind you. No way am I going to front the band. But I’m happy that music in The Wolf Hour howls to readers like you, and I’m grateful for the voice that writing gives me.
LIZ: Oh, Sara. Even your answers are symphonic, aren’t they dear readers? Thank you!
Now… go pick up the book at your local indy bookseller or request it at the library. OR, win it! Comment here or on my facebook or twitter account and you’ll be put in the drawing for a copy of The Wolf Hour. Lucky you!
First, before I get to what we wrote this month, I want to take a second to thank my poetry sisters with whom I’ve been writing — long distance — for years now. Sometimes all of us participate, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we have time to discuss the assignment, pick apart the form, critique each other’s work, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we like what we end up with, sometimes we don’t.
And we’ve only been together — all of us, in one room — once.
But we have formed a sisterhood around words, we really have. We are here for each other. We can count on these assignments, on the beautiful or hilarious results, on the fact that for some reason this matters to each of us.
Meanwhile!! This month we wrote lais!
Who knew that was a thing? (Not me!)
It’s a nine line poem (I’ve doubled mine) with rules around both rhyme and syllabics — pretty obvious rules so no need to explain them here. I really liked this form — I don’t know why but it felt really readable to me. Enjoy…
Work Before Solstice, and After
By Liz Garton Scanlon
Each day brings less light –
less light, shadows slight
and chilled.
Each day takes more might
to rise, breathe and write,
to build.
Each day slips toward night
blanketed in white,
unwilled.
Each day brings more light –
more light, floorboards bright
and warm.
Each day, less a plight
to rise up, take flight,
take form.
Each day dawns forthright,
skies and words ignite,
transform.
This little French twist looks easy, it woos you, draws you in.
There are only eight lines, it says, and three of them identical.
Look — easy!
But oh, what a puzzle.
There is sort of dissonant rhyme scheme and the tetrameter feels somehow limiting.
Who cares? we said. We’ll try it anyway!
We gave ourselves a group of words to include — at least 2 per poem — so that our poems would echo each other’s. So look out for the following: orange, fall, chill, light, change
And, enjoy!
Hold Us Still
This amber light that holds us still —
we are made fossils by the fall,
a mix of beauty and of chill.
This amber light that holds us still –
elbows resting on the sill –
a grief that keeps us in its thrall.
This amber light that holds us still —
we are made fossils by the fall.
Fall Back
The time will change again this week –
instead of five I’ll wake at four!
(Helpful if it’s peace I seek.)
The time will change again this week –
the curtains fall, the dog looks bleak.
The fire’s stoked, the tea is poured.
The time will change again this week –
instead of five I’ll wake at four.
Letter to My Daughter in College
Set your collar against the chill,
prepare to face the waning light.
Bundle up. Promise that you will
set your collar against the chill.
Sleep well, love deeply, eat your fill.
If I were there, I’d hold you tight.
Set your collar against the chill.
Prepare to face the waning light.
You might like reading the ones my Poetry Sisters wrote, too:
Ahhhh, we have Tanita to thank for this month’s challenge. I was daunted — I don’t know why. Maybe because the form is based on hymns, and my upbringing had me at a little interfaith chapel — only when it didn’t interfer with skiing.
Anyway, just like improv, when one of our Poetry Sisters throws down a challenge, the rest of us say, “Yes, and…”
So here we go — a poem with the theme of autumn, set to a hymnal rhyme scheme and meter (a la Isaac Watts or Emily Dickinson).
It Doesn’t Feel Like Fall
(A Hymn of Middle Age)
By Liz Garton Scanlon
While all the trees are evergreen
and sunshine evergold
I cannot make my heart careen
from young and bright, to cold.
I cannot play the part of crone
or slip on wisdom’s dress
when I’m still feeling barely grown
and hardly self-possessed.
They say a change is coming soon –
a chill is in the air –
so why do I insist it’s June,
wear blossoms in my hair?
Because! The calendar is blind
to things that just abide –
the bulbs that flowers leave behind,
the heartbeat of the tide.
So never mind the month now,
and never mind the time…
this girl’s a girl still, anyhow,
this season, sweet, sublime.
Some of my sisters were more nuanced and sophisticated with the form than I was. Have a look! Laura Tanita Sara Kelly
Andi Tricia
Last month I missed our Poetry Sisters prompt because I was out in the wilderness.
Which, honestly, WAS poetry.
But, I’ve never missed one of our prompts before and I aim to make it up someday.
Here’s a picture of where I was in August so you can see that it was, indeed, an excused absence:
In the meantime, Sara Lewis Holmes was in charge of September’s assignment.
She offered up an image — this photo of inspirational rocks at the Highlights Foundation.
It’s a lovely image (the broken wish rock notwithstanding) so neither Sara nor Highlights nor the rocks will be blamed for the ensuing darkness! Sometimes a poem leads you down a garden path. Othertimes, well….
Oh, and it’s a pantoum, by the way. One of my favorite forms…
Your Mother is Afraid
By Liz Garton Scanlon
When she says be careful
what you wish for
she means make yourself small,
she means snuff out your own flame.
What you wish for –
it’s dangerous and bright as gold
she means, snuff out your own flame
she says, and cover your eyes.
It’s dangerous and bright as gold.
Shhh, be quiet and sit down
she says, and cover your eyes.
But you don’t. You see what she means.
Shhh, be quiet and sit down
(she means make yourself small).
But you don’t. You see what she means
when she says be careful.
This month, a poem in the style of SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY, by Lord Byron.
Rhyme, meter, romance. What’s not to love?
(Ohmymercy this one about killed me!)
Mother Liberty
by Liz Garton Scanlon
She’s in her robe, her torch held high
above her like a kettlebell,
held high in case someone stops by,
decides he wants to sit a spell
beside the harbor, rest his eyes
beneath her matriarchal swell.
She’s strong, her arm unwavering.
She’s practiced for this all her life,
held high the weight of everything –
the dreams, the hopeful flights from strife.
She’s never flinched, just said, “Please bring
them all,” until her shores were rife
with us, she made us feel at home.
She called us family, said, “Stay!”
We didn’t answer when she phoned.
We all got busy, moved away,
did well, grew rich, left her alone,
her torch arm tired, still in play.
Please go see other poems in this very particular, vexing style here:
A golden shovel poem is kind of like a parlor game or a puzzle.
You take one line from a poem and use each word in that line as the end words for each line in a new poem.
In this case, my poetry sister Kelly chose Hopkins’ Pied Beauty, which is so exquisite it feels almost wrong to deconstruct it. But deconstruct it we did!!
I used the very first line as my Golden Shovel and I’ll admit I cheated a bit, making the first word my title instead of my first end word. I hope Gerard Manley would understand. Anyway, here goes. Enjoy!
Pied Beauty, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Glory, by Liz Garton Scanlon
To be a girl with a pony in the late yellow light, to be
witness to cowbirds and huge round clocks of hay, to
be a girl with a barebacked pony, to be witness to God –
no less than God is this! – this mane, this hill, this whisper for
her to Giddy up, Glory, Giddy up, into today all dappled.
What glory, to be a girl with so many splendored things.
Oh, this month’s challenge felt lovely, light and fun to me. I could’ve kept writing and writing. It’s Friday today and the weekend feels spacious, so maybe I will! These are seasonal “Things To Do” poems — and there are lots more to read if you visit my Poetry Sisters’ sites too. (Do!)
Things To Do If You’re April
Masquerade
as summer one day
(all opulent green and
and purple, the exact scent
of grape punch) and then,
like a harlequin, become winter
again, wearing a quiet white mask
Things To Do If You’re Lantana
Grow like a weed
Things To Do If You’re a Squirrel
Taunt
Steal
Skitter
Leap
Hide
Chatter
Scurry, Scurry, Scurry
Prepare
Things To Do If You’re an Oak
Settle into who you’re meant to be
Take up all the space you need
Scatter acorns
Spread sticky pollen
Touch the tops of other people’s houses
Everything is under your influence
Things To Do If You’re May
Arrive
Beckon
Help us graduate
From this season to that
Help us begin something new
