Proposal to "The Poets"

[Angeline]

muahahahaahaha... Jewish mothers unite!

I am a Jewish mother. Here, have a challah. Take two. I made them just for you.

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/90.3/images/whitfield_fig02b.jpg

 

[unpredictablebijou]

..... The bistro is our cafeteria (by day, afterhours spot, by night) The lunch lady/hostess is pretty cool, as are the regulars
(as per Annie's description, I guess I'd be th sassy one). I'm sure you'll make yourself at home on campus. Enjoy the stay.

Lunch Lady BWAH!

Here. Just for you.

I am a Jewish mother. Here, have a challah. Take two. I made them just for you.

Wow, Ange, those are HUGE. Bet you've heard that before.

As to the actual thread topic, I'm no expert in any form, however, I'm fond of working with meter, inventing weird forms and talking about traditional ideas like the epithalamion (which is NOT a skin disease, thank you) and the ekphrastic and the elegaic and the sapphic. So maybe at some point that would be helpful as well.

Perhaps this could bring back the monthly contest thing. That was neato when we did that.

bj

 

[Angeline]

Lunch Lady BWAH!

Here. Just for you.





Wow, Ange, those are HUGE. Bet you've heard that before.

As to the actual thread topic, I'm no expert in any form, however, I'm fond of working with meter, inventing weird forms and talking about traditional ideas like the epithalamion (which is NOT a skin disease, thank you) and the ekphrastic and the elegaic and the sapphic. So maybe at some point that would be helpful as well.

Perhaps this could bring back the monthly contest thing. That was neato when we did that.

bj

They're not as big as that challah.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

They're not as big as that challah.

Hell, very few things are.

That challah's kinda over the top. Who has an oven that big?

bj

 

[Safe_Bet]

[...] I'm fond of working with meter, inventing weird forms and talking about traditional ideas like the epithalamion (which is NOT a skin disease, thank you) and the ekphrastic and the elegaic and the sapphic. [...]

Muahahahaha!​

Sorry. It just not very often that I see "traditional ideas" and sapphic" in the same sentence!​

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Muahahahaha!​

Sorry. It just not very often that I see "traditional ideas" and sapphic" in the same sentence!​

LOL how true. Well, then, miss thang, let the teaching begin, cause Sapphics are my specialty so I'm muahahaha-ing right back atcha.

Check this out; I think you'll like it.
I really like forms that work with strong metrical limitations but don't require rhyme. Once you really begin hearing the rhythm, it gets easier and easier to write in it.

The link on Wikipedia has a couple of traditional samples. I'll give you a couple of verses from pieces I've written as well. It's odd; my most successful attempts at this form have all ended up being poems about women.

from "Sapphic to Martha"

Leonine, she stretches her languid arms to
nearly touch mine across the restaurant table.
Driving in has tightened her shoulder muscles.
She leans to touch me.

How we have approached and avoided each other
through the years, making cool invitations,
touching hands, or letting our gazes flicker
toward one another.

Is it now? Is it time for the actual truth of it,
or will we spend yet another reluctant evening,
dancing in and out of the maddening topic:
who will begin it?




From "To Jezebel:"

She has read the dynamics of parents,
how a mother relinquishes power to daughters.
In that simple and clean explanation
she rests securely.

That she moves to the safety of concept
protects her from the truth of the matter:
that he comes now at night to my bedroom
silent and angry.

She knows. She must know. But her mind is disabled
all unwilling to see it or speak it or stop it.
And these nights when she screams at the jezebel demon
make me believe it.

They aren't absolutely perfect samples of the form, but they're close, and I've always liked how fluid and rhythmic the line becomes when one really does it right.

'k that's plenty. But I dare you to play with that for a while, o sapphic sistah. It's a strikingly feminine form.

bj

 

[Angeline]

Hell, very few things are.

That challah's kinda over the top. Who has an oven that big?

bj

I know. It cracked me up when I saw it. Good old Molly Goldberg.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I know. It cracked me up when I saw it. Good old Molly Goldberg.

I'm a fan of any religion that focuses so much on food.

I need to hang around more Jews. The other night at the restaurant there was an empty chair at the table and I made a reference to setting a place for Elijah and got nothing but blank stares.

Jahweh Rastafari, my sister.

bj

 

[Angeline]

I'm a fan of any religion that focuses so much on food.

I need to hang around more Jews. The other night at the restaurant there was an empty chair at the table and I made a reference to setting a place for Elijah and got nothing but blank stares.

Jahweh Rastafari, my sister.

bj

Ah my lovely. You reminded me that every year on Passover when we'd go to my aunt and uncle's apartment in Queens for the sedar, my uncle would drink Elijah's wine. My aunt would get pissed; they'd be arguing before dessert. Lol. But they were a lot of fun. She was a raging women's rights proponent and always wore her "Another Mother for Peace" pendant and marched in DC on Vietnam Moratorium Day. Her daughter ended up becoming a womens' studies prof and her son got his Ph.D in East Indian studies, couldn't find a decent job (surprise, surprise) and finally ran off to Oregon to start an alpaca farm. I always tell people my family is like something out of a Woody Allen movie.They think I'm exaggerating, but really I'm not.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Ah my lovely. You reminded me that every year on Passover when we'd go to my aunt and uncle's apartment in Queens for the sedar, my uncle would drink Elijah's wine. My aunt would get pissed; they'd be arguing before dessert. Lol. But they were a lot of fun. She was a raging women's rights proponent and always wore her "Another Mother for Peace" pendant and marched in DC on Vietnam Moratorium Day. Her daughter ended up becoming a womens' studies prof and her son got his Ph.D in East Indian studies, couldn't find a decent job (surprise, surprise) and finally ran off to Oregon to start an alpaca farm. I always tell people my family is like something out of a Woody Allen movie.They think I'm exaggerating, but really I'm not.

You make it sound like an indecent elopement ... there again that might just be my mind or the odd dives I have been hanging around in lately

 

[Angeline]

You make it sound like an indecent elopement ... there again that might just be my mind or the odd dives I have been hanging around in lately

Well considering that he grew up in NYC it sort of was.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Ah my lovely. You reminded me that every year on Passover when we'd go to my aunt and uncle's apartment in Queens for the sedar, my uncle would drink Elijah's wine. My aunt would get pissed; they'd be arguing before dessert. Lol. But they were a lot of fun. She was a raging women's rights proponent and always wore her "Another Mother for Peace" pendant and marched in DC on Vietnam Moratorium Day. Her daughter ended up becoming a womens' studies prof and her son got his Ph.D in East Indian studies, couldn't find a decent job (surprise, surprise) and finally ran off to Oregon to start an alpaca farm. I always tell people my family is like something out of a Woody Allen movie.They think I'm exaggerating, but really I'm not.

Now THAT is an excellent line. It's like a haiku, with a surprise at the end. Or maybe it's like a box of crackerjacks. Or maybe it's like a transvestite you accidentally pick up in a bar.

bj

 

[Angeline]

Now THAT is an excellent line. It's like a haiku, with a surprise at the end. Or maybe it's like a box of crackerjacks. Or maybe it's like a transvestite you accidentally pick up in a bar.

bj

The funny thing (to me) is that's how they always referred to him: "he ran off to Oregon to start an alpaca farm." I think that for Jews from Queens it was a shocking development.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Now THAT is an excellent line. It's like a haiku, with a surprise at the end. Or maybe it's like a box of crackerjacks. Or maybe it's like a transvestite you accidentally pick up in a bar.

bj

*sits back on haunches with surprise* ermmmmm is this a common occurrence in your world?

 

[unpredictablebijou]

*sits back on haunches with surprise* ermmmmm is this a common occurrence in your world?

Sadly, no. It's purely theoretical.



bj

 

[Safe_Bet]

*sits back on haunches with surprise* ermmmmm is this a common occurrence in your world?

What? Jewish Alpaca ranchers from Oregon who accidently pick up trasvestites in bars? Seems kinda normal to me, but I live in California...

Now Jewish Alpacas that pick up transvestite's from Oregon is a little more rare... but only a little.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Do Jewish alpacas have the snip at an early age? oh no I forgot it's the norm over there anyway

 

[Equinoxe]

LOL how true. Well, then, miss thang, let the teaching begin, cause Sapphics are my specialty so I'm muahahaha-ing right back atcha.

Oh, I too love the Sapphic stanza! It is an underappreciated form, but one of my favourite Western ones (I have written a number of quatrains in something of the form).

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Oh, I too love the Sapphic stanza! It is an underappreciated form, but one of my favourite Western ones (I have written a number of quatrains in something of the form).

Do you have any published here? I haven't been through all your stuff yet.

bj

 

[Angeline]

Do Jewish alpacas have the snip at an early age? oh no I forgot it's the norm over there anyway

Maybe. I'll have to ask my cousin though he married out of the faith so I'm not sure what religion they're rasising the Alpacas to be. Maybe Unitarians.

 

[sassynyc]

Lunch Lady BWAH!

Here. Just for you.

LOLZ!
All hail......the hand that spreads your peanut butter and jelly, rules the world.

Lunch ladies are uber hot.

 

[Equinoxe]

Do you have any published here? I haven't been through all your stuff yet.

bj

Yes, although I am not sure how many of them I actually like—several are poems about paintings, one is ostensibly about ancient history, one was written in response to a thread on here, another was based upon something written in response to a thread on here, and another was inspired by seeing Tibetans at prayer (although it is entitled in an old-fashioned Japanese romanisation). In any case, here they are: Quatrain on the First of May, Alexandrian Quatrain, First Quatrain on Watteau, Second Quatrain on Watteau, Kwannon, The Science of Knowing.

 

[Safe_Bet]

Yes, although I am not sure how many of them I actually like—several are poems about paintings, one is ostensibly about ancient history, one was written in response to a thread on here, another was based upon something written in response to a thread on here, and another was inspired by seeing Tibetans at prayer (although it is entitled in an old-fashioned Japanese romanisation). In any case, here they are: Quatrain on the First of May, Alexandrian Quatrain, First Quatrain on Watteau, Second Quatrain on Watteau, Kwannon, The Science of Knowing.

Wow. Teach me that!

 

[Senna Jawa]

the difference is that non-form poems don't have a wrapper

More precisely, the form poems have standard wrappers, while each "non-form poem" has a custom wrapper (when it's good). The best poems of both types are optimal (or nearly so), which in effect is something akin to a wrapper.

not that they[non-form poems]'re more likely to be chocolate.

True. I just wanted to warn authors of form poems to avoid being satisfied just due to satisfying the formal requirements of the form.

The idea of the form poetry is healthy only under the assumption that the form is no excuse for any compromises. Instead, the form should stimulate you and force you to find poetic extra-original, unexpected solutions. I believe that in part Les'mian's originality and flights of imagination were simply necessary to achieve the double goal: satisfy the form and never lower your poetic standards.

This--among other things--means that you never insert a word just for the sake of a rhyme or to get the rhythm. Each word has to carry poetry.

Best regards,

 

[Senna Jawa]

[...] a Villanelle [...] other poetry forms, be they sonnets, Haiku, Ghazal, etc.

To include haiku in the above list was a misunderstanding. In Japanese, 5-7-5 is so natural that it's hardly any form. And outside Japan hardly anybody worries about counting syllables these days, and for a good reason:

haiku is a minimal poem, i.e. a poem from which you cannot cut out a smaller poem.​

That's all, except that now you need to know what poetry is. Poetry is roughly what haiku is, minus the requirement of minimality. This makes a circular impression but it is not so bad. You may read about haiku many pretty good books, so that you will know what poetry is. This breaks the circle.

Regards,