Playing With Poetry

I said I was going to share some of my recent experiences with poetry, didn't I? Things keep getting away from me because the big writing project I'm working on has gotten over some obstacles and is now flowing! I can't know if it will flow like this until it's finished (at least for the first draft), or if I'll come to another stretch of obstacles. With this blog being a side thing that I do for myself more than anything, sharing poetry hasn't been at the top of my priority list. I don't forget, either. That's why we're here. 

I love poetry! I read Shel Silverstein poetry collections over and over as a kid. Some of his poems reveal more layers when I read them again as and adult. As I got older, the list of poets I read grew. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Maya Angelou, e e cummings, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost... I was introduced to a lot of poets' work by school assignments, but I continued reading long after the assignments were done because I enjoyed it. As an adult, I have fallen in love with the work of poets like Mary Oliver, Andrea Gibson, and Nikita Gill. There are days when I'm at a low point and I find comfort in Charles Bukowski's work. 

My first paid writing job was poetry, but I don't write like any of them. I was getting paid five dollars per poem, though, and that was good money when I was a highschool freshman! I wasn't really able to get any of my friends interested in poetry, but word got around that I was writing poems and guys started paying me to write them for their girlfriends. I hope I write better poetry now than I did then, but I'm still kind of shy about sharing what I write. I've got a poetry project going that may be a collection I'll put out someday. The story I'm working on - the one that's currently flowing - starts with one of my poems. 

I don't usually focus on structure. When I know what I want to say with a poem, I just write and find out what the structure is when I'm done. I like to play with structures that are based on syllable count, though. It's comforting and keeps me writing when I'm stressed. The numbers become the playground I can just run around and freely write bad poetry in. 

I can make haiku

out of anything if you

give me a minute.

Recently, I've been playing with the American cinquain. You know how a haiku is 5-7-5? American cinquain is 2-4-6-8-2. There are also variations, such as the reverse cinquain being 2-8-6-4-2, or the mirror cinquain being two stanzas that are 2-4-6-8-2 followed by 2-8-6-4-2.

I'll write about anything when I'm playing with following the format. There might be something in that. Letting everything be worthy of poetry, and it's up to me to find "the right words" by following a syllable count instead of worrying about how to make it dramatic, pretty, or pretty dramatic. 

My first one is a mirror cinquain. I had been too busy to get writing time in that day and refused to go to bed without writing something.

Oh no. 

Are you trying 

To write a poem now? 

This late at night, when you should be

Sleeping? 

Please sleep. 

The day has been way too long and

This brain needs to recharge. 

I beg you, let

Me sleep. 

The next one I wrote is about juggling because I, the clumsiest person I've ever known even before I developed arthritis, decided a few months ago that I'm finally going to learn to juggle. (Contact juggling is going better than traditional juggling, and I can tell people I'm playing with my balls.) This is a garland cinquain. It's five stanzas, then a sixth stanza composed of lines from the previous five. The first line of the last stanza is line 1 from stanza 1, then the second line is line 2 from stanza 2, etc.

Juggling? 

Catch and release! 

More "release", not much "catch". 

Hands are not communicating 

With brain. 

Don't look! 

All falls apart. 

Pick them up. Toss again. 

Why is nothing as easy as

It looks? 

Maybe

This time it works!

One catch! Then it all falls.

I knew this would happen. I keep

Going.

There may

Not be a big

Success moment for me.

Sometimes it's the right path, but the

Wrong goal.

Breathe out...

Can't hold the air

Forever. Time won't stop.

Everything must fall and rise, else

Flow stops.

Juggling? 

All falls apart. 

One catch! Then it all falls. 

Sometimes it's the right path, but the

Flow stops. 

The fifth stanza is my favorite part of that poem. I was thinking about juggling, but it also applies to a lot of other things in life. I wasn't happy with the sixth stanza at first. It felt too repetitive, and I told myself a garland cinquain requires planning that it's okay for me to not feel like I'm ready for. When I read it again later, though, I decided it works for a poem about my experience as a beginner with juggling. That repetition is there in the process of dropping things and starting over, taking breaks when it gets frustrating, and picking the balls up again the next day.

The last poem I have to share is the one that made me think maybe I should keep going with this structure. 

Recipe for a Story

One song

mixed with a stray

birthday card frozen in

memory. Add heartbreak and hope. 

Serve raw.