poetry

Poetry Class Update

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I’ve had three sessions of the poetry class I signed up for at WriterHouse in Charlottesville, VA. Time is flying, and I am having fun. I’ve received some great and helpful feedback on the two poems I’ve workshopped, enough to make me want to write more poetry.

The second poem was the one I wrote for #FullMoonSocial2014, and the suggested edits were spot on. However, Jeff Schwaner, who came up with the idea of #FullMoonSocial2014, had asked if he could include my poem, “Web of Fate,” in an anthology he was putting together of the poems written for that social media paean to the moon. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the edited poem to him in time, so he went with the original. If you’re interested in seeing the anthology and reading the other poems, you can download a copy for free by clicking here.

“Web of Fate” was actually my fall-back poem. I wrote a sonnet (fourteen lines in three quatrains and a couplet, where every other line rhymes, as does the closing rhyming couplet. I have a friend who is terminal with kidney failure, and I intended it to honor her; but I think I bit off more than I could chew. I wanted to work on it some more (a lot more!) before I workshopped it, so “Web of Fate” stepped up as the designated hitter.

For this week’s class, we had to write a persona poem–terminology which sent me to the Google for a definition and some examples. A persona poem is defined as “a poem written from the point of view of the object or person being written about.”* Sounds easy, right? Frankly, I was stymied, but a line came to me during our weekly SWAG Writers’ write-in on Monday: “I am the thing you wish to ignore, and I am unrelenting.” I found that line intriguing, especially when I split the sentence and made “I am the thing you wish to ignore” the opening line and “And I am unrelenting” the last line.

We’ll see on Thursday if those and the sixteen lines in between actually do constitute a persona poem.

*Willow Hambrick – Educator, Literacy Coach, Writing Coordinator, Royal Spring Middle School

Get Ready for Some Poetry!

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Last week I started an eight-week poetry class at WriterHouse in Charlottesville, VA. I’ve always wanted to write poetry, but perfectionist that I am I rarely set pen to paper to give it a try. When I saw the poetry course offered, I figured it would be a good impetus. The instructor, Aime Whittemore, didn’t cut us any slack; we got homework the first class: Using the first line of another poem, write your own poem. And not only did we have to write a poem, but it got work-shopped today. Oy! We had a list of first lines to choose from, and I selected “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks” from “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. His poem, written about World War I, is pretty stark, but I’d never read it until after I selected that line. However, the first line brought something else to mind.

Oh, and just be prepared. I’ll probably post my poems, good and bad, and your comments would be appreciated.

Family History
(Prompt: First Line of “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen)

by Phyllis “Maggie” Duncan

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Their burdens hunger and homelessness,
They fall dead by roadsides and in ditches,
Teeth and tongues the color of chewed grass:
Why I don’t smile at the wearing of the green.

My grandmother hoarded food and money;
A century later the memories were too fresh
With recollections of lost uncles and cousins,
Who left and no word ever came again,
Their empty place settings sacred at table.

Always spoken of in the present tense,
As if they would one day reappear,
Pockets full of coin and victuals to share,
To tell their stories of streets paved in gold
But never mention “No Irish Need Apply.”

To America, that was a choice.
To Australia, the price of passage
Was a loaf of bread taken in desperation
From a windowsill where it cooled
And reeked of survival.

Those memories ride in my blood,
Renew in my marrow.
My grandmother made no waves,
Asked no questions,
So she wouldn’t have to go back;

Fear of deportation stretched
Across decades to my mother,
Who dreaded applying for a passport.
In our house no talk of Auld Erin,
No parsnip or turnip eaten.

Bone and sinew bespeak my history,
And it’s undeniable in my skin
(Never tanned but freckled),
The shape of my cranium (round);
The color of my hair (red).

Barely a note sounds before my feet
Move to the music of bodhran and pipes.
I don’t set out bread and milk for the wee folk
Like the other Maggie, my grandmother,
But maybe I should.

#FullMoonSocial2014

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A writer friend of mine, poet Jeff Schwaner, came up with the great idea of celebrating October’s full moon. We’ve had a bunch of super moons this year and an eclipse yesterday, and, besides, the moon has inspired a lot of poetry, good and bad, over the years. Why not come together and have a Full Moon Poetry Party?

Now, I’m not a poet–though I am taking an eight-week poetry class–but I decided to give it a try.

Web of Fate

I have stared at the Moon a thousand times
Or more.

In a line that goes back to the African woman,
Our mother,

I stand with everyone who has gone before and
Will come.

In my life the moon changed, bearing the footprints
Of men.

The names of all its deities are female, from Aega
To Zirna;

Yet, no woman’s feet have disturbed that smooth
Ancient dust.

And even now we still say we gaze upon the Man in
The moon.

How lonely he must be. Did he leave Gaia behind
On Earth

When Theia struck and buried its iron in Earth’s core
And hurtled

Molten rock into space to form what we look on now?
The Moon.

Friday Fictioneers and an Elegy

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Friday Fictioneers LogoAs I’ve mentioned before, I’m no poet but wish I were. I occasionally dabble and embarrass myself and anyone unfortunate enough to read my attempts. I often read a poet’s work (Seamus Heaney, for example) and realize, there, that’s my voice; there’s nothing I can add.

Of course, there are the times where you read a poet for the first time and understand you could never come close so why bother. I had that feeling when I first read Maya Angelou. When I heard her read “Phenomenal Woman,” I knew those were the words forever locked in my head, which she freed and expressed for the benefit of all us phenomenal women. There were times when that poem was a mantra for me, and I would read it over and over and I, too, would rise. Do me a favor and read “Phenomenal Woman” by clicking here.

So, in addition to a facelift for the blog, (The theme is called “Hemingway Rewritten,” by the way.) I’m changing just for today the format of my Friday Fictioneers offering. Instead of a post here and the story under the Friday Fictioneers tab, I’m combining them. In lieu of a 100-word story, I’ve written a 131-word elegy (def. elegy – a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem) in honor of Maya Angelou. I know, totally presumptuous of me, and, frankly, if I were a poet, I’d have managed to write a 100-word poem, but I’m not, so 131 words. Mea culpa. To read other Friday Fictioneers offerings on the photo prompt, click on the icon at the end of my, gulp, poem.

The poem consists of seven stanzas, and I’ve taken the title of nine of her poems which most resonated with me and used them as the first line of five of those stanzas. In the six stanza, the title of three of her poems begin each line, and the final, one-line stanza is the title of the ninth poem. The poems are:

  • “Caged Bird”
  • “On the Pulse of Morning”
  • “Still I Rise”
  • “Phenomenal Woman”
  • “Alone”
  • “To a Man”
  • “When I Think About Myself”
  • “Human Family”
  • “Refusal”

Here is today’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt, which evoked for me not just Ms. Angelou’s connection with academia but the concept of passing through a doorway to wherever she is now:

(c)Jennifer Pendergast

(c)Jennifer Pendergast

 

And here is “Elegy for Maya,” with my humble apology:

When I think about myself
I am amazed at the breadth and depth and scope
Of my life. Every place in the

Human family I have occupied:
Dancer, singer, actress, composer, director, author, and more.
I have honors, awards, but I am

Alone in this latest endeavor
As we all will be when life’s final steps are taken.
No longer will I be the

Caged bird whose words caused
A man to die for his hideous violation of a child.
I became who I am in my

Refusal to allow this rape
To define me. Instead, I grew, I flew, I rose, I rose.
And those who heard my words

To a man declared
Phenomenal woman to take us to places unknown; so
On the pulse of morning

Still I rise.

 

(c)2014 by Phyllis A. Duncan; reprint with permission only.

Friday Fictioneers and Icons

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We use icons in our writing all the time, especially so when place is critical to the plot. A cozy mystery set in London, and a mention of Big Ben or the Tower of London is obligatory. What would a Cold War thriller be without a mention of The Berlin Wall or The Kremlin? Central Park is the venue of many a murder in a crime procedural set in New York City. I’m sure you can think of many others.

Mentioning an icon is the quick, easy way to put the reader into exactly where in your world the action takes place. Trust me, say “Central Park,” and the average reader knows exactly where the story takes place. Even if he or she has never been to New York City, a reader has seen enough pictures or TV shows to be able to place the locale.

Writers who invent new worlds or use more obscure locales have to do more description of place and setting so the reader can “see” it. Especially if you make up your own town or city, you have to provide just the right balance of back story to make the place believable.  For example, The Lord of the Rings trilogy or The Hobbit wouldn’t be the same without the vivid, rich descriptions of Middle Earth or Mordor. We need to see all those different kingdoms in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice books because they are just as crucial to the story as any of the characters. Striking that balance can be difficult, because you can bog the reader down in minutia.

Friday Fictioneers LogoThe photo prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneers is one of those icons where just one glance at it, and you know exactly where you are. You may even know “when you are” by the type of picture or the other items in it. Juxtaposed as it was with the twelfth anniversary of September 11, 2001, it will likely evoke many emotionally charged 100-word stories this week. That’s a good thing, because we must never forget.

The picture prompted one of my rare forays into poetry, probably a good thing, the rarity, that is. We recently lost the great Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, and his poetry always had a strong sense of place, even for an American one generation removed from her Irish roots. His poems could put me in a peat bog, on a battlefield, in a thatched-roof hut, even though I’ve never seen those things with my own eyes. I’ve tried to do that in “The New Colossus.” As usual, if you don’t see the link on the title, scroll to the top of the page, click on the Friday Fictioneers tag, then select the story from the drop-down list.

Back to the Real World

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Yesterday, when I was supposed to blog, my brain was still jet-lagged. You spend a week in a beautiful state on the west coast, and by the time you adjust to the three-hour time difference, it’s time to come home–and adjust to the three-hour time difference. I know the purpose of a vacation is to “vacate” your regular life and relax, but I felt bad that I didn’t do any writing, except for a 100-word Friday Fictioneers piece. I did no work at all on the project I’m in the middle of revising. Bad me.

A writer friend pointed out over coffee yesterday afternoon that the break from the revision project is probably good, that I likely needed to take a step back, not think about it, then dive back in. Sounds like a plan, except that yesterday my brain couldn’t wrap itself around what time zone it occupied, much less concentrating on revising a novel.

Let’s hope today is better and more productive, and at least I’m writing a blog post. That has to count for something.

In Memoriam

Now on to something a bit more serious. A writer died over the weekend. He didn’t have the national notoriety of a Richard Matheson or a Vince Flynn, but he was beloved here in the Shenandoah Valley and among his fellow writers in the Staunton, Waynesboro, Augusta Group of Writers (SWAG Writers). His poetry, whether about animals he spotted in his yard, lost loves, or eccentric composers, was sublime and touching. He was initially dubious about our open mic nights. “Can’t we just sit at the table and read to each other?” he asked. We encouraged him to the stage, but he didn’t have enough light to see his pages. We would take turns over the weeks and months holding a lamp over his shoulder so he could see well enough to read. Why? Because his poetry was wonderful. He gradually took to the applause and was often among the first to sign up for reading slots.

Then, in the past few months, he stopped coming. We tried to find out what was wrong through mutual friends, and we heard that he just “isn’t doing well,” a southern metaphor for “he doesn’t have much time left.” Then, we heard he would be coming back to SWAG Open Mic night this month, but he didn’t show. Again, we asked around, and then we got the news. He had passed away this past Saturday at the age of 79, far too young we thought.

His obit described him as “a loving father, grandfather, friend, musician, teacher, choir director, author, poet, and wine connoisseur.” I think we in SWAG got to experience each aspect of him through his poetry readings. We had already missed his whimsical verse over the past few months, and now knowing we’ll never hear it again is disheartening. He was a true Renaissance Man, whose wit and wisdom we will miss, and we are lessened in our craft by the loss of him.

Ted Grudzinski

Ted Grudzinski

Rest in peace, Theodore George Grudzinski, poet and fellow SWAGger. We will always keep a chair at the table for you.

Tinker Mountain Day Two

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Thorpe Moeckel makes me wish I were a poet. His craft lecture, “Food and Drink in Poetry: The Techniques, Trappings, and Themes,” was, pun intended, a feast of delicious poems he used to illustrate his point; namely, that the necessity of food and drink to life makes them elementals. The act of eating and drinking is sensory, a particularly good ingredient for writing of any kind.

Moeckel imagines the first poets were proto-humans who sat around a campfire chanting about their basic needs–sustenance, warmth, and mates. When we see our work on a page, he says, think of it as food on a plate. That distances you from the work and lets you  begin to revise.

Many of my fellow prose writers skipped this craft lecture, and I say, “Shame on you!” It well worth the time and the reading of the poems he used as examples. My favorite was this one, by Charles Simic:

Watermelons

Green Buddhas
on the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
and spit out the teeth.

The afternoon, of course, was day two of the Advanced Novel workshop, and my novel excerpt was up for critique at the end of the day. Fred Leebron started it off with a brief overview of finding an agent and preparing the right sort of query letter. Then, he went over some hints about how to submit a successful manuscript–formatting, for example–then things to do to make an editor “love your book for two years,” the approximate length of the publishing cycle. Keep at it, he advised. “If you give up, nothing will happen, so you can’t give up.”

Then came the critiques. Again, this was a civilized process, which provided positive feedback. I’m still at the level of confidence where someone who likes or praises my writing leaves me in a state of wonder. When a well-known teacher of writing compares your excerpt to Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street or Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, holy crap, you must be doing something right.

The one-on-one conference afterwards gave me good direction and a plan to pursue, and it wasn’t exactly what I had already planned; but it’s where I need to go.

Tonight was student open-mic night, and I read “Marakata,” my short story which won third place in WriterHouse’s contest back in May. It was very well-received, and I got some suggestions on where to submit it for possible publication.

Jim McKean will give tomorrow’s craft lecture, entitled, “Suspense?”–a timely topic since I’m teaching a one-night, online workshop next week about including suspense in your fiction. Then, two more critiques of other classmates’ excerpts. It’s hard to believe as of tomorrow we’ll be on the downward slide.

April’s First Friday Fictioneers

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Friday Fictioneers LogoA short post today because I’m off to Lexington, VA for the annual Tom Wolfe Lecture series. Legendary author Tom Wolfe introduces another author of note, and faculty from Washington and Lee University provide scholarly lectures on the author’s work. This is all interwoven with great food and interesting company, and this year the featured author is Pulitzer prize winner Jennifer Egan. Her featured work is A Visit from the Good Squad.

I’m looking forward to some in-depth study of another writer’s work–and to having my copy of Goon Squad signed by the author herself.

Today’s Friday Fictioneer’s story is a prose poem–yeah, I’m a glutton for punishment–in honor of National Poetry Month. Last night we had a great, SWAG Writers poetry reading, so I must have been inspired. Poets, be kind to “Life, a Cliché.” If you don’t see the link on the title, then scroll to the top of the page, click on Friday Fictioneers. You can select this week’s offering from the drop down list.

Writerly Contemplation

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I was up early this morning (happens when you go to bed early) and decided to clear my head for next week’s sojourn at Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop. After breakfast, I took a cup of Tazo Zen green tea and a book of short stories to the front porch and plopped myself in one of the Adirondack chairs, making sure my new planting from this week was in sight.

It must be the Druid in me who gets sad when a tree dies, and though I wasn’t particularly fond of the arbor vitae’s aesthetics, I hated the fact that, after surviving an infestation of bag worms last year and appearing so healthy and green in early spring, it began to die from the top down. Then, I looked upon it as an opportunity to replace more of what the house’s builder considered landscaping with something I liked.

Shot from my comfy chair on the front porch.

So, on Thursday, Tech Duncan welcomed this newcomer: a lovely little Japanese maple under which the Buddha can contemplate for eternity. This morning I sat so this was in view as I drank tea and read, my only company some birds and the occasional bee. I became calmer than I had been all week and engrossed in studying how the light breeze stirred the maple and how the sun lit it.

And the writer in me shifted from my comfort zone–prose–into something poetic. I thought the new tree needed a haiku to honor its place at Tech Duncan. Believe me, a haiku is definitely preferable to what my Irish grandmother did for her African violets–pricking a finger and feeding them her blood. Since I don’t have a poet in residence, that composition was up to, gulp, me.

Now, I’m not a poet, something that I need to change one day, but the tree, the light, the breeze evoked this (All my poet friends, just quietly snicker behind your hands; no guffawing, please.):

Maple trembles from
Sun’s lustful touch; leaves quiver
From satiation.

Friday Fictioneers Take Flight

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In more ways than one, this week’s Friday Fictioneers inspiration photo was right down my alley, or should I say, runway. Not only was it aviation related, but it was also a picture of an aircraft I had the privilege to fly (under close supervision, of course, since I’m not airship-rated) for several, incredible hours over the Virginia countryside some years ago.

Goodyear doesn’t usually allow passengers on its airships–it’s pretty impractical anyway–but they do allow press and VIP’s on board. (I was aviation press not a VIP.) When I mentioned I was a pilot, the Captain put me in the right seat and talked me through take-off and maneuvering the huge gas bag around. The blimp is so long that unexpected downdrafts aft can take you by surprise, as do unexpected updrafts forward. This means you’re constantly manipulating the controls–no automatic pilot here! It was great fun, and I learned a lot in a couple of hours.

My story this week, “Surly Bonds,” is based on an actual event. Its last line and the title come from probably the world’s most famous aviation poem, “High Flight,” a copy of which has hung in my home since I became a pilot. I choke up every time I read it; it’s an aviator thing.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was an American aviator/poet who joined the Royal Canadian Air Force to fight in World War II before America entered the war. In August 1941, after flying to 33,000 feet in a Spitfire, Magee was inspired by what he saw there and afterwards wrote the sonnet, “High Flight.” Four months later, he died in a midair collision, but the words of his sonnet live on. Many aviators  since have memorized it, and rather than send you to a link, you can read it here.

High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds–and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of–wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

To read more Friday Fictioneers’ offerings, go to Madison Woods’ blog and enjoy.