Wednesday, April 20, 2016

WHISPERS’ APRIL ACTIVITY--WORDS FROM ANOTHER POET

A. Michele Leslie, an accomplished writer and editor, generously offered to be the activity editor for April.  She selected a challenging activity, which was both and interesting and an enjoyable one for me. I really appreciate all the hard work she put into this column.

Activity Directions--Select 7-12 poems by an author you admire.  From each of these poems, select one word that you think would be appropriate for the poem you want to write. Using one of these words in each line of your poem, write a 7-12 line poem on any subject.

I would like to thank Michele for her efforts to bring this wonderful activity for our readers to enjoy.  Her analysis of the poems is at the end of this column, which enriches the experience. Thank you, Elizabeth, Raamesh, Kelley and Ralph for sharing your talent for this activity.  Congratulations on your publication!

                                       --Karen O’Leary, Whispers’ Editor

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Day Written in Blue

What a precious blue day it was,
the snowbank melting at last,
blackwater collecting in puddles. 
After a blue boy fell into a puddle,
he sat on a mossy hillock to dry
and to eat honey he found in a hive. 
He tossed stones at a blue donkey
that was ploughing the garden.  
The donkey chased him through catbriers
to a silky blue hammock
where he could look at the blue stars
in the dappled sky. 

Mary Oliver’s poems: “The Summer Day,” “The Swan,” “At Blackwater Pond,” “The Kingfisher,” “Moccasin Flowers,” “The Moths,” “Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet Vine,” “The Lark,” “Egrets,” “White Night,” “Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me,” “Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard”

By Elizabeth Howard

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Forgetting

Memories are often miasmal, putrescent;
squad-drill of old complaints marching by
that you soon wish were etherised, euthanised

lest, despondently, you are forced to grapple
with those; the nocturnal sounds of a forest
you wished you didn’t set foot in; a gambit indeed

that you played thinking it fashionable at the instant
and now regretted... indeed with appetites for regret;
meditating on them there is no shunya, nor do they

let you be forgetful of them, vicious in the pursuit,
and no, they don’t digress either to dwell on joy,
no sir, they're silhouettes that follow, to the grave mud.

Poems from T. S. Eliot, from http://www.poetry-archive.com/e/eliot_t_s.html and http://www.blackcatpoems.com/e/t_s_eliot.html  “The Hippopotamus”, “Hysteria”, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, “Morning at the Window”, “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”, “Sweeney Among the Nightingales”, “Aunt Helen”, “The Boston Evening Transcript”, “Burbank With a Baedeker: Bleistein With a Cigar”, “The Burial of the Dead”, “Conversation Galante”, and “A Cooking Egg.”

By Raamesh Gowri Raghavan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Golden Glow

In the charcoal embers
of illness, satin gifts arrive.
Words sewn into a quilt,
knotted with blessings
and loving wishes.
Sorrows melt as I read
friendships’ blossoms
and feel their rainbows.

Underlined words are from haiku in dandelion seeds by Arvinder Kaur, pages 18-27.

By Karen O’Leary

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Owl, lost

Your face watched me, your eyes of a lonely girl turning away
side after side, looking over one shoulder then the other
to draw me from the basin within the tree that hid your children.

When you left the branch it swayed so little I wondered if I had seen you at all,
then your gaze locked mine from another part of the forest
tearing my gaze again from the dark eyes of your young ones.

Now your tree seems empty, its opening a mouth twisted in a laugh,
the autumn leaves covering that mouth like the palms of a hundred hands.
No young ones, no bones or ruffled snags of fur fallen beneath your ledge.

Nothing but sanddust and darkness.
I want to see you. I want to hear you calling in the night. That silken whisper.
Even if it is not me you call. Even if it is me, and the night grows short.


I learned of Shakila Azizzada from the website http://www.napowrimo.net/ which has been featuring a poet in translation along with daily ‘prompts’ for poems during national poetry month. It was a double challenge of sorts! Reading the beautiful poems of this poet and then turning a few words into my own little effort. I do hope that the style of the poems reflects her style just a little. . .I intend to read more of her work and find inspiration! The poems were translated by Mimi Khalvati & Zuzanna Olszerska

By Kelley White

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Churchwarden
(St James’, Cooling Kent)

All around, death imbued him to his bones:
From his mother’s headstone
And in the gloaming, his sisters, resting side by side.
What phantom, sails this windswept marshland,
Through distant landscapes, and shifting sand?
There! a convict ship moors, full of those with troubled souls.
Within the deepening sounds of evensong,
And under crimson skies, he still tends and longs;
But death has claimed him:
By the whispers of angels, when they sing,
There to abide by his side, these stone feathers as wings.

Wilfred Owen 1893-1918 “Bones”, “Miners”, “Mothers”, “The Letter Gloaming”, “The Unreturning Phantom”, “Six O’clock in Princess Street Landscapes”, The One Remains
Troubled”, “Asleep Deepening”, “The Show Crimson”, “Conscious Death”, “The Next War
Whispers”, “All Sounds Have Been of Music Feathers” and “To the Bitter Sweet-heart”
(Charles Dickens used St James’ church, for a passage in Great Expectations, when young ‘Pip’ met the convict Magwich.)

By Ralph Stott

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Although I only received five poems for this activities exercise, they were, each of them, substantial, and, I thought, well-written (whether by craft or inspiration I cannot always tell).

One of the themes of the poems (the poems influenced by T.S. Eliot, Shakila Azizzada, and Wilfred Owens), was a kind of deathlike despondency. In the poem “Forgetting,” the vocabulary sprung from “miasmal” and “nocturnal” to “silhouettes that follow, to the grave mud.” The ambience was, then, maintained very well by a varied and select vocabulary. As the author indicates, “there is no” digression for joy. Not being able to forget unpleasant memories is also part of what Eliot is about.

The poem, “Owl, lost,” also exerts a kind of despondent ambience, with an added intensity of emotion, and a concluding death metaphor, which is most effective. In “The Churchwarden,” a sense of mystery exists because we cannot tell, really, whether the main character in the poem is actually dead, or if, rather, he is just obsessive about the graveyard. This mystery is even more effective because of the precise nature of the words the author chose to use—for example, what could be more tangible than a headstone? Crimson skies? Stone feathers?

The last two poems done of this exercise are more on a happy note. “Golden Glow” is the perfect title for Karen’s “satin gifts” in the “charcoal embers of illness.” The reader can almost see the sorrows melt from the page as the poem concludes with “blossoms” and “rainbows.” Elizabeth Howard’s poem continues with an allusion to melting, and “the blue stars/in the dappled sky” bring to mind the Biblical reference to the apple of God’s eye. We can conclude that these poems, skillfully wrought, using some of the same vocabulary as the better known poets from whom they chose their vocabulary, tended to purvey a similar ambience, while, each of them, developing into a very original work of art.

                                   --A. Michele Leslie, Whispers’ April Activity Editor

31 comments:

  1. I enjoyed each installment, fine poems all, and equally the keen insight in Michele's overview.

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    1. Dear Michael,

      Thank you for your kind words about the poetry and your thoughts. Michele did a great job with these poems and her analysis of the poems.

      Blessings,
      Karen

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    2. I certainly agree they are fine poems. Thanks, Michael, for your response.

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  2. Michele,
    These poem are great, each poet did a fantastic job!
    Your new friend,
    David Fox

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    1. Dear David,

      Yes, Michele did a wonderful job with this column. She is a talented writer and editor. I think Ralph, Kelley, Elizabeth and Raamesh each shared rich reading experiences. Thank you for stopping by to share your thoughts.

      Blessings,
      Karen

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    2. Hi, David! They did a fantastic job. I appreciate your looking at our activity.

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  3. Thank you Michele for the powerful composition of great poetry!
    Yours,
    Gert Knop

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    1. Dear Gert,

      Amen! You said it all. Michele did a great job as poetry editor for April. Thank you for stopping by to share your encouraging words.

      Blessings,
      Karen

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    2. Thanks, Gert, for looking at these great poems!

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  4. Well done on such an interesting exercise. It does inspire and I believe it could be repeated in the coming years. Thanks to everyone for their efforts.

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    1. Dear Annie,

      I found it a growing experience. Michele did a great job coming up with something different for us to try. Thank you to Michele and all the contributors. I'm glad you enjoyed reading this, Annie. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

      Blessings,
      Karen

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    2. Glad you found the exercise interesting! I was surprised how many interesting views could come out of it, and how varied they were. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

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  5. Congratulations poets. A. Michelle Leslie and Karen O'Leary, thank you for making this activity possible. I certainly enjoyed reading the material from the participants. It was unique and inspiring. Thank you all for sharing and continued blessings!

    -MJ(www.tgbtgpublictions.com)

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    1. Dear Maurice,

      Thank you for your encouraging words. I'm glad you enjoyed this column and Michele's efforts putting it together. I appreciate all the contributors that joined in this enriching exercise.

      Blessings,
      Karen

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    2. I agree a great undertaking by the poet's involved

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    3. Thanks, John, for commenting. I think the poets did a great job!

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  6. Dear John,

    Yes it is, thanks to Michele's efforts. Thank you for your kind words.

    Blessings,
    Karen

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  7. Dear Karen, I am so touched and feel honoured that you have created such a wonderful ' golden glow ' with words from ' dandelion seeds ' how thoughtful ! Thanks once again. Much love , arvinder

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    1. Arvinder, I am looking forward to seeing the work referred to! Thank you for your comments.

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  8. Dear Arvinder,

    Thank you so much for your kind words. dandelion seeds is a wonderful book. Wishing you the best with it!!

    Blessings,
    Karen

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  9. Dear Poet-Readers, I greatly appreciate all your kind words, and I am happy if this exercise brought any new insights and/or enjoyment to you. I could not get here as soon as I hoped, due to some other responsibilities. I was very much impressed with how quickly these poets wrote their poems! I think we should repeat the exercise sometimes--with, perhaps, a more spiritual focus this time (keeping the same rules). For example, poems about harmony, using the vocabulary from a favourite poet. Something like this might in some ways even prove easier. (Most poets know more about harmony than rules, don't we?)

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    1. Dear Michele,

      You did such a wonderful job with this activity. Thank you for your insightful comments on the poetry you chose for publication. I'm grateful to have mine among them. I really appreciate all your hard work on this column.

      Blessings and Best wishes,
      Karen

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    2. Dear Karen, Thanks so much for this wonderful opportunity! I hope I am able to spend much more time perusing the work on this community website, which is such a blessing and delight to all of us!

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  10. I had tremendous fun doing this activity, and even more so reading the poems here.

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    1. Dear Raamesh,

      Thank you for sharing your artistic and creative poem for this column. I'm glad you had fun with this activity; I did, too. I appreciate all you do for our poetry community.

      Blessings,
      Karen

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    2. I had a lot of fun too! When I received your entry, Raamesh, which is the first one I got, I knew right away the activity would be a success for us!
      Thanks!

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  11. Thank you to everyone who contributed a poem. A most clever way to really get into a poet's work, Ms. Leslie, and then make something new from that.

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    1. Dear Mary Jo,

      Thank you so much for your insightful thoughts on Michele's activity. It was a fun and new way to approach the writing experience for me. I appreciate all the work Michele put into this and glad you enjoyed it.

      Blessings,
      Karen

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    2. Thanks, Jo, for reading these. We all appreciate the attention all the readers like yourself brought to the poems!

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  12. well done to all - very interesting project

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