Poetry Friday: Poetry Postcard 3

It’s Cartoon Mayhem at Author Amok today.

I am making progress on the poetry postcard birthday project, which you may read about here.

My third attempt was in response to this cartoonish antique postcard.

Card by Seminole Souvenirs.

It caught my eye because I have family living in Florida. More importantly, I cannot resist goofiness. And this “Florida State Bird” is pretty goofy. I love his intense gaze, his needle-nose, menacing mouth, stained glass wings and those hairy antennae – nasty.

Before I get to the poem, though, I myself have been cartoonified this week. I have to say, it feels pretty awesome.

Baltimore poet David Eberhardt has put together a reading of “Renegade Poets” on January 6. It doesn’t take much to bring out the feminist in me, so she will be in full-force for this reading, which happens at the famed Minas Gallery. It’s in Baltimore’s Hampden neighborhood, favorite haunt of filmmaker John Waters and site of the annual Hon Fest.

The artwork by Christopher Morawski strikes that perfect balance between edgy and fun. My good friend, the most excellent poet Kathleen Hellen is reading. Slangston Hughes is a fabulous spoken word artist. Alan Barysh is a new poet for me, so I'm looking forward to hearing him read.

I hope my postcard poem strikes a balance, too. No one was  more surprised than I when a certain classical Greek hero strode into the poem and (ain't it just like a hero?) nearly wrestled it away from the poor mosquito.

The Mosquito

Its formal name is ancient Greek.

Imagine Odysseus plagued

by outsized Cyclops

and the song of honey-throated Sirens.

In his long years wandering,

maybe the hero came across

a trial so small, so commonplace,

as Aedes vexans. Vexed as he was

by Scylla’s hunger and Charybdis’ thirst,

Odysseus found mosquitoes

merely unpleasant and tussled

with exciting monsters first.

Laura Shovan

A note on the poem’s construction:

When it comes to prompts -- rather than those "hit on the head by the Muse" moments of inspiration -- I usually have to find a way into a poem. (See this post about on-ramps in writing.)

What's working for me is examining each post card carefully, writing down every phrase and word I find on the front and back. That word bank is my starting point.

When I looked up “Aedes Vexans” I found out that Aedes is Ancient Greek for distasteful, unpleasant. Since I’d already made notes on the postcard artist’s monstrous portrayal of the bug, I now had a monster and Ancient Greece. It was natural for Odysseus to make a cameo. Heck, he nearly took over the poem.

The marble head of Odysseus. That mosquito
bite looks like it's really bugging him.
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/troyilium/tp/TrojanWarFAQs.htm

My twelve-year-old daughter is a huge fan of Greek mythology, thanks in part to the Percy Jackson and Harry Potter books. This poem scored her approval. Yes!

May your Poetry Friday have no shortage of fun surprises. Our host this week is Her Deliciousness Jama Rattigan. If we’re lucky, she may have some leftover latkes today.

If you would like a poetry postcard for my birthday, please send your address to laura@laurashovan.com.