Source Poems: "[Buffalo Bill's]"

For National Poetry Month 2014, I have invited 17 authors and poets to guest post about source poems. In this series of essays, each writer will describe a single poem's significance in his or her life.

Guest blogger Tim Ward -- a poet and poetry lover here in Baltimore -- is having computer problems. 

I am posting Tim's source poem, even though he was unable to send a post. Tim's choice holds significance for many people -- both poets and laypersons. I invite you to leave a comment about e.e. cummings' "[Buffalo Bill's]" in the hope that, when Tim gets back online, he'll have your feedback on the poem to engage with.

Tim Ward (left), friend, and The Word Pimp
at the Baltimore Book Festival

From Tim:

I had always told my mom I would try to write my stories and poems, so when she died in 2006, I decided to honor my own and her wishes.

In high school, I first became acquainted with e.e. cummings and figured if it was OK to write that like for e.e., then it was a good way for me to begin.

I seem to thrive with short poems of my own grammar, and get lost in longer verses.

[Buffalo Bill 's]
BY E. E. CUMMINGS

Buffalo Bill 's

defunct

                     who used to

                     ride a watersmooth-silver

                                                            stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                                                                                        Jesus

he was a handsome man

                                                            and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

From Laura:

How many readers remember the thrill, the drop in your stomach, the first time you read this poem? In poetry, we often talk about the turn, when a poem moves in a new and surprising direction. I think reading "[Buffalo Bill's]" was the first time I really understood the power of a turn.

e.e. cummings
From the Language Arts Place

Please leave a message for Tim or feedback about this poem in the comments.

Watch and listen to a waltz inspired by cummings' poem here:

Previous posts in this series:

Laura Shovan on "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams

Dylan Bargteil on "On Moral Leadership as a Political Dilemma" by June Jordan

J. C. Elkin on "Hannibal Clim" (author unknown)

Diane Mayr on a haiku by Basho

Jone MacCulloch on "We Are Waiting (a pantoum)" by Joyce Sidman

Mary Bargteil on Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

Jacqueline Jules on "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes

Pamela Murray Winters on "The Land of Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Dennis Kirschbaum on "Rain" by Robert Louis Stevenson
Janet Fagal on "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats

Linda Baie on "The Way It Is" by William Stafford

Pat Valdata on "Sea Fever" by John Masefield

Shirley Brewer on "The Singers" by Eavan Boland

Renee LaTulippe on "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath

Ann Bracken on "The Well of Grief" by David Whyte

Margaret Simon on "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

Poetry Friday: Mesostic

I can't believe it has been two weeks since the Baltimore Book Festival and our "Poets for Social Justice" sponsored by Little Patuxent Review.

Poets Dr. Kathleen Hellen, Melanie Henderson, Linda Joy Burke, Truth Thomas, Derrick Weston Brown, Fernando Quijano III and Dr. Tony Medina.

One of the panelists was poet Melanie Henderson. Melanie grew up in Washington, DC and still lives, works, and is raising a family there. She is editor of a local journal, Tidal Basin Review. Melanie talked about being a mom and the challenges of raising a black son in DC.

There are so many difficult issues our kids will face as they grow up -- prejudice, learning how to handle conflicts, staying safe. My children are older, but when they were young I agonized over whether I should protect their innocence, their lack of knowledge about such things as racism. At some point, I'd have to start preparing them for reality.

The panel closed with each poet reading a poem. Melanie's "A Post-Black Mesostic" was written in a form I didn't know. (You'll notice "mesostic" rhymes with "acrostic.")

Let's take a look at the poem first, and then we'll talk about the form. This one would be great to try with advanced middle schoolers on up through adults.

A Post-Black Mesostic
by Melanie Henderson

             nat turNer

              amadOu diallo

         huey newTon

                                emmett Till

                               assata sHakur

                                     jamEs byrd

                                   tulsa Race riot

                                         sEan bell

                kelleY williams-bolar

                      jEna 6

                  thaT one

Melanie read the poem first, then read the line that runs down its middle.

Let's talk form. A mesostic shifts the word or phrase being highlighted from the left hand side of the poem, as in an acrostic, to the middle. This makes the theme of the poem more subtle than it is in an acrostic. In "A Post-Black Mesostic," the embedded phrase elevates the piece from a powerful list to a note of caution and hope.

There are strict mesostics, which have rules about not repeating letters from the highlighted phrase or word. Too complicated, at least to begin with. Start with a reinterpretation of an acrostic. How you place the lines of the poem is dictated by its central word or phrase, which must run in a straight line down the middle of the poem.

More important, you can achieve a haiku-like juxtaposition in a mesostic. In Melanie's poem, the list of names and events clearly relates to issues of social justice and civil rights, but the poet's point of view is absent until we find the phrase "Not there yet."

The murder of Emmett Till helped galvanize the Civil Rights movement.

In a haiku, two images are presented together. The way those two images interact in the reader's mind -- the space the poet creates for understanding -- is one of the ways the form surprises us, despite its apparent simplicity. I think the same thing is happening in "A Post-Black Mesostic." There is a space between the poem and the phrase at its center.  In that space, a reader is free to interpret, react, respond.

One of my favorite e.e. cummings poems functions in a similar way, although the theme is less provocative.

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness

I love surprising students with this one. Many of them can't figure it out at all, until we write it out lengthwise: l(a leaf falls)oneliness

It's fun to talk about how cummings breaks up the words of the poem to get effects like a single letter L, which looks like a number one on the page. But the key is that juxtaposition of image (falling leaf) and idea (loneliness). As in a  mesostic, the reader is left to sit with the metaphor and ponder it for herself.

Melanie says she first learned about mesostics at the Torch: Poetry & Prose by African-American Women reading at AWP 2011. "Evie Shockley was one of the featured readers. She read a number of mesostics from her newest poetry collection, The New Black, and I was excited to try it myself."

Melanie Henderson is winner of the 2011 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award.

She explains the genesis of "A Post-Black Mesostic."

"My poem examples (purposefully presented in no specific order) several Black Americans and events directly affecting Black Americans in U.S. history beginning with the early 19th-century uprising led by Nathaniel Turner and ending with more recent events/people (Jena 6, Kelley Williams-Bolar, and That One). I use this span of time and these specific instances to illustrate that not much has changed with regard to race relations in the U.S. and that the injustices towards Black Americans have sustained. I use these examples to specifically counter the inane use of the term 'Post-Black.'"

With the turmoil of political movements like the TEA Party and Occupy Wall Street happening right now, writing mesostics could be a powerful way for older kids to explore current social justice issues that concern them. 

If you try a mesostic with your class, or just for yourself, let us know how it went. Our host for Poetry Friday is Mary Ann at Great Kid Books. Enjoy all of the amazing poetry posts.