Poetry Friday: Golden Shovels

Thanks to everyone who tried writing a Golden Shovel poem with me last week.

To review: the Golden Shovel is a poetic form invented by MacArthur genius award winner Terrance Hayes. You can read his original Golden Shovel here. Using a favorite poem by someone else as your starting off point, take the words of the first line or stanza (or any favorite line from the poem). Use those words in order as the end words for each line of your new poem.

I'm breaking out the glo-paint
for Michelle H. Barnes.
She's hosting Poetry Friday this week
at Today's Little Ditty.

The poems I'm featuring today--Golden Shovels by Linda Baie, Michelle H. Barnes, and my poem based on a William Carlos Williams favorite--describe autumn in their imagery and tone.

I have to agree with Joy's (who blogs at Poetry for Kids) comment on last week's post. One of the biggest challenges in writing a Golden Shovel is dealing with line breaks. When the form requires ending on a word such as "from," "a," or "the," how does the poet make the line feel unforced? Not easy. Beginning with a haiku or other noun-rich poem, as Joy suggested, is good advice if you want to try a Golden Shovel.

Margaret Simon of Reflections on the Teche told me that poet Nikki Grimes ran a contest with this form. Although the contest is over, Grimes' explanation of the Golden Shovel is kid-friendly. Stop by her blog if you'd like to check it out and try it with your young writers.

Here is Linda Baie's contribution, followed by a few lines from her jumping-off poem, "Loss" by Carl Adamshick. Linda blogs at Teacher Dance.

The first line must be about the wind,
in October, I feel the lifting
of the trees, lighter now without the leaves,
slipping like babies turning from
the breast, into sleep, nestled in mother’s branches.

Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

Loss
by Carl Adamshick

It is nice to be without answers
at the end of summer.
Wind lifting leaves from branches.

The moment laid down like something
in childhood and forgotten, until later,
when stumbled upon, we think:
this is where it was lost.

Read the rest at the Academy of American Poets.

I'm amazed that Linda's poem has such a different feel from the original, even though she "found" a line of Adamshick's poem for her own piece, and both are set in autumn.

Michelle also chose a favorite line for the basis of her Golden Shovel. The words at the end of each line come from the third line of Adelaide Crapsey's "November Night." You can read "November Night" at the Poetry Foundation.

Fallen

Soft, mottled leaves, like
Grandma's hands, pause on the steps
at the threshold of 
memory. A subtle passing,
in, then out, like distant ghosts. 

© 2014 Michelle Heidenrich Barnes. All rights reserved.

I love the way the ghosts travel from Crapsey's poem into Michelle's original piece.

You can see me working overtime in my new Golden Shovel, trying to make the end-words feel natural. As a writing exercise, this stretched my thinking and took the poem to unexpected places.

Waterwheel
by Laura Shovan
after William Carlos Williams

Rain today, so

I’m not doing much.

Sad, how productivity depends

upon the weather. I put my feet up on

the hassock, read postcards signed by “A.”--

anonymous pen-pal, whose favorite ink is red.

Here is a card depicting a waterwheel

in Notogowa, another from the town of Barrow

in Alaska – photos glazed

with fingerprints of those they traveled with

to reach me in the rain.

These cards bear the mark of water,

smell of the perfume samples they sat beside

in my mailbox, nestled between the

magazines and a flock of dull envelopes, white

as a hen house full of chickens.

Funny... a white bird also appeared in my first Golden Shovel.  Enjoy William Carlos Williams reading, "The Red Wheelbarrow."

Ever since the 2013 Poetry Postcard project, I do have a friend with whom I exchange postcards. He's not anonymous and doesn't write in red ink, but, I'm always glad to receive a postcard from poet Charles Rammelkamp. (You can read about Charles' loves of postcards at this post from 2013.) The most recent one he sent was of Prince William, Duchess Kate Middleton, and Prince George. Maybe Charles remembered that my mother is British.

Poetry Friday: Lunar Eclipse

Wednesday morning, 5:15 am. My son groans when I turn on the light in the hall. My daughter begs for five more minutes of sleep. Hubby is already in the shower.

I have five minutes. Five minutes is not enough time to finish that chapter of my book (SKIN HUNGER, by Kathleen Duey) or go back to sleep. It is the perfect amount of time for checking Facebook.

Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
is too busy rounding up
Poetry Friday links to check Facebook.
When you have five minutes, stop by her blog.

Facebook is where how I found out about the lunar eclipse. Friends across the country were waking their children up early and heading outside to view the Earth's shadow pass across the moon. At our house, it was just another early school day.

But I put the kettle on, got out my star-gazing binoculars, and slipped outside while everyone else went about their morning. This is what I saw...

This week's eclipse was a Blood Moon,
named for its coppery color.
Photo: EarthSky.Org 

Before everyone left for school and work, a thin line of moon -- wearing its coppery cloak -- was setting, just above the dark tree line.

Later that day, I was reading the "Poetic Asides" column in Writer's Digest. Poet Terrance Hayes -- a recent MacArthur genius award winner -- has invented a new poetic from. Using a line or lines from a favorite poem, use each word (in the correct order) as an end word in your poem. It's called a golden shovel, named for Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "We Real Cool" -- the basis for a golden shovel poem written by Hayes.

Writing Prompt: Write a golden shovel of your own.
Post your poem in the comments (making note of the poet/title of the original) and I will round up all of our golden shovels next week.

I like what Writer's Digest columnist Robert Lee Brewer says about this form. He calls it "a fun mix of found poetry and pure invention."

To capture the slow eclipse in the midst of my family's busy morning, I used Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Moon," from A Child's Garden of Verses.

Here is my golden shovel, followed by Stevenson's poem. (The words of Stevenson's poem are in gray.)

Eclipse, 5 am

by Laura Shovan

After Robert Louis Stevenson

Dark October morning, the

Earth’s shadow sweeps the Moon,

dissolves its round cheeks until the Moon has

only an icy smile. Next, it is the sliver of a

snowy owl, mostly hidden, its white face

shrunk to one silver eyebrow. Cuplike,

it holds the Sun’s reflection in its feathers. The

owl swoops down when my kitchen clock

strikes six, finds its roost below the horizon. In

moments, sleepers will tumble down the

stairs, their school shoes clicking in the still-dark hall.

The Moon

by Robert Louis Stevenson

The moon has a face like the clock in the hall; She shines on thieves on the garden wall, On streets and fields and harbour quays, And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees. The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse, The howling dog by the door of the house, The bat that lies in bed at noon, All love to be out by the light of the moon. But all of the things that belong to the day Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way; And flowers and children close their eyes Till up in the morning the sun shall arise.

Poetry Friday: Introducing the Englyn

Writerly Friends, this week I started a third grade poetry residency. Third graders have a lot of questions about what it's like to have the job of "Poet."

This week's Poetry Friday host
is Julie Larios at The Drift Record.
Waft on over there to find
more poetry posts.

"Is it hard being a poet?" the third graders ask.

I ask how many of them play instruments, or sing, or play sports. Hands fill the air.

I ask how many of them practice. Most hands stay up.

"Poets practice their skills, just like when you do drills for soccer, or play scales on the piano," I tell them.

One of my favorite poetry drills is trying new forms. Last month, when we were doing the Pantone Poetry Project, Mike Ratcliffe shared an englyn -- a form poem from Wales. I asked Mike to come back today and tell us more about this poetic form.

Ready for a great history lesson, poets?

http://www.welt-atlas.de/map_of_wales_1-444

Englynion:  Short Form Poems from Wales

by Michael Ratcliffe

When most of us think of short poems with rules governing form and number of syllables, we likely think of Japanese forms, such as haiku and tanka. Welsh poetry has its own short form in the englyn (pronounced “ehn-glin;” plural englynion).

There are eight types of englynion, which you can read about at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englyn/.

The most commonly used is the englyn unodl union (“ehn-glin i-no-duhl in-yon”)—the straight, one-rhyme englyn. This consists of four lines of ten, six, seven, and seven syllables, respectively. The seventh, eighth, or ninth syllable of the first line introduces the primary rhyme, which then appears at the end of each successive line. In addition, the end of the first line should rhyme or alliterate with words in the first half of the second line.

To illustrate, here is the englyn I wrote for Laura’s Pantone Poetry Project:

Morning sky, porcelain blue—new March snow—

we know winter’s not through.

Spring awaits daffodil’s cue

to return with Beltaine’s hue.

Englynion were one of the three categories of poems that the Welsh bard was expected to learn and master, cywyddau (pronounced “cuh-wuh-thah,” consisting of a series of rhymed couplets) and awdlau (odes) being the other two.

These three categories encompassed 24 metrical forms, each with rules specifying the number of lines, syllables per line, end rhymes, internal rhyming, and alliteration. Welsh poetry’s rules relating to internal rhyming, alliteration, assonance, consonance, and accent within a line are known as cynghanedd (cuhn-gha-neth—the double “d” in Welsh sounds like the “th” in “the” or “then”).

As with other Celtic cultures, poets occupied a high position within Welsh society. No self-respecting “Great Man” in Welsh society (at least until the 17^th century when the nobility became more Anglicized) would be without his household bard to compose elegies, maintain the genealogy, and entertain. Poets were part of the professional class, generally drawn from the upper levels of society. The training of a professional poet in Wales took years and required development of skill in the 24 metrical forms.

My englyn above, while adhering to the basic rules, does not display cynghanedd throughout. A better example is the following by Howell Elvet Lewis, Gobaith Dibrofiad (Life’s Morning). Lewis uses “ai” for the internal rhymes.  The fourth line provides a nice example of alliteration with the near “mirror image” sounds in blodau (Welsh for “flower”) and bladur (“blade”), the use of “d” throughout the line, and the “y” (“the” in Welsh) preceding blade and bladur.

GOBAITH DIBROFIAD (LIFE’S MORNING)

Bore oes—O! mor brysur—y gwibia

Gobaith ar ei antur:

Canai lai pe gwelai gur

Y blodau dan y bladur

Life’s morning—O, how quickly fleets

Hope on its adventure:

It would sing less if it saw the pain

Of the flower beneath the scythe.

(The Welsh original of this poem, as well as the poem below, is from the Oxford Book of Welsh Verse; English translations from the Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English.  For a guide to pronouncing Welsh, see https://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/fun/welsh/Lesson01.html.)

Unlike haiku, there are relatively few examples of englynion written in English. Some have suggested that this is due to the difficulties of transferring the rules of cynghanedd, developed as they were for writing in Welsh, to English.

Or, perhaps it is due to the relative inaccessibility of Welsh to English speakers and readers, as well as the historical lack of interaction between the two cultures’ literary traditions stemming, in part, from English attempts to relegate Welsh to second class status, and Welsh nationalists’ use of the language to set themselves apart from the English.

We’ll end with an englyn by Walter Davies (1761-1849; wrote under the bardic name Gwallter Mechain).

Walter Davies, by Hugh Hughes, @1830

As with haiku, an englyn may offer a seemingly simple image from which the reader may derive deeper meaning. Davies’ englyn may simply be about nightfall over the mountainous region of North Wales, known in Welsh as Eryri (Snowdonia in English).

Dolwyddelan Castle
(built by Llywellyn the Great,
Prince of Gwynedd and North Wales)

But, because Eryri was the stronghold of the last native princes of Wales, perhaps the nightfall, the mists veiling the mountains, the sun sinking into a bed of brine, speaks of the conquest of Wales by England and a culture quietly in a remote region. Or, perhaps that’s just my Welsh heritage pushing me to read more into the poem than is really there.

CYFNOS (NIGHTFALL)

Y nos dywell yn distewi—caddug

Yn cuddio Eryri,

Yr Haul yng ngwely’r heli,

A’r lloer yn ariannu’r lei.

Silence brought by the dark night: Eryri’s

Mountains veiled by mist:

The sun in the bed of brine,

The moon silvering the water.

Mike at Caernarfon Castle

Michael Ratcliffe is a geographer whose academic studies in the history and geography of Wales led him to delve into the country's rich poetic tradition.  Michael also is a poet; his work has appeared most recently in Commonthought Magazine and forthcoming in Deep South Magazine.  He can be found on-line at skiminocycle.blogspot.com.  He lives in North Laurel, MD with his wife and three sons.

Here is a short performance of Celtic music, introduced with the recitation of an englyn.

National Poetry Month 2013: Sonnets -- Old Form, New Technology

Darlings, are we ever in for a treat in the TechnoVerse today. Moira Egan -- one half of the spicy duo behind HOT SONNETS -- is with us today.

(The other half, poet Clarinda Harriss, will join us next week to talk about mis-texting.)

Poet Moira Egan is a Baltimore native, now living in Rome.

If poetic form's got you in a funk, Moira has the answer: an app to soothe your sonnet sorrows. After this post, you'll have iambs mastered faster than you can say kerPLUNK.

Sonnets? There’s an App for That!

Just as Shakespeare and the great sonneteers were expert at mixing the high and the low, this introduction to sonnets is going to mix technology with old-school, hands-on fun.

image borrowed from The Poetry Foundation [poetryfoundation.org],
another terrific online source for all things poetry!

So, let’s get started on our sonnet adventure.

Yes, there really is an app for that!

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare iPad App

http://www.touchpress.com/titles/shakespeares-sonnets/

You will be expecting wonderful performances from Patrick Stewart (oh, that voice); Dominic West (we always believed him when he said that McNulty was smarter than the average cop); and actor/poetry-guide author Stephen Fry. But you might be surprised by the sonnets read by Kim Cattrall, Sex and the City’s smart, sexy Samantha, or develop a little crush (who, me?) on rising-star, Nigerian-Scottish actor Tunji Kasim. Enjoy – this app includes all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence.  

After immersing yourself in the rhymes and rhythms of these poems, you might – and this happens to the best of us – accidentally find yourself speaking in iambic pentameter, or thinking of words that rhyme with life and love and art and breath. Beware! This little Shakespeare finger puppet from the Unemployed Philosophers’ Guild makes a fine companion on your journey into these rhymed and metered realms:

The Unemployed Philosopher's Guild has amazing gifts for your literary pals, like...

Mr. Poe, who often accompanies Author Amok to elementary schools.

Ever the actor, he will take away your self-consciousness as you recite classic lines such as “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate” or “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.”

http://www.upgnation.com/William-Shakespeare-Finger-Puppet.html#!prettyPhoto/0/a

Then, you might – and this happens to the best of us – get the irresistible urge to write sonnets of your own. Fear not! Even if you have never written a sonnet before, there are fun and painless ways in to what may seem like a complicated process, a terrifying verse form. And it might even be entertaining.

Have you ever thought about what people did for entertainment, sitting around after dinner, before Apps, before iTunes, before DVDs and VCRs and TVs and radios and telephones and horses and … oh my god we’ve just landed in the Dark Ages!

The sonnet had its start in the 13^th Century courts of Sicily, where people loved their olive oil, behaved in a courtly manner, and appreciated increasingly complex poetic forms as evening entertainment as they sat around the grand fireplace, sipping very strong red wine. Meanwhile, wandering troubadours began to spread out, predating even Peter Mayle in Provence and environs, inventing ever more exotic verse forms in order to keep their patrons happy (and to make sure that their invitations were extended and they could stay in the big house and enjoy that good green olive oil and the strong red wine just a little bit longer).

this is Agnolo Bronzino’s portrait of Laura Bettiferri from around 1560

But sooner or later, the troubadours would have to move on to the next big house, leaving the noble denizens to their own, post-prandial devices. What would these nobles do for fun, without the slightly tipsy yet ever-so-creative Bard “singing” his own songs to them? Well, maybe they could steal his end rhymes and make up their own sonnets! This little pastime is called bouts-rimés, which in the French means “rhymed ends” because that is exactly what you have stolen. (Good poets borrow. Great poets steal. Let’s aim for “stolen”!)

And just because this became a popular pastime in the 17^th century doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy it today. Pick a card, any card:

Yes, this accessory is a deck of 48 cards, each of which features one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. (And by now you have begun to appreciate the abject geekiness with which the author loves her sonnets!)

So, pick a card, any card.

http://www.shakespearesden.com/shakespeare-sonnets-knowledge-cards.html

Ah, there we have it, one of my favorites:

Sonnet 138

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearnèd in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be. 

* * *

Thank you, Mr. Shakes, for laying it out so honestly! And please don’t mind if I steal your rhyme words, which, in this case, are: 

/	x	/	x	/	x	/	x	/	x	RHYME SCHEME
									truth	A
									lies	B
									youth	A
							sub	tle	ties	B
									young	C
									best	D
									tongue	C
								sup	pressed	D
								un	just	E
									old	F
									trust	E
									told	F
									me	G
									be	G

Please note that you should fill in only the last block if the end word has one syllable; if it has two, you fill in the last two; if three, the last three, etc.

Now you have not only the skeleton of your sonnet, in this case a Shakespearean or Elizabethan one, but a little bit of the musculature as well. In the game of bouts-rimés, it’s your challenge to write the lines that lead up to those end words. The sentence doesn’t have to end where the line ends; it’s often even better if the sentence wraps around onto the next line. That’s called enjambment, which is one of a sonneteer’s best friends.

If this is your first time ever writing a sonnet, I encourage you to be as concrete and specific as you can. Even if you write about love, loss, death, or art, or any huge topic, be clear, avoid abstract nouns, and by all means, have fun. Feel free, too, to make your first sonnet utterly goofy, to the point of writing something that’s going to make you laugh for the rest of your days. Here are two blank sonnet maps to use for your own adventures, whether serious or silly.

Map of a Sonnet (Shakespearean)

/	x	/	x	/	x	/	x	/	x	RHYME SCHEME
										A
										B
										A
										B
										C
										D
										C
										D
										E
										F
										E
										F
										G
										G

Or if you like things Italian, you may use this rhyme scheme, one of several Petrarchan possibilities:

Map of a Sonnet (Petrarchan)

/	x	/	x	/	x	/	x	/	x	RHYME SCHEME
										A
										B
										B
										A
										A
										B
										B
										A
										C
										D
										E
										C
										D
										E

Now, about that iambic pentameter. Meter is one of the hardest things to hear, and to reproduce. [We looked at meter on Friday when April Halprin Wayland took us to visit RhymeWeaver.com.] If you’re a first-time sonneteer, just give the meter a go, but don’t sprain your ankles trying to get the perfect feet.

Follow the bouncing /’s and x’s, / for unaccented, and x for accented syllables:

/x /x /x /x /x

baDUM baDUM baDUM baDUM baDUM

Here are (and hear!) some classic iambic pentameter lines:

i LOVE to HEAR her SPEAK but WELL I KNOW…

if MUsic BE the FOOD of LOVE, play ON…

i WALKED aCROSS the ROOM to SHUT the DOOR.

We HOPE we HOPE we HOPE you HAVE some FUN.

So, where were we? Right. At this point, (full disclosure) the author would like to confess that she is, in fact, the author of some 100 sonnets; the co-editor (with Clarinda Harriss) of Hot Sonnets, a century’s worth of juicy sonnets by various sonneteers, living and dead; and she is about to publish yet another collection of her own work whose title includes the word “Sonnets.”

From Entasis Press.

That said, she would like to share with you her very own bouts-rimés, written with great fondness for the students who kept asking if they could read the sonnets she was working on at the time. In fact, the first part of the answer was no, they could not. So, with all due apologies to Mr Shakespeare for having switched the end rhymes of his couplet, the rest of that answer goes like this:

(Though poets lie in service of the truth

and fiction’s simply truth tricked out in lies,

what do I tell my students, whose sweet youth

does not allow for gritty subtleties?

That I commit the crimes of one still young

and too immortal to obey what’s best

for organs such as liver, heart, and tongue?

I keep my wild-hair story-box suppressed

(I love my kids) and though I feel unjust

I hope they’ll understand me when they’re old

enough to see that love’s a blinding trust

that lives, or doesn’t, once the lie’s been told.

Therefore I lie to them, so I can be

a part of them, and yet hold on to me.)

Bar Napkin Sonnet #8

from Bar Napkin Sonnets (The Ledge Chapbook Competition, 2009)

and from Spin (Entasis Press, 2010)

So get yourself that awesome sonnet app

and listen to those fab and sexy sonnets,

and then get out your handy sonnet map

and rhyme and play and make magic upon it…

I admit to being pro-sonnet, but I appreciate the form even more now that I know some of its history. Thanks, Moira!

Moira Egan was born and bred in Baltimore. Her poetry collections are Cleave (WWPH, 2004); Bar Napkin Sonnets (The Ledge, 2008); La Seta della Cravatta/The Silk of the Tie (Edizioni l'Obliquo, 2009) Spin (Entasis Press, 2010, for whom she also co-edited Hot Sonnets,  2011).  Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2008 and The Book of Forms Including Odd and Invented Forms. Egan lives in Rome, where she and her husband, renowned literary translator Damiano Abeni, are rabid Ravens fans [CAW!] She visits Baltimore whenever she can, and is looking forward to reading from her Hot Flash Sonnets (forthcoming in June from Passager Books passagerbooks.com)

I need some fresh air after all that sonnet hotness. Luckily, poet Greg Luce is taking us out for some fresh air tomorrow. He'll be guiding us through the Poetry Foundation's poetic Washington, DC walking tour podcast.