Poetic
I prefer prose to poetry. It is far more versatile and can be just as expressive. However I do get the inclination to produce short verse very occasionally. Possibly once per annum? And it will come on at short notice. I devised this during lunch at work the other day following a rather late weeknight spent with friends.
Pancake powered conversation
Lemon and honey with butter then port
Solving the problems of the whole planet
Sleeping is always our last resort
This is as much poetry as I can produce at any one sitting. Anything longer is rare. Yet I hope it gives a sense of what I had experienced and is celebratory of the kind of good life I feel my friends enjoy. There is something in its vibe that is reminiscent for me of the B52s song Deadbeat Club (yes I am citing silly pop music in a post on poetry).
The unusual thing with this poem is that it has nothing to do with the two topics that have provoked all my poetry over the last several years. One is my medieval fantasy setting, The Lands, which I have written short poetry for to provide the world with a bit of texture. Fantasy worlds need some things to make them seem well-rounded - maps are one and poetry is another.
The other provocation for poetry in me is intimate relations. Somehow the format of poetry helps me to process such intense experiences. However such writing is also rather personal so I feel is best left offline. Mind you there is one thing of mine that conveniently fits into both boxes in that it is set in the former but mimics the feel of the latter. I shall reproduce the entirely fictional The Selkie here:
The stranger came in need of shelter
I welcomed him that sunset hour
He partook of my open larder
And more we shared in bed together
At dawn I rose to find him gone
My jewels I'd lost yet still I'm warm
This is hardly anything good. As I say - I do this rarely. But I do deem it a bit of fun. Do you think this is worth entering into a poetry slam? Take a look here if you want some background on my Selkie of The Lands.
Pancake powered conversation
Lemon and honey with butter then port
Solving the problems of the whole planet
Sleeping is always our last resort
This is as much poetry as I can produce at any one sitting. Anything longer is rare. Yet I hope it gives a sense of what I had experienced and is celebratory of the kind of good life I feel my friends enjoy. There is something in its vibe that is reminiscent for me of the B52s song Deadbeat Club (yes I am citing silly pop music in a post on poetry).
The unusual thing with this poem is that it has nothing to do with the two topics that have provoked all my poetry over the last several years. One is my medieval fantasy setting, The Lands, which I have written short poetry for to provide the world with a bit of texture. Fantasy worlds need some things to make them seem well-rounded - maps are one and poetry is another.
The other provocation for poetry in me is intimate relations. Somehow the format of poetry helps me to process such intense experiences. However such writing is also rather personal so I feel is best left offline. Mind you there is one thing of mine that conveniently fits into both boxes in that it is set in the former but mimics the feel of the latter. I shall reproduce the entirely fictional The Selkie here:
The stranger came in need of shelter
I welcomed him that sunset hour
He partook of my open larder
And more we shared in bed together
At dawn I rose to find him gone
My jewels I'd lost yet still I'm warm
This is hardly anything good. As I say - I do this rarely. But I do deem it a bit of fun. Do you think this is worth entering into a poetry slam? Take a look here if you want some background on my Selkie of The Lands.
Labels: Creative Writing
posted by Dan at
25.2.12
3 Comments:
Dear Daniel,
I liked your first poem--- it stuck in my head a little--- so please forgive me for taking of the liberty of remixing it:
Pancake powered conversation
lemon honey butter port
dissolving problems of the planet
sleeping is our last resort
(I think your last line reminded me of the line I (mis)remembered as 'miles to go before I sleep', from a Robert Frost poem--- so I wanted all the other lines to be so short oo--- I misremembered it because it is really 'AND miles to go...' -- which makes it longer anyway....)
julie
By
jc, At
28 February, 2012
Thanks for remixing my poem. I particularly like the implication that those foodstuffs mixed together can dissolve problems.
By
Dan, At
01 March, 2012
I'm copying and pasting comments to this same post from LiveJournal (complete with messy formatting text). See below...
From: nitedula
Date: February 25th, 2012 07:28 pm (local)
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With the Selkie one, I'd drop the middle two lines - unnecessary, I think, and not as good as the other four. Though to my mind it could do with a clearer rhyme scheme, I like the wording. (Everyone's a critic...)
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From: originaluddite
Date: February 27th, 2012 10:10 pm (local)
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If one put things on the net publicly then one must expect criticism.
I wonder is it the content or the technical aspects of the middles lines you feel are unnecessary? I feel that they are a part of the story-telling and possibly that is important for me taken within the context of setting it was written for.
I must admit I am vague on issues of rhyme and metre, and will say more on that to the comment below...
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From: nitedula
Date: February 28th, 2012 06:45 am (local)
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What I mean is that you don't need to say "we went to bed", because it's implied by the fact that she woke to find him gone and she still feels warm. So the middle two lines are, to me, unnecessarily blunt. But as I say, I like the wording.
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From: originaluddite
Date: February 28th, 2012 12:21 pm (local)
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I get what you are saying and agree that it would work even with "camera pans to the fireplace". I think the thing I like is having the word "larder" there and the association of food-sharing with sex.
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From: tigerdenbodu
Date: February 26th, 2012 02:52 pm (local)
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I agree with nitedula about poem 2. I wonder if you consciously think about the rhythms of the lines when you write poetry. The first one has quite different rhythms on each line, with the third one being the most awkward; it's as though you are almost but not quite increasing the number of weak syllables per strong syllable (2 to 3 to 4), which would be an interesting idea for a poem structure. Maybe the third line should become "Solving all the problems of the whole da da da planet", where "da da da" represents three weak syllables.
I guess I'm very aware of rhythms of words, since the only thing I normally do that resembles poetry is lyrics, and there the rhythm becomes a strong feature of the line, with a verse's rhythmic structure dictating future verses so the same melody can be set for all verses.
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From: originaluddite
Date: February 27th, 2012 10:15 pm (local)
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I think I have internalized some of the rules of our culture regarding poetry structure but it is far from perfect and I only think of such things begrudgingly as I am drafting a poem. There do seem to be some patterns however. I seem to do four-line or six-line verses. I often use off-rhymes. The best poem I ever did lacked any rhyme at all (but it is one of those more private writings). As for timing or rhythm I will tend to read something aloud and mess slightly with the duration of words and spaces such that it feels better. Maybe if I did more of this I would need to give more attention to the technicalities.
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By
Dan, At
09 May, 2017
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