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Storm-Tossed Ships
Wrecked on a Rocky Coast
Johann Christoph
Dietzsch
German, 1710-1769
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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I write this challenge post as
thousands of Floridians and Carolinians await Dorian’s decision on where to
make landfall as a category 4 (or worse?) storm. It seems appropriate that the
September challenge be related to storms.
Some storms are devastating. What the
winds don’t destroy, subsequent flooding may take. Other storms are milder or
shorter in length. A sudden burst of thunder, lightning and rain may cool off a
hot afternoon, even as it fixes needed nitrogen in the soil.
William Cullen Bryant, an American poet who lived from 1794-1878,
wrote about a hurricane:
The
Hurricane
LORD
of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;
Silent, and slow, and terribly strong,
The mighty shadow is borne along,
Like the dark eternity to come;
While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.
They darken fast—and the golden blaze
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray—
A glare that is neither night nor day,
A beam that touches, with hues of death,
The clouds above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,
While the hurricane's distant voice is heard,
Uplifted among the mountains round,
And the forests hear and answer the sound.
He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!—
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale;
How his huge and writhing arms are bent,
To clasp the zone of the firmament,
And fold, at length, in their dark embrace,
From mountain to mountain the visible space.
Darker—still darker! the whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air:
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where'er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.
What roar is that?—'tis the rain that breaks,
In torrents away from the airy lakes,
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,
And shedding a nameless horror round,
Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies,
With the very clouds!—ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
A whirling ocean that fills the wall
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all.
And I, cut off from the world, remain
Alone with the terrible hurricane.
~ William Cullen Bryant
Another American poet, one who was born when Bryant was about 36 years old and preceded him in death, wrote several
poems regarding storms. Here is one:
26
There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom's electric moccason
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom's electric moccason
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!
~ Emily Dickinson
NOTE: This poem was set to music by
Aaron Copeland. Also, Dickinson did not title her poems; she only numbered
them.
The following poem is from my
collection:
A Pequod
Sailor Speaks
The
Atlantic rolling onto the sandy shores
of
Nantucket, piping plovers and screeching gulls,
oysters
and crabs in the inlets,
rising
sun painting pastel wrinkles
on
ever-moving water—
this
was nature as I loved it
in
my boyhood.
Broken
masts, bereft wives
and
fatherless children
tell
another story of the sea.
Still,
I can’t resist the challenge
to
prove my manhood
and
test my nature against
the
earth’s salty liquid overcoat.
At
first it is easy.
We
float through languid days
on
indolent trade winds under skies
blue
as Nantucket violets.
When
I watch the sun set, coloring
the
infinite spread of fluid ribbons,
I
drift into meditative silence.
Sudden
winds bellow, curdle foam.
Sword-sharp,
they rip the sails, shriek
and
break the mast. Lightning stabs
billowing
water. The ocean I love bares its teeth,
opens
its jaws, eager to swallow ship and crew.
The
turncoat sea leaps over the bulwarks,
Judas,
kissing the captain.
~ Wilda Morris
From Pequod Poems: Gamming with Moby-Dick (Kelsay Books, 2019).
Available for purchase at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Pequod+Poems&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss.
You can read
other storm poems at:
The September Challenge:
Write
about a storm. It might be a monsoon, a hurricane, or one of those little
outbursts (such as those that inspired the storm music in the “Grand Canyon
Suite” by Ferde Grofé). It could be a metaphor. Be creative; take the prompt in
a unique direction if you can.
Your
poem may be free verse or formal. If you use a form, please identify the form
when you submit your poem.
Title
your poem unless it is a form that does not use titles (don’t follow Emily Dickinson's practice on that!). Single-space. Note that the blog format does
not accommodate long lines; if they are used, they have to be broken in two,
with the second part indented (as in the poem “Lilith,” one of the November
2018 winners), or the post has to use small print.
You
may submit a published poem if you retain
copyright, but please include publication data. This applies to poems
published in books, journals, newspapers, or on the Internet.
The
deadline is September 15. Poems submitted after the deadline will not
be considered. There is no charge to enter, so there are no monetary rewards;
however, winners are published on this blog. Please don’t stray too far from
“family-friendly” language (some children and teens read this blog). No
simultaneous submissions, please. You should know by the end of the month
whether or not your poem will be published. Decision of the judge or judges is
final.
The
poet retains copyright on each poem. If a previously unpublished poem wins and
is published elsewhere later, please give credit to this blog. I do not
register copyright with the US copyright office, but by US law, the copyright
belongs to the writer unless the writer assigns it to someone else.
If
the same poet wins three months in a row (which has not happened thus far), he
or she will be asked not to submit the following two months.
How
to Submit Your Poem:
Send one poem only to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for “dot”). Put “September Poetry Challenge Submission” in the subject line of your email. Include a brief bio that can be printed with your poem if you are a winner this month. Please put your name and bio UNDER the poem in your email. If the poem has been published before, please put that information UNDER the poem also. NOTE: If you sent your poem to my other email address, or do not use the correct subject line, the poem may get lost and not be considered for publication.
Send one poem only to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for “dot”). Put “September Poetry Challenge Submission” in the subject line of your email. Include a brief bio that can be printed with your poem if you are a winner this month. Please put your name and bio UNDER the poem in your email. If the poem has been published before, please put that information UNDER the poem also. NOTE: If you sent your poem to my other email address, or do not use the correct subject line, the poem may get lost and not be considered for publication.
If
you submitted a poem on this theme in July, you may revise and resubmit your
poem, or submit another poem, if you wish.
Submission
of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog if it is a
winner, so be sure that you put your name (exactly as you would like it to
appear if you do win) at the end of
the poem.
Poems
may be pasted into an email or sent as an attachment (Doc, Docx, rich text or
plain text; no pdf files, please). Please
do not indent the poem or center it on the page. It helps if you submit the poem in the format used on the blog
(Title and poem left-justified; title in bold (not all in capital letters);
your name at the bottom of the poem). Also, please do not use multiple spaces
instead of commas in the middle of lines. I have no problem with poets using
that technique (I sometimes do it myself). However I have difficulty getting
the blog to accept and maintain extra spaces.
Poems
shorter than 40 lines are generally preferred but longer poems will be
considered.
©
Wilda Morris