January 2010 Poetry Challenge

During the December holidays there is a lot of focus on children, which causes many people to think back on their own childhood. Some people have a Disneyesque view of childhood, as if it were all fun and play. I’ve always know that is not the case, but the truth was pounded into me one day when I was leading a workshop for a small group of persons working with children in their churches. I asked the participants to think quietly about one time or space in their childhood when or where they felt especially happy, safe, warm and loved. One man became very morose. When it came time to share, he said that he realized during those quiet moments that there had never been a time in his childhood when he felt really happy and safe in his own home. He had to place his young self mentally in a friend’s home to find a safe and warm spot. I fear that there are many people who can identify with his experience.

My own childhood was a more normal mixture of happy and unhappy experiences. There were members of my family whose love I never doubted—and a missing father whom I never knew and of whom I have only one traumatic memory. There was the apple tree where I had my own special branch—and occasionally switches broken off to be used when I was naughty. There was a lengthy separation from my older sister and my grandparents (in whose home I lived)—with the resulting adventure of six months in New York where Mother helped care for cousins and my uncle did rounds of the neighborhood when there were brown-outs due to World War II. There were good childhood friends as well as teachers at church and at Longfellow School in Iowa City who took a special interest in me—and a few boys who bullied me.

One of the wonderful things about poetry is that all these experiences, both the good ones and the bad ones, can inspire us to write. Writing can help us re-experience the good times and heal from the painful ones.

Here is a poem based on one of my powerful childhood memories, the first time I was allowed to go to the neighborhood store alone. It was an experience from which I learned an important lesson about people.

Neighbor

I squeezed the loaf of bread tighter,
as tears burned a path down my
dirty cheeks. Here I was,
in the middle of the block,
on the right side of the street,
exactly where my house should be.
But it was not. What evil magic
had changed the world?
Where was my home, with Grandmother
waiting for bread? My head
turned to the ground. I shrank,
my wails now larger than I.

Hearing something, I looked
through the fog of tears
and there you were.
You - the wolf who ate
Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother,
Peter, Peter who kept his wife
in a pumpkin shell, the witch
who tried to push Hansel in the oven.
I'd known who you were since I was four!
If I peeked between lilac bushes
and saw you in your garden, I would run.
Fridays, I saw taxi drivers bring you home,
help you stagger to the door.
I heard your wife crying in the night,
your son's shrieks, saw welts
and bruises next day - and his eyes.

And here you were.
You knelt, and with a tender voice
I'd never heard you use,
asked, What's the matter, Billye?
How could you understand the words
I sputtered, saying I was lost?

And yet you did. And with one hand
lightly on my shoulder, the other
pointing, said, Look,
you can see your house from here.
I bolted across the weedy field,
still clutching the bread,
not saying thank you.

Wilda Morris

Published in Prairie Light Review XXIX:2 (Spring 2009), p. 6.

Helen Degen Cohen recently published her book, habry, a memoir in poetry of growing up Jewish in Eastern Europe during a frightful time in history. Her father was a barber, which gives hair special metamorphic significance, even as it brings back tactile memories. In this powerful and poignant poem, she braids father, mother and child, head hair and underarm hair, into one family. The poem combines realism with something somewhat mysterious, which represents well the fact that often a child intuits the fact that something important is happening, but doesn’t know or understand what is going on.

Here is what the poet herself says regarding this poem and the book it appears in: “First of all, many Habry poems were inspired by my writing of the novel, The Edge of the Field, several pieces of which were published (with awards) over the years (the latest in Where We Find Ourselves in 2009) -- poems wafted up AS I was writing that book decades ago. “Hair” is one of those concrete, tactile, and I'd say physical/emotional more-than-images, about which many writers (including myself) have written. For me it had an added meaning, given that my father was a barber all his life and through the war. It actually helped to save our lives. Ah, but there was more (there always is): he said he married my mother because of her ‘red hair’.”

If your mother braided your hair, or if you ever curled up in the arms of your father, smelling his underarm hair, you will find this poem especially moving!


Hair
For Joseph and Bella, on the eve of War

That is my pale, orange mother
Crinkling the pert panienka’s hair.
Her own, an abandon of warm silk
To and fro. Then it fades away.

Sometimes she braids my hair into circles
And hums, as if ours were a place for humming.
What is it mothers know?
What is she braiding into my hair?

The sun is shining. There’s a bird in the window,
There are voices in the street, in our old village, there is
Darkness around us, yet everything is bright,
Stars seem to shine through the very daylight.

My father’s hurt eyes come closer,
Closer, he takes me into his arms.
I lie beside the fragrance of his underarm
Hair, his warm, moist turnings, the stars.

Soon I will be almost five years old.
And still, what I know hides behind the star.
So said the gypsy, long ago,
Your father the barber is going to war.

Up and back he walks, to the door.
He carries me on his back, we laugh,
And still, curled in his eyes are ghosts.
He touches my crib, my toes, my ear,

Knowing that without me there will be no world,
No scissors, no long black combs, no hair,
No brown strap to carry the razor
Up and back, up and back.

Up and back, he walks to the door,
The gypsies stirring the hair on the floor

And that is my pale orange mother
Suddenly trying to fade away.
She braids her humming into my hair,
Her silence into my wild hair.

Helen Degen Cohen(Halina Degenfisz)

Habry
(Chicago: The Puddin’Head Press, 2009), pp. 8-9.

Helen Degen Cohen has also just published another highly regarded book of poetry, On a Good Day One Discovers Another Poet



JANUARY CHALLENGE:

The challenge for January is to think about your childhood and write a poem about a particularly poignant memory (happy, sad, scary, or whatever you come up with). You may, of course, take poetic license and change names, details, locations, and so on. Let the memory lead you into poetry and let the poem take you where it will. The poem, however, must be based on your own childhood, not a reflection on childhood in general, or on other children.

In addition to the poems above, you may draw inspiration from "My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Winslow" by Robert Lowell (In his Selected Poems: Expanded Edition: Including selections from Day by Day), “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas (n The Poems of Dylan Thomas, New Revised Edition [with CD]). Christopher Merrill’s poem “Childhood,” has an interesting combination of realistic detail and more emotional (and mysterious) content. You can find the poem in his book, Watch Fire.

You may use a form (label it as a sonnet, triolet, or whatever), or write in free verse. Poems of 40 or fewer lines have a better chance of being selected. I still have not figured out how to post shaped poems or poems with indents, so it is best to submit a poem with every line starting on the left margin. The winning poem or poems will be posted before the end of January. Sign your poem with your name as you would like it to appear on the blog if you are a winner. Winners retain rights to their own poems. Send your poem to me at wildamorris [at] Ameritech[dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces. Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure to give me your e-mail address so I can respond.

Challenge Deadline: January 15, 2010.

©2010 Wilda Morris

December Challenge Winner

There were several good attempts at providing advice for the new year: advice to a husband, to a nephew, and to people in general. The winning poem describes life through a series of metaphors: a movie in fast-forward, musical chairs, a tunnel, and so on. The judges weren’t totally convinced by the title and end line, but nevertheless, the poem offers some good advice. Congratulations to Jason Sturner for submitting the following poem:


Trout Swimming Upstream for Nickels & Dimes

The world outside my window
moves like someone hit fast-forward
and broke off the pause button.

We race for our seats
on musical chair mornings,
jump in the ring with clocks.

But today my soul pinched me,
woke me up with a beautiful, simple idea,
and I'm here to share.

My friends,
one word
foraged
into a sword—

"Enough!"

Like drought in a rose garden,
like sour on a sweet kiss:

We tolerate too much,
we tunnel drive through life;
each of us holding an entire world on our shoulders.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We can spread our arms, ride the wind, enjoy life.
Remind ourselves that money is not air,
that computers will never hug us.

So write a list of things you love,
things that make life good for you.
And tape it to your forehead if you must.

For a daily pinch is a daily reminder
that you're NOT a fish
swimming upstream for peanuts.

Jason Sturner

The consulting judge this month was Beth Staas, President of Poets and Patrons of Chicago. There is a link to the Poets and Patrons Website on this blog (upper right).

Watch for a new poetry challenge to be posted on or near the first of January.

Happy New Year!

December Poetry Challenge

According to the calendar most widely used in the Western world, a new year will begin on January 1. Traditionally New Year’s Day has been a time for celebrating and for making resolutions. The two poems below, both by Wisconsin writers, are not written as resolutions; they provide advice to others as they begin the new year.

This Year ...

Borrow from the Universe
an elixir of choice.
Interpret your dreams
as Daniel did for Nebuchadnezzar.
Startle your partner
with open mouth kisses.
Memorize poems and
think in foreign phonemes.
Shake the shoulders of silence
while you deadhead the dianthus.
Harvest forgiveness and
bundle the benefits of doubt.
Crumble purple lavender
into an alchemy.
Coax the bell of morning glories
to ring mid-afternoon.
Clap the hens from the
cool weather garden.
Feel the flesh of words
as you pray without ceasing.

Jenna Rindo

First published in Free Verse.


Jenna Rindo suggests that we have choices in how we meet the new year--why would one give advice if one did not believe that? Alliteration, assonance, interesting images and Biblical allusions enrich her poem. The juxtapositions of lines (such as moving from interpreting your dreams to startling your partner) are interesting. Beginning with the ninth line, Rindo uses a lot of gardening (or farming) imagery.


All Year Long

This year as the world comes apart…bit by bit
day after day…give your heart away
remembering that the watered-down light
of the moon is stronger than darkness

This year when the lines in your face outnumber
those in the palm of your hand or the ones
you meant to put on paper…do not have them notarized

When the lock on your door finally gives out
and everyone comes to sleep in your living room
turn over the deed for your house to the first one
willing to make coffee or a pot of soup

This year when you plant your garden…hold the seeds
carefully in the womb of your mouth…Spit them
one by one into the welcoming earth in the name
of everything you have done or failed to do

This year as the world becomes larger and you shrink
to the size of the small winter sapling in your backyard
know that the skeletons of trees still hold the breath
of your grandmother and need no disclaimer.

Ellen Kort

Wisconsin Poet’s Calendar: 1999, edited by Yvette Viets Flaten (Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, 1998), p. 125.


Ellen Kort, who was the first poet laureate of Wisconsin, generally does not use punctuation. She substitutes extra spaces where other poets might use periods, commas or dashes in the middle of a line. Unfortunately, blogspot will not print extra spaces, so Kort gave me permission to substitute the dots.

Kort’s poem seems to assume that, to some extent at least, the world will come apart. Indeed, all of us experience disappointment, loss, and even tragedy, often through no fault of our own. We have no choice about that. But Kort, like Rindo, reminds us that we can choose how to respond, and find meaning in our lives as we give our hearts away. This idea provides a central focus for the poem.

“All Year Long” has rich metaphors and images. It makes excellent use of repetition, without overdoing it (note that the third stanza – the one in the middle – does not use the repeated phrase “This year”). Kort also makes good use of comparisons: “the watered-down / light of the moon” is compared with darkness; the number of lines on your face versus those on your palm; the world growing as you shrink. There is also the juxtaposition at the end of the fourth stanza of “everything you have done” with what you have failed to do.

December Poetry Challenge

After reading these poems, I’m determined to coax those morning glory bells to ring—and to appreciate “watered-down light.” I’m also wondering what advice I might offer to others, advice that might make help 2010 a memorable year.

The December poetry challenge is to write a poem of advice for the new year. It may be advice for anyone who might read it, advice to a particular group (department store clerks; members of a sports team; poets or novelists; students at your school or those with whom you work; all the members of your church, mosque, synagogue or temple; etc.) or individual (such as your spouse or children, or a new-born). Or perhaps you could combine the New Year’s resolution idea with the advice idea, and write advice for yourself. You may use a form (other than a shaped poem, considering that blogspot doesn’t accommodate the needed spaces) or free verse. Your poem may be serious or humorous. Just make it poetic and 30 or fewer lines!

Entries must be submitted by December 15. Submitting a poem implies permission for the poem to be posted. Authors retain ownership of their own work.

Submit your poem through the comment feature below (be sure to include your name and e-mail address), through my Facebook page, or via e-mail (remove the spaces from the following address: wildamorris @ ameritech . net). At least one winning entry will be posted on “Wilda Morris’s Poetry Blog.”


© 2009 Wilda Morris

November Challenge Winner

Larry Turner who lives and writes in Fredericksburg, Virginia, judged between the top three poems for November. Turner is author of Eden And Other Addressesand Stops on the Way to Eden and Beyond.

Here is the winning poem:

MY FATHER’S HAT

Felt fedora
soft and gray
traveled into
town each day
sheltered Dad from
snow and rain
brought my father
home again
used a stepstool
by myself
and plopped his hat
atop the shelf

My father’s gone
I kept his hat
my little boy
knows where it’s at
first day of school
we have a spat
he’ll only go
in Grampa’s hat
I watch him go
lunch in his sack
my father’s hat
will bring him back

-- Judith Tullis

One thing I like about this poem is the way the hat moves to a third generation. After a time on the shelf, it gets a "new life." The ending of the poem is a bit of a surprise. Poems about the hats of deceased fathers are sometimes maudlin; this one is upbeat. The rhyme scheme also helps keep it light.

Larry Turner, made the following comments on "My Father's Hat": “Good concrete images. Conciseness good. Good portrayal of the passing on of family tradition generation after generation. “used a stepstool / by myself” is a little awkward without the “I.” Perhaps another quatrain would give freedom to fix that and to tell both what the son did and why.”

Congratulations to Judith Tullis! And thanks to Larry Turner.

The next poetry challenge will be posted on December 1.

© 2009 Wilda Morris

November Challenge: A Poem About a Fashion Accessory

Two women may purchase and wear the same dress or pants suit—with a totally different effect. What makes the difference? The accessories, of course. One woman in a plain black dress will wear a bright red scarf and red slip-in shoes, and add a large red and black purse to her ensemble. Another will select a silver necklace with matching earrings, black pumps and clutch bag, and a black hat with a silver butterfly pin on one side. You might not even notice that their dresses are identical.

Identical male twins men may wear similar slacks and shirts, but if one wears a bolo tie, cowboy boots and a belt with a large buckle, he won’t look much like his brother who chooses black dress shoes, a belt with a subdued buckle and a bow tie.

Chaucer’s poem, “The Complaint of Chaucer To His Purse,” may be the first poem in English about a purse. Chaucer chose this light-handed way to ask his patron for more money, so it would be a stretch to consider “The Complaint” a poem about an accessory. Edgar A. Guest entertained his generation with “The Lost Purse,” a poem in which the mother is more upset on the numerous occasions when she can’t find her purse than when one of her young children wanders away. Again, the purse is not so much an accessory as a stand-in for the money it contains.

One of the most famous poems actually involving clothing accessories is “Warning: When I Am Old, I Shall Wear Purple,” by Jenny Joseph, the poem which spawned the Red Hat Society. “Warning,” which was voted Britain’s best loved poem by those who view “Bookworm” on BBC, is available as an illustrated book. See Warning: When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple.

Two recent Poet Laureates of the United States have written poems about accessories. In Ted Kooser’s brief poem, “The Necktie,” a man stands in front of a mirror, as he finishes getting dressed. You can find the poem in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Delights & Shadows

Billy Collins has two hat poems in Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems. “Candle Hat” is about the artist, Goya, who devised a hat that allowed him to paint after dark. “The Death of the Hat” describes the prevalence of hats in a previous generation, when they were an almost-mandatory part of men’s daily attire. At that time, men could make a living blocking hats for others, and there was a hat rack in every office. No man went out bare-headed on a cold night. The poem turns into a remembrance of the poet’s father, who wore a hat to work every day. At the end, the hat becomes a powerful metaphor for the earth, cloud and sky which now cover his father, and we realize that the title has a double meaning.

A brand new book, Empty Shoes: Poems on the Hungry and the Homeless, edited by Patrick T. Randolph, has several poignant poems referring to accessory. They include: “Empty Shoes,” by Patrick T. Randolph, “Feet on the Subway,” by Wilda Morris, “Designer on the Street Corner,” by Gretchen Fletcher, and “The Bracelet” by Mary Jo Balistreri.

Below are two poems about accessories. Marilyn Huntman Giese writes about a “ho-hum” interview with an editor. The hat only appears in the last stanza. Social commentary is much more blatant in William Marr’s little gem about a man’s tie.


The Editor Speaks

The editor
smiled
sipped her coffee
Stepped out, came back
sat down. . .

“Tell me about
your book—
What do you want
to say?”

My twenty-five minutes
tumble away
as I mumble incoherently
wondering
if she is thinking about
her kids as I try
to recall the vision
that inspired me.

“What is different
about your novel?”
she asks, redraping
her legs before her.

I muddle details as
hours of tireless research
becomes a molten mass
of ho-hum.

“Promising,” she says,
looking at the clock.

I lift my broad sunhat
to my head.
The jaunty wide brim sways
with a southern flavor.

At last, she gives me her
full attention.
With a burst of enthusiasm
she exclaims, “GREAT HAT!”

-- Marilyn Huntman Giese

© Marilyn Huntman Giese


Necktie

Before the mirror
he carefully makes himself
a tight knot

to let the hand
of civilization
drag him
on

-- William Marr (Fei Ma)

Autumn Window, 2nd edition (Arbor Hill Press, 1996), p. 16. For those of you who read Chinese, Fei Ma has published the original version on his bilingual Website at http://home.comcast.net/~wmarr9/pautumnbig5.htm#Necktie. Autumn Window can be purchased through William Marr’s Website listed on the sidebar to this blog.

November Poetry Challenge

The challenge for November is to write a poem about a fashion accessory: a hat, scarf, tie, belt, pair of shoes, jewelry—whatever you pick. You can write about an accessory for a man or for a woman. You may write a formal poem or free verse. Your poem may be humorous or may involve serious social commentary. However, the accessory should actually BE an accessory, unlike the purses in Chaucer’s and Guest’s poems.

Submit your poem through the “comment” feature below, through my Facebook page, or through wildamorris(at)ameritech(dot)net by November 15. I will select one or two winners to post on this blog. Submitting a poem implies permission for the poem to be posted. Authors retain ownership of their own work.

Wilda Morris

© 2009 Wilda Morris

October Challenge Poems

Two sonnets are winners of the October Poetry Challenge. The first is “Fancy on the Kingdom Come,” by Robert Klein Engler. It is a love poem, which fits well with the sonnet tradition. Words such as “worthy” and “purity,” not to mention “angels,” remind us of more traditional sonnets. However, the use of rhyme, which is casual, unobtrusive, and sometimes absent, marks this as a modern sonnet, as do more contemporary references, such as that to Benny Goodman. Use of enjambment (where sentences are continued on the next line, and sometimes end in the middle of a line) contributes to making the rhyme unobtrusive. The poem takes interesting turns, as it moves from Benny Goodman’s song to the references to Russia and Turgenev, and then to the Eucharist, Rome and the Pope. The ending couplet is humorous.

The second winner, “Sonnet for the Season,” by Jennifer Dotson, is less complex and more straight-forward. It is readily accessible for a generation not well schooled in the history of English poetry. It is seasonal and relevant. It is more a poem of social commentary than a love poem, though it may be motivated by a love for a more traditional and less commercial celebration of Christmas. Dotson’s sonnet follows old rules of rhyming, but most of her rhymes are fresh, not those repeated since the time of Sidney and Shakespeare. Of course they did not have TVs (flat screen or otherwise). Unlike Engler, she end stops most sentences. It is primarily the content that makes this poem a “modern” sonnet. The closing couplet is not very surprising, perhaps, but is quite appropriate.

Here are the winners:


.FANCY ON THE KINGDOM COME.

First, is to be worthy. That, I suppose, means purity
in love. Then, Benny Goodman plays, "Memories
of You." Suddenly, we stand together in the unity
we shared before we were soiled by the world.

The "I love you," said when I was a fool, I repeat,
but in harmony with the angels. We could be alive
in a Russian dacha. The summer garden is replete
with greenery, just like in a novel by Turgenev.

A rider comes from Moscow. Michael with his cello
joins us for the weekend. The days have new axles.
I touch light in your hair. Hunger finds the eucharist.
Meanwhile, in Rome, the Lord appears. Cardinals

pester the Pope, "What to do? It makes us dizzy."
He replies with his paternal love, "Just look busy."

Robert Klein Engler


Sonnet for the Season

Appearing just seconds post Halloween
were the jingle bells and Kris Kringle elves.
Thanksgiving got lost somewhere in between
as merchants eagerly stocked up their shelves
with holiday gear and bargains galore.
Customers greedy for flat screen TVs
and video games lined outside the store,
shoving and pushing without saying please.
Folks feel compelled to consume to excess
in this time of little sun and cold chills.
We think more stuff will buy us happiness
but the hangover comes with January's bills.
This is my prayer for such chaos to cease.
Light the heart candle and hope for world peace.

Jennifer Dotson

The November Poetry Challenge will be posted on November 1.


Susan T. Moss helped to judge the September Poetry Challenge. Barbara Eaton helped to judge the Challenge for October. Thanks to both of them.

Poets whose work appears on this blog retain copyright to their own poems.

© 2009 Wilda Morris.

October Challenge: A Contemporary Sonnet

Tony Barnstone begins his essay, “A Manifesto On The Contemporary Sonnet: A Personal Aesthetics,” published in The Cortland Review,* by quoting Ezra Pound, “Make it new.” The sonnet is an old form (or perhaps I should say “forms,” since there are differences between Petrarchan (or Italian), Spenserian and Shakespearean sonnets. One major difference is in the rhyme scheme (including whether the sonnet is composed of an octave and a sestet, as in the Petrarchan sonnet, or four quatrains and a couplet as in Spenserian and Shakespearean sonnets. Another is the location in the sonnet where the volta or turn takes place.

Possibly as a result of the chaos created by World War I, many poets writing in English forsook formal poetry, including the sonnet, to write mostly free verse. Barnstone believes that the sonnet has a future—if it is modernized. Updating may involve both writing about contemporary subjects and bending some of the rules. In 2005, Barnstone published Sad Jazz: Sonnets. This book begins in the marriage bed and proceeds through separation, divorce and its aftermath, and ends with hope that one can make a new life for him- or herself. Here is a sonnet from Sad Jazz: Sonnets:


Zero at the Bone

And now she takes her chance and blows like wind
out through the door she’s ripped out of his life.
And now his spirit clamps around the wound
and seizes up like flesh around a knife.
And now he feels an anger that could crush
the bones of planets, hates his worried face,
his roll of fat, the strands of hair his brush
picks up from his scalp. And now she’s gone. No force
can fetch her back like Lazarus from death.
She’s in the undiscovered country where
she’s free of him. And now there’s only love
to love, invisible as God, as breath
siphoning from a hole. What’s left of her
for him? An absence in which to believe.

Tony Barnstone
© Tony Barnstone, Used by permission.

Three of the first five lines and two sentences later in the sonnet begin with the words “and now.” This is something I normally would eschew in poetry, but here, it works well. The words “and now” seem to me to serve two functions. First, “and now” announces this sonnet as a continuation of the “plot” of Sad Jazz. More than that, however, the repetition of these words emphasizes the narrator’s feeling that everything (even his own anger) is happening to him, and is beyond his control. He is incapable of stopping the tsunami turning his life upside down.

Another characteristic of the poems is the use of strong images. Because of its subject and language, the poem seems “modern,” even with the biblical reference Lazarus).

Barnstone suggests in his Cortland Review article that, in making the sonnet new, the poet should use rhyme to “open the poem to wildness,” instead of allowing rhyme to make it predictable. English does not have the wealth of rhyme found in French, Spanish or Italian, so the same rhymes have been used over and over through the centuries. In “Zero at the Bone,” Barnstone uses true rhyme (life/knife; crush/brush and death/breath) and slant rhyme (where/her). But he also uses what he calls “full consonance” rhyme, in which the consonants are the same but the vowels are different (wind/wound; face/force; love/lieve [in “believe”]). In Sad Jazz, Barnstone uses a number of other variations which are not “true rhyme.” These forms make the sonnet less predictable, while creating a “poetic” sound.

Another poet whose sonnets are contemporary is Marilyn L. Taylor. The following poem, from Subject to Change, is part of a seven-sonnet cycle, in which the last line of one sonnet morphs into the first line of the following sonnet. The last line of the last sonnet is almost the same as the first line of the first sonnet. The cycle, called “Notes from The Good-Girl Chronicles, 1963,” narrates events from the time “when the friendly skies were full of virgins.”

Celebrity’s Mother

I’ve slapped myself three times across the face,
so I know it’s not a dream, I swear—
my babygirl has really won first place
in the beauty pageant at State Fair.
Look how she slinks on those high heels,
cranks her little hips just like a pro
down that runway—honey, she’s on wheels,
she’s headed for the Johnny Carson show.
Come on, sweetheart, talk a little louder,
bat those lashes, lick your lips a lot;
make your poor old mama even prouder—
grab for what your mama never got.
Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Maidenform!
Just watch my baby take the world by storm.

Marilyn L. Taylor
© Marilyn L. Taylor, Used by permission.


This sonnet is accessible. The subject is modern. The language is conversational—especially “honey,”“babygirl” and “mama”. The reference to Jesus may elicit memory of more classic sonnets, but it's use is contemporary, and is paralleled in an ironic way with the Maidenform bra. References to popular culture (of 1963) abound: “the beauty pageant at State Fair,” “the Johnny Carson show” and “Maidenform.” Taylor sticks to true rhyme in this poem (though she doesn’t always do so), and there is a turn after the second quatrain, but she takes liberties with iambic pentameter (some lines have only eight or nine syllables).

Sonnets which break the traditional rules, as by adding a line, changing the rhyme scheme or abandoning iambic pentameter, come under criticism from purists. But Barnstone and Taylor are not alone in bending the rules. In her book, Nomina (American Poets Continuum), Karen Volkman has a “sonnet” of fourteen iambic lines, but there is only one foot in each line. If one is entering a sonnet contest, some judges would throw such poems out without reading them.

In Nomina, labeled “poems” on the front cover but “sonnets” on the title page, Volkman’s almost seems to be writing in a different genre than Barnstone and Taylor. Despite the fact that Barnstone deals with sadness, anger, even bitterness, most of his sonnets, like Taylor's, are accessible, and have a playfulness about them. Volkman’s are elusive and full of obscurities. Often after reading one of her sonnets, I an unable to say what it is about. There are no titles to provide clues. On the other hand, Volkman’s poems are full of word-play, assonance and alliteration. Volkman is much more likely than Barnstone or Taylor to stick faithfully to iambic rhythm (though not necessarily to pentameter) throughout a poem (Barnstone argues for including some non-iambic feet so the sonnet doesn’t become sing-song). Reading Nomina aloud is a good way to get iambic pentameter into your head. If you enjoy poems for their sound, totally apart from their meaning, you may find Nomina very enjoyable.

CHALLENGE FOR OCTOBER:

For October, write a sonnet which follows most (or all) of the rules of the Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnet, but sounds contemporary because of the subject matter, language, etc. Bend a rule or two if you wish, but don't break them - your poem should be recognizable as a sonnet. If you don’t know the traditional rules, borrow a book on poetry from your public library, or Google “sonnet forms.” Read Barnstone’s article for additional ideas, if you wish. Please, no pornography or objectionable language. Submit your poem by October 15 by clicking on “Comments” below. If you are using Foxfire and have trouble posting, try Internet Explorer (or vise versa), or send me a message through my Facebook page. Winner or winners will be posted by the end of October.

Poems posted on blogs are considered published and can be included in your resume.


Notes:
* www.cortlandreview.com/features/06/december/barnstone_e.html


© 2009.