March Challenge Winner

The challenge for March was to write a poem about a deep and sincere longing, something which is compelling you, something you feel you MUST do or someplace you MUST go. Or to express the compulsion of someone else as if it were your own.

The two winning entries are very different from “Sea Fever”—and very different from each other. Mary Cohutt’s poem expresses the longing for the simple life, but more specifically, for the past. Cohutt started a company which works with the elderly. In this poem, she expresses the feelings of a client who is dealing with much loss as she ages.


A Simple Life

All I ever wanted was a simple life
She said with a far distant gaze
A husband
A home
Some good-hearted friends
Children to fill up my days

My husband is gone now
So too my friends
My children have all gone their way
My house with dark windows
Is empty and cold
I sit, I remember,I pray

Her chair slowly rocks
Leaving marks on the floor
Telling stories of time gone by
She flutters her fingers
And looks for her words
But all that she finds is a sigh

Shadows grow long
On the living room floor
The light in the window grows dim
Night time she whispered
Is good time
Night time I dream of them

Her head on the pillow
Soft smile on her face
Her years fall like silk to the floor
She’s running, she laughs,
She’s dancing, she loves
It’s a simple life once more

~ Mary Cohutt


Only in sleep can the person described in this poem return to the past for which she longs.


The second winning poem is by Francis Toohey.

I Want to Be in Pictures

I want to see it on the screen--
of a brand new Cineplex
or at an oil-leaky, weedy
Drive In under stars

or in a downtown mildewed
Vaudeville Hall reeling porn
to sleep off all illusions from better days.
I know my movie. What is yours?

How long has mine been running?
Will anybody come to cry or laugh
in my private Hollywood?
I understand your concern because

I love to hear applause.
Other hands appear bringing forth awards.
I will write to please my audience:
happy end or one to break your heart.

Please, allow my drums to beat me.
Fiddle my feelings using your own violins.
Watch my face as I radiate with light:
I promise to surprise--

~ Francis Toohey


My first reaction to this poem was that the poet had gone too far, willing even to be in pictures in the musty “Vaudeville Hall reeling porn.” As I lived with the poem for a few days, however, I began to realize that it expressed the desperate need for acceptance, recognition and affirmation which many people feel at some time in their lives. Lacking an adequate sense of self-worth, feeling unsuccessful and unappreciated, the persona expressed here wants to appreciation, applause and awards.

In the United States, the culture seems to be obsessed with celebrities. Many people cannot get enough news about the current stars and their personal lives. Their pictures fill magazines. We watch the winning actresses and actors receiving and clutching their Oscars. It all seems so magical. Why wouldn’t someone want that kind of recognition? Many performers are willing to sacrifice principles (or their families) to further their careers. They hope and pray for the big break. Winning the accolades doesn’t always fulfill this desperate need. But that doesn’t prevent people from thinking it will. And if a performer wins recognition and finds it wasn’t enough, that unfulfilled need may become even greater.

Congratulations to the two winners for March. Sorry, though, this recognition won’t get you into the movies.


Poets whose poems are posted on this blog retain copyright. Please do not copy their poems without permission.


April is National Poetry Month

A new challenge will be posted on April 1.


© 2011 Wilda Morris

March 2011 Poetry Challenge

Do you sometimes feel an absolute compulsion to do something? Do you feel your life will be incomplete unless you do some particular thing or go some particular place? Do you absolutely have to sky dive; ski in Aspen, Colorado; take a gondola ride in Venice; make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Mecca or the Ganges; or walk on the Great Wall of China before you die? Do you just have to see the US Capitol building or go to the top of the Washington Monument?

Or do you feel compelled to do something you used to do—roll down a hill in spring grass, sit with the one you love on the shore of a lake as the sun sets, rock a new-born, or walk across a field on what used to be your grandfather’s farm?

In what is probably his best known poem, John Masefield described a compulsion:

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

~ John Masefield

This poem is in the public domain.

On her website, http://www.yourdailypoem.com/, Jayne Jaudon Ferrer recently provided a brief biography of John Masefield:

John Masefield (1878-1967) was an English poet, author, and playwright. Both his parents died while he was a child, and at the age of thirteen, annoyed with John's "addiction" to reading, the aunt in charge of caring for him sent him off to train for a life as a sailor. Although his experiences at sea provided much material for the stories and poems he would later write, John soon tired of that harsh life and, on a voyage to New York, he jumped ship. For two years, he worked at odd jobs in that city, using his free time for reading and writing. He eventually returned to England, married, had two children, and established himself as a significant literary talent. As his stature as a writer continued to grow, John became an internationally successful lecturer and was appointed as England's poet laureate, a position he held for nearly forty years. He actively wrote and published until he was 88 years old.

Perhaps in his later years, though happy to have escaped the life of a sailor, Masefield may sometimes have felt a yearning to return to the ocean. After years on land, he may have idealized his memories. Or perhaps, looking back, he was happy to be where he was, but understood how some of the men he had worked with loved the life of a sailor and would feel a deep psychological need to return to the sea if they had left it. Poetic license would allow him to express those feelings in first-person, even if they were not actually his own feelings.


March Poetry Challenge:

The challenge for March is to write a poem about a deep and sincere longing, something which is compelling you, something you feel you MUST do or someplace you MUST go. Or you can express the compulsion of someone else as if it were your own.

Your poem may be rhymed and metered, as is “Sea Fever.” Or, if you prefer, it may be well-crafted free verse. Put the compulsion into poetry and submit it by March 15.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is March 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.


To read more of Masefield's poetry or learn about his life:

February Challenge Winner

Congratulations to Marcia J. Pradzinski, winner of the February Poetry Challenge.


The Red Flannel Shirt
After William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

the red flannel
shirt

iced in moon
light

beside the empty
bed

~ Marcia J. Pradzinski

Copyright to this poem belongs to its author.

The images are interesting. We can see that red flannel shirt in moonlight, and the empty bed. Yet the poem is a bit mysterious; there are a number of possible explanations for the emptiness of the bed. In addition, it is a word-count poem, as is Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow.”Both “The Red Wheelbarrow” and “The Red Flannel Shirt” are written with three words in the first line of each stanza and one word in the second line.

Thanks to Barbara Larsen for serving as consulting judge.

Watch for a new challenge on March 1.


© 2011 Wilda Morris

February Poetry Challenge

For forty years, William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was a pediatrician. Perhaps his medical education and practice trained him to observe details and see their importance. That skill served Williams well as a poet.

Williams’ earliest work was heavily influenced by two poets with very different styles--John Keats and Walt Whitman. The differences between the poets who most influenced him may have helped Williams develop his own unique voice.

Williams was also strongly influenced Ezra Pound, whom he met during his student years at the University of Pennsylvania. A leader of the Imagist movement in England, Pound emphasized direct, clear and sparse language and the juxtaposition of objects. Unlike the Symbolists, he believed poetry should allow objects to be signs, like x in algebra, which can have different meanings. The purpose of the image is to help the listener or reader see with new eyes, not to insist that the image symbolizes one specific thing. The Imagist poem generally pictures a particular instant, asking the reader to visualize the juxtaposition of objects. If the poem succeeds, the reader “sees” the image and gives it meaning—or at least continues thinking about it. The poet does not tell the reader what to feel.

Williams initially responded positively to this movement, but later broke with it. Williams became convinced that American poets—even Pound and T, S. Eliot—were too dependent on European Culture. He sought a distinctively American voice. He objected to the frequent use of allusions to classical verse and the salting of many poems with phrases in other languages. Williams determined that American poetry should focus on everyday circumstances in the lives of ordinary people. He is also known for the axiom, “No ideas but in things.”

Williams proposed that succinct language and abandonment of formal rhythm and meter fit the American culture well. Williams experimented with line breaks in order to reflect American speech patterns. Some of his poems have been called “chopped-up prose.” Yet, they read as poetry. Williams wanted readers raised on European poetry to find their expectations counted by his unusual line breaks.

Barbara Larsen has written three poems (more accurately a triptych) heavily influenced by the style of William Carlos Williams, and, in fact, copying the structures of three of his poems.


Three Poems After William Carlos Williams

1.

As the snake
slithers across
the path

before me
one sinuous segment
sliding

into the next
like strung
S’s s

I recoil


2

so much depends
upon

a morning cup
of tea

cradled in hands
as I study sky

reflected
on water


3

This is just to say

I have taken
a walk
instead of
getting supper

for which
you are probably
ravenous
and eagerly waiting

Forgive me
it is what I needed
and I’m trying not
to feel guilty

-- Barbara Larsen

From All in Good Season: New and Selected Poems by Barbara Larsen (Beach Road Press, 2005), p. 66. Used by Permission of the author.


In a sense, what Larsen has done is un-Williams-like, since his intent was to break from traditional and expected forms, and thus be more spontaneous. On the other hand, when Williams began writing poetry, he depended to some extent on the forms of others for inspiration.

Section I of Larsen’s poem mimics the pattern of Williams “Poem (As the Cat),” Section II reflects off “The Red Wheelbarrow” (Williams’ most frequently anthologized poem); and III borrows from “This Is Just to Say.” The second and third of these poems can be accessed from the Website of the American Academy of Poets at http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/119. The AAP Website, which is a treasure chest for lovers of poetry, publishes only poetry for which they have permission from the copyright owner. “Poem” can be found at http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/williams/4510; it is not clear whether or not this Website obtains copyright permission, as it should.


The Challenge for February

Write one or more poems in the style of these short poems by William Carlos Williams. You may follow Larsen’s example and create a triptych, or may write a poem inspired by only one of William’s short poems. The language should be clear and concise. The winning poem or poems will be published on this blog.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is February 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

NOTE: It should be said that Williams did not write only brief poems in this style. In his later life, he frequently preferred to create more regular stanzas of three stair-stepped lines.

If you would like to learn more about William Carlos Williams and his place in the history of American poetry, you may want to purchase The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry

Books by William Carlos Williams:
The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Vol. 1: 1909-1939
The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Vol. 2: 1939-1962
William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems (American Poets Project)
Selected Poems (William Carlos Williams)
Paterson (Revised Edition)



© 2011 Wilda Morris

January 2011 Challenge Winner

Congratulations to Sandra Fees, winner of the January challenge, to write a poem about prayer (but not itself a prayer).

The Sloping Room

When he pulled down
the rotted porch,
my father discovered
why the front bedroom
sloped, as it did,
not from settling,
after all,
or from the gremlins
roiling under my bed,

but because a log
was missing,
as if in building
there were some hurry
or a timber shortage,
as if the poor man’s
farmhouse
would naturally
lean a little,

deserve a little less,
to keep him honest,
and always on bended knee,
just the way my father taught me
to bend my knees
toward the rough planks,
to press palm to palm,
my small body,
a pew wanting to be a steeple,

a 90-degree angle
forming squares
and quadrangles,
when all I really wanted
were hula-hoops
to swing around my hips
and little wheels
to spin their o’s
in the sloping room.

~ Sandra Fees


I like the indirect approach to prayer in this poem, how it works its way in between the sloping floor and the child's wish for play rather than prayer. I was especially moved by these lines:

just the way my father taught me
to bend my knees
toward the rough planks,
to press palm to palm,
my small body,
a pew wanting to be a steeple,

There is a seeming contradiction between the desire "to be a steeple," and the conclusion, wanting only hula-hoops and little wheels. The narrator wanted to play, but evidently also wanted to please her father by praying sincerely. Isn't that the kind of contradiction we all experience in life, often wanting contradictory things?

Sandra Fees retains copyright to her poem; please do not copy it without her consent.


© 2011 Wilda Morris

January 2011 Poetry Challenge

A new year is a good time to stop and think about one’s spirituality. What is expected of us as spiritual beings? What nurtures our spirits?

Prayer is perhaps the most common of spiritual practices, and one that originated very early in human history. Prayer plays an important role in both Eastern and Western religions. There are a variety of practices—prayers may be individual or communal; spoken, sung or silent. In various traditions, those who pray may sit, kneel, stand and sway, bow heads, become prostrate on the ground, or assume any of a number of other postures or movements. In some faiths, there are prescribed times each day when the faithful are expected to pray.

The challenge for January is to write a poem about prayer. Several years ago, William M. Ramsey wrote the following unique and thought-provoking poem about prayer:

Wild horses

Prayers are not predictions.
They are hardly contracts
binding gods and events
to the tether of our will.
They are wild horses.
The cures to our pains
and soothing of our losses
graze with unconcern
on slopes in the distance.
Some are spotted,
others solid bright or dark—
all free as ragged wind
on an upland range.
As we near them
they raise their head,
catching scent of our desire,
deciding whether to run,
whether to await us.

~ William M. Ramsey

Copyright © 2001 by the Christian Century. Reprinted by permission from the September 28-October 3, 2001, issue of the Christian Century. Subscriptions: $59/yr.
at http://christiancentury.org

This poem has more than just an interesting idea. It also exemplifies poetic artistry. I admire the extended metaphor, which begins in the second sentence with the word “tether” and continues to the end of the poem. Ramsey makes us see those wild horses. In addition to metaphor and image, this poem sings with assonance and is punctuated with subdued but effective alliteration.


Tania Runyan is the author of another thought-provoking poem, this one from a woman’s perspective. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" is more specifically Christian in its language than Ramsey’s poem. Runyan speaks of “the capital LORD,” which I take to be a double entendre referring both to the practice of use of the word “LORD” (in capital letters) to translate the name for God in the Hebrew Scriptures (which most Christians refer to as the Old [or Older] Testament), and to God’s transcendence. After drawing the reader in with domestic images, the poet transitions to images related to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Blessed are the poor in spirit

I am not made to pray. I close my eyes
and float among the spots behind my lids.
I chew the name God, God, like habitual
gum, think about dusting the shelves, then sleep.

It is hard to speak to the capital LORD
who deals in mountains and seas, not in a woman
rewashing her mildewed laundry while scolding
her toddler through gritted teeth. I should

escape to the closet and kneel to the holy
singularity who blasted my cells from a star.
I should imagine the blood soaking
into the cross's grain, plead forgiveness

for splintering my child's soul. But the words
never find their way out of the dark.
Choirs and candles shine in his bones
while I doze at the door of his body.

~ Tania Runyan

From Simple Weight (FutureCycle Press, 2010). Copyright © 2009 by the Christian Century. Reprinted by permission from the March 10, 2009, issue of the Christian Century. Subscriptions: $59/yr.



The first sentence of this poem has a wonderful ambiguity. It can be interpreted to mean that the poet was not created to be a praying person, that it isn’t her nature to pray. Or is the narrator saying that she is not compelled to pray? And if not compelled, does she mean that God does not insist on it? Or that she doesn’t feel “driven” to pray?

I suspect many readers—at least those who make it a practice to pray after they go to bed at night—can identify with experience beautifully expressed in line two, of floating “among the spots” behind their eyelids,” as they struggle to concentrate on God and to stay alert and awake enough to pray sincerely.

The simile in stanza two is interesting and fresh. The guilty repetition of “I should” adds power to the poem, as do some particularly powerful word choices (such as “rewashing,” “mildewed,” “gritted teeth, and “splintering”). Runyan also makes a judicious use of alliteration.


Some other interesting poems about prayer include:

Khalil Gilbran, “Prayer,” in The Prophet

Imtiaz Dharker, “If,” in The Terrorist at my Table

Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day,” in New and Selected Poems: Volume One

Charlene Blue Horse, “Wagluh’ TaTapi,” in Dreaming History: A Collection of Wisconsin Native-American Writing

Pattiann Rogers, “Before I Sleep,” in Song of the World Becoming: Poems, New and Collected, 1981-2001

Mary Karr, “For a Dying Tomcat Who’s Relinquished His Former Hissing and Predatory Nature.” in Sinners Welcome: Poems

Deborah Garrison, “Into the Lincoln Tunnel, in The Second Child: Poems

Marge Piercy, “Time of Year, in Colors Passing Through Us

Mary Oliver, “Praying,” in Thirst: Poems

Emily Dickinson, # 437 and # 623 in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson


The January Challenge

The challenge for January is to write a poem about prayer—not a prayer, but a poem which says something about the poet’s (or narrator’s) experience of prayer. The poem should reflect a faith tradition with which the poet is familiar. You may write in free verse or in a form; if you write in a form, please specify the form used. The winning poem or poems will be published on this blog.

Poems published in books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks) are not eligible. If your poem has been published in a periodical, please include publication data.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send your poem to wildamorris [at] ameritech [dot] net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for [dot], and don’t leave any spaces). Or you can access my Facebook page and send the poem in a message. Be sure provide your e-mail address. Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog, if it is a winner. The deadline is January 15. Copyright on poems is retained by their authors.

© 2011 Wilda Morris

December Poetry Challenge Winners

The December Poetry Challenge was to write a letter in poetry to someone who has been gone from your life for at least a decade. I sent four poems to Jared Smith and asked him to pick the winner or winners. Here is part of his response:

“These poems are so far above the normal standards of poetry--so attuned with the individual, honest and unposed nature of the authors--that they ring out with their own unique visions and nature. The images, line lengths, metrics, and tone are perfectly crafted in each of the poems. What this demonstrates--and it is very important to understanding contemporary poetry--is that if one writes with true, deeply felt intensity and the feeling that the words in a poem really do matter--then that poem finds the "craft" that it should have...what the editor of The New York Quarterly, William Packard, defined as "organic" form. With further explication, what this means is that every emotion or state of mind one goes through has its own "natural" emotion and metrics of thought: and the very best poets can find and recapture that metric of thought and put it down on paper when they write. As Ted Kooser has said, placing a poem within any standardized form may be difficult and one has to have the control over language to be able to do so, but it is like putting eggs in an egg carton. It is harder to look at the infinity of words and images one has to work with--like Michelangelo looking at an uncut slab of marble--and then draw the vision or the poem out of it.”

Jared Smith declared a four-way tie for first place. I think you will find these poems moving, too. Congratulations to Judith Tullis, Mary Cohutt, Peggy Trojan and Gail Goepfert. Their poems are presented here in the order in which they were received.

If you are a poet, and did not have time to try the December prompt, this might encourage you to give it a try one of these days!


Mom,

I wanted to brush your red hair
and wish for the millionth time it were mine

to look in your dark eyes
and be glad I have them too

to have your smile land on me
and feel the warmth

to make you laugh
and be filled with the joy of it

to take your arm and help you walk
the way you did for me so long ago

to reminisce about the times good and bad
that only we have shared

to hold your hand while we compared
the thrill of romance, the ache of lost love, the loneliness of widowhood.

But I could only release you from the place that stinks of age and pain
and carry you to the hallowed ground of your family.

~ Judith Tullis


To My Brother

I remember our wagon of sun-faded red
With wheels that wobbled and bowed
We were short-shadowed seekers
On long winding lanes
Our newly found treasures in tow

I see our new bikes
Yours red, mine blue
With the store shine glint on the bars
Sunny day summers, with wind in our hair
Like birds on the wing we flew

Springs turned to summers
Summers to falls
Winters completed the turns
We lived to life’s music, high notes and low
Shoulder to shoulder through all

The darkness that came
With the fading of light
Was a shade pulled on what I’d held dear
My colors were dimmed, my music was stilled
No respite lay in sight

and I wondered…
just where…had you gone…

but then…

The sun’s on my face like warm molten gold
The wind whispers your name through the trees
A robin takes flight in a sky of deep blue
And flowers gift colors to me

Clouds roll and cast shadows
On hills painted in hues
Of purples and deepest green
My skin is caressed by an angel wing breeze
And I envision all that’s unseen

And then…I smiled…
for I knew…

You’re still pulling our wagon
You’re riding your bike
You’re holding your first born son
You’re drawing your first breath
Releasing your last
You are He
He is All
All is One

~ Mary Cohutt


Surrender

After ninety-three years,
we reversed roles.
Remember? You were brought
to the table and sat waiting.
It was right before you gave up
eating all together,
putting your arm across your mouth
to make the point.
You were agreeable,
smiling and patient.
I was the one mashing the food
and feeding you cheerfully,
coaxing you to take
just one more bite.
I had assumed that I would do
the works you didn’t have time
to finish….sorting your photos,
publishing your journal,
doling out your treasures.

In a flash, I realized you were also
giving me Pa,
though we had competed
for his attention
almost seventy years.
The look on your face
I had waited for all my life,
that trust, and adoration.

~ Peggy Trojan


Dear Aunt Nernie,

I think the secrets
sprouted from good intention—
parents, grandparents, protecting.

Unease filled my plate
and followed my food down my throat
each time grandma and grandpa
rose from the table
and led you from the room
without a word
in the middle of mashed potatoes
and homemade applesauce.

Grandma saw the signs
that something was amiss
and rushed you to a backroom
while cold lumps, each one a question
congealed on the china before me.

Years later, I realize you felt shame
not knowing what happened--
during epileptic episodes
beyond your control.

I’m sorry I didn’t know more,
have the words to comfort,
but I’m sure I didn’t mind so much
that you smelled of Noxzema
that the hair on your upper lip,
half-plucked, bristled
my cheek when I kissed you goodnight.

~ Gail Goepfert


Copyright of individual poems remains with the authors.


Check back at the beginning of January for a new challenge.

© 2010 Wilda Morris