Poetry, who knew?

[itsallovernow]

So, I seem to have written poetry. Which is... odd. I have never written poetry, not even at 14 or 15 watching my parents dissolve their marriage, watching my place outside of the herd, sheltered in what I was good at which wasn't enough to shelter me from being 14 and 15 and 16.

But, I heard that beautiful line on Thursday night at my writers and artists group, and the woman who said it is this marvelous, marvelous poet who is so very sad all the time and who writes poetry that often makes me sad, but which is never maudlin, never purple, always rich and textured and beautiful. And of course, there was the extraordinary poetry hossgal wrote as the Remix for Mare Tranquilis, so maybe I was inspired. Or maybe it was fourteenlines fabulous poem. I refuse to force the blame on any of them.

But, serious caveat. I don't write poetry. Any and all rules are foresaken because even as someone who's studied and occasionally read poetry, it isn't something that comes naturally. But I kind of like it, and as has become custom with everything I write these days, I'm posting it because what else am I gonna do with it?



Dead Languages

"Poetry is a dead language," she says.
"Like Latin."
Her hand waves and mouth grows small as
She holds a poem in her hand, waits for
Validation, not Valediction

But I see poetry in the small things
In the way we do the dishes, together
At night, sometimes
In the way you line up my shoes
And tease me about snakes.

Latin didn't die though, it had a Metamorphosis
Like Ovid, or Kafka, becoming something new
Becoming French and English, Spanish and
The round curling syllables, the dipthongs
Of Portugese.

It became John Donne and his roving hands
Alan Ginsberg howling out the madness of
Generations. Bob Dylan as Judas, and then
Us, here in this room, wrapped with words
Like vines, thick and green and cool

Poetry didn't die. It shaped itself into
Quiet verses, into words between lovers
In dirty kitchens and empty spaces
Songs to children at the beginning of night
And warm exchanges, and blank blue lines filled up

Comments

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

Ah.

(more constructive stuff later. right now I'm just listening to the words, and thinking it is very fine indeed. As if you've been doing this for years.)

*goes back and listens again*

- hg

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! I was hesitant to say the least to post this, but after posting my origin story, a little poetry felt positively decadent, infinitely easier.

And constructive stuff later would also be very welcome!!

[simplystars.livejournal.com]

This is neat, Thea. :) It's been exciting and interesting to see the original poems go up this past week.

I especially like the stanza about the romance languages, and the images of Donne and Ginsburg.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you dear! The feedback's much appreciated.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is an inspired beginning. Your poem is wonderful; I love the imagery of the language evolving and changing.
I particularly love the third and fourth verses.
Alan Ginsberg howling out the madness of
Generations
Brilliant image.
Would you mind if I link to this from my Lj? I have several poets on my flist, and I know they'd enjoy reading this.
You should write poetry more often!

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Feel free to link if you'd like. It's a rough draft, and I'm sure I'll rework it at some point.

But thank you so much!!

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

Done. And I really don't think it needs reworking!

[ropo.livejournal.com]

I know nearly nothing about poetry, but this is very nice. *g*

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! I know enough about poetry to know that mostly I'm cheating, but I think there are still things in here that I like.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

Lovely. And now you've got me all thinky about whether Latin evolved into poetry evolved into daily love prose and whether is more or less attainable in it's current, evolved form.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

When I read poetry in Latin, it feels very accessible (aside from it being in Latin). Well, not Virgil so much, but Catullus and his being so incredibly pissy about Clodia and the sex poetry, and I love that it went to this very stylized form as written language changed, as the concepts of literacy and what language literacy meant changed and that's the sort of thing I'd love to think more about and rework into this.

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

Seriously, there are rules to poetry? When did that happen (again)? I mean, after about 1960, I'm pretty sure there aren't any. That is, in theory, the beauty of it. It's also what makes it so easy to get wrong.

But this is very fine indeed. I always read poetry aloud, at least the first few times, provided I'm not in public. And this has wonderful, round, rolling cadence, and phrases just enough outside the norm to make us stop and think. It's wonderful, really.

(OMG where is all the poetry coming from?! Is there some poet out there going, "Oh my God, why am I writing fiction?")

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

And look at me, seeing hossgal's comment out of the corner of my eye and echoing it subconciously. Brains are so weird.

Which is to say: I didn't mean to do that. *g*

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Hee - not rules so much in free verse, but there are still certain...conventions that work well that I'd like to re-examine.

And yeah, I hear this outloud in my head and it sounds better than I think it might read:)

So glad you liked it!

And clearly there's some poet out there so very confused!!

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

OMG where is all the poetry coming from?! Is there some poet out there going, "Oh my God, why am I writing fiction?"

*busts up laughing*

You have started my week very well indeed.

- hg

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

ah i love this, and espeically the "round curling syllables". and now i'm going off to work thinking of homer and dylan.

and the last paragraph is *perfect*.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thank you dear!!