Prompt #354 – Hiareth

Have you ever had the experience of hearing a new and unusual word for the first time and vowing to remember it? I remember the first time I heard the word gobsmacked. My former professor and long-time mentor and friend, Charles DeFanti, introduced me to that word, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve used it since (i.e., I was gobsmacked when I read Eliot’s “Little Gidding” for the first time).

I recently came across the word hiraeth, a Welsh word with no exact translation into English, which generally means “homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.” Words typically used to try to explain it are homesickness, yearning, and longing. However, there is greater depth and suggested meaning to hiraeth than in any of those words on their own.

Just the sound of the word resonated for me and, then, when I looked it up, I couldn’t help but relate it to pre- and post-pandemic life—how much things have changed, and how much most of us long to have our lives back—our yearning and homesickness for life as it was. With so much uncertainty about when or if that will happen, I thought it might be interesting to use the word hiraeth as a kind of jumping off word for a poem about how life has changed since Covid-19, how we feel about what’s happened, and whether or not we think things will ever be the same as they were before Covid.

Can a poem begin with a single word even if that word doesn’t appear in the poem? 

It's may seem a little strange at first but, of course, it can!

There are many poems being written right now about Covid-19 and its collision with personal and global life. Many of the poems are insightful and profoundly meaningful. I recommend reading several before you begin writing, and here’s a place where you’ll find some:

Click Here to Read Pandemic Poems

 

Some Things to Think about before Writing:

• What was your life like before Covid-19 (personal, national, or global)?

• How has the virus affected your family life, friendships, work life, and social life?

• What do you miss most about life before Covid? What are you “homesick” for?

• When was the last time you hugged someone who isn’t a member of your immediate family?

• When was the last time you shook a stranger’s hand?

• When was the last time you attended a religious service in a filled house of worship? Attended a wedding or a funeral where there were no restrictions? 

• How does it feel not to be able to go to a restaurant with family members or friends and sit down together (inside the restaurant) to enjoy a meal together?

• How does social distancing change the dynamic of being part of any group?

• What’s it like for you to wear a mask when grocery shopping, going to a doctor, or walking in a park?

• How long do you think this will all go on?

• What things do you fear may never change back to what they were before Covid? Do you think there are some irrevocable changes?

Guidelines:

1. Keep the word hiareth in mind (not the word itself but what the word suggests to you), then relate its meaning to what you feel about the pandemic and its personal impact on your life.

2. You might want to start by making a list of the ways in which the pandemic has changed your life.

3. Remember: you don’t have to use the word hiareth in your poem—that’s not required—but try to evoke the word’s feeling in images.

4. Write about family changes, work changes, travel changes, social changes.

5. Write about fear—your personal fears and how fear has impacted your life.

6. Write about friends or co-workers who have contracted the virus.

7. Write about those who have not survived.

8. This is a personal poem, so don’t be afraid to show how the virus has directly affected your life.

9. Importantly, think in terms of the nostalgia for things of your pre-Covid life—what do you long for, what real or metaphorical "homesickness" are you experiencing? 

10. Whatever you write, don't be afraid to interject a note of hope.

Tips:

1. Try to write in the active, not the passive, voice. To do that, it can be helpful to remove “ing” endings and to write in the present tense (this will also create a greater sense of immediacy).

2. Be on the lookout for prepositional phrases that you might remove (articles & conjunctions too).

3. The great author Mark Twain once wrote, “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when close together. They give strength when they are wide apart.” This is especially true in poetry. So ... as you work on a poem, think about adjectives and which ones your poem can live without. (Often the concept is already in the noun, and you don’t need a lot of adjectives to convey your meaning.)

4. Avoid clichés (and, while you’re at it, stay away from abstractions and sentimentality).

5. Show, don’t tell—through striking imagery, a strong emotional center, and an integrated whole of language, form and meaning.

6. Challenge the ordinary, connect, reveal, surprise! And … remember that a poem should mean more than the words it contains. Think about surface and underlying meanings.

7. Create a new resonance for your readers, a lit spark that doesn’t go out when the poem is “over.”

8. If you take a risk, make it a big one; if your poem is edgy, take it all the way to the farthest edge.

9. Understand that overstatement and the obvious are deadly when it comes to writing poetry. Don’t ramble on, and don’t try to explain everything. Think about this: a poem with only five great lines should be five lines long.

10. Bring your poem to closure with a memorable dismount. (Be careful not to undercut your poem’s “authority” by ending with trivia or a “so what” line.)

NOTE: Think about making your poem unusual, edgy, different in some way. Try a prose poem, dip into the surreal, be satirical, try a haibun or a haiku sequence, perhaps a limerick.

Whatever you write, and whatever form you choose,

go for Ezra Pound’s classic dictum,” Make it new!”

Examples:

 

On Breathing
By Alicia Jo Rabins

I’m OK during the day, but at night I get scared,
Which makes it hard to breathe, which is a symptom
Of the pandemic, which is what scares me.
Well played, anxiety, my old friend. You’ve always
Warned me something like this might happen.
You’re a gift from my ancestors who survived plagues,
And worse. They wove you into my DNA to warn me,
So that I too might survive. Now that it’s happening,
Anxiety, I don’t need you any more. I need
The ones who gave you to me. So hear me, ancestors
Who lived though danger times: I’m ready for you now.
All these years I’ve carried your worries in my bones.
Now I need your love, your thousand-year view.
Tell me it’s going to be OK, remind me you made it
Through and we will too. Teach me to breathe. 

(Source: https://aliciajo.com/pandemicpoems/

Reprinted by permission of the author.)

Coronavirus, One Month Later
     By Nancy Lubarsky
    

Outside, streets are vacant

except for delivery trucks

and half-mast flags. There

are fewer places where I can

walk. As the parks empty, my

head is crowded with lost

people­—artists, legends, and

ordinary folk who spent their

lives making ends meet or

keeping us safe. There is less

music now, less poetry, fewer

pictures. I mourn for the people

I don’t know of, and the ones

I do—my colleague’s 90 year

old mother, our synagogue’s

past president, a friend’s

musician pal. As I learn about

their lives, I try to make them

comfortable in my mind’s

multiple rooms. My hope is

they’ll be there a long time.


(First Published in Frost Meadow Review)

_________________________

Two-Day Diary     

     By Penny Harter

mid-morning heat—
humidity already
a mask

late afternoon
a heavy rain cleanses
the dense air

steam rises
from hot pavement—
sirens somewhere

sudden thunder—
distant rumbles echo
in its wake

just a minor
accident—spilling beans
from a torn bag

supper again—
knife, fork, plate
and TV

bedtime—memories
of childhood flicker at
the edge of sleep

midnight waking—
try to reenter my
lingering dream

eyes closed—
another landscape opens
inside me

clearing night—
even through the roof
starlight

hazy morning—
stirring daily collagen
into my tea 


(Copyright © 2020 by Penny Harter)

_________________________

Sheltered in Place

     By Adele Kenny

Working from home—

anthills appear

on the driveway.

     I spray the mail with Lysol,

     then wash my hands 

     again.

Sheltered in place,

I lose track 

of the date.

     Below my window,

     a man on the street 

     sings behind his mask.

Memories of childhood—

wishing for last year 

or any year before.

     Peonies begin to bloom—

     I long for the way

     things were.

(Copyright © 2020 by Adele Kenny)

_________________________

Stay safe and be well, dear friends!

When Is a Poem Finished?

 

My most current manuscript, which I called “completed,” sat on my desk for well over a year. Every time I picked it up, I found something to change; at readings, I heard things that didn’t sound quite right, and I made more changes. Happily, my publisher accepted the manuscript a week or two ago, and the last nerve-wracking round of edits is nearing completion—I mean, it is, isn't it? 

It’s not surprising that I’ve been thinking about Paul Valéry’s statement that a poem is never finished, only abandoned. At what point does a poet stop and say, “This poem is completed.” I can’t remember ever consciously doing that, and my question is, “Exactly how does a poet know when to stop writing and editing a poem?”

For me, poems are ideas with wings—they move about quite a lot, and the fluttering usually generates a need to see where they want to go—the process takes me with it and it takes time. I try to give my poems a lot of time and space. Most often, I put a poem aside after several drafts and come back to it later (sometimes much later—I actually found one last week that I started in 2006 and “lost”). In most cases, my imagination is a step or two ahead of me, and I keep going back, putting aside, and going back again. Drafts and redrafts can number in the dozens for me, and I still find myself viewing the work from different angles and making changes. First and last lines are usually the most challenging—how to enter and leave a poem—how to invite the reader in and what to leave with the reader.

I have to admit that when I re-read my published poems months or years after publication, I’m sometimes horrified to think I let them go into the world as they are, and I edit them on their pages in the books or journals in which they appear. I thought I was a little weird about this practice until I read that Robert Lowell was famous for revising after his poems were published and even took his pen into bookstores where he edited right there.

The best strategy I’ve discovered is to read poems in process aloud to myself because it enables me to hear places where the poems breathes and sings, where the music stops, where images miss the intended mark, and where over-writing begins. I don’t imagine that many of us experience Yeatsian moments when, after revisions, “a poem comes right with a click like a closing box.” It must be wonderful, but it’s almost never that simple or easy for me.

With all of this in mind, I sent an inquiry to several poet friends whose work I respect and admire and asked them to answer the question,” How do you know when a poem in finished?” Their responses follow, but before you read on, here’s a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that addresses our subject.

How Do I Know When a Poem Is Finished?

When you quietly close

the door to a room

the room is not finished.

It is resting. Temporarily.

Glad to be without you

for a while.

Now it has time to gather

its balls of gray dust,

to pitch them from corner to corner.

Now it seeps back into itself,

unruffled and proud.

Outlines grow firmer.

When you return,

you might move the stack of books,

freshen the water for the roses.

I think you could keep doing this

forever. But the blue chair looks best

with the red pillow. So you might as well

leave it that way.

(Source)

How do you know when a poem is finished?

The Poets’ Responses

Donna Baier Stein:

That’s a tough question to answer! Even after a poem is published I will sometimes make changes when I am reading the poem out loud at an event. So in that sense, it’s never completely finished! But there is a visceral feeling, after working for weeks, months, or even years on a poem, that I get when I feel like I’ve caught what I intended the poem to convey. It’s almost like the closing of a lid, or a sigh of completion. It’s that moment when, to my ear, the poem sounds right and true.

www.donnabaierstein.com

www.tiferetjournal.com

www.amazon.com/Donna-Baier-Stein/e/B000AQ37Z4%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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Maria Mazziotti Gillan:

I have to say that, for me, I am often wrong about when a poem is finished. I work on it a long time and then I think it’s ready for the world, but if a few weeks go by and I read it out loud, I can tell that a line is off and that it needs to be changed. Sometimes, I don’t notice when there are lines that I’ve repeated or “wrong” words that I’ve used until several weeks go by. I admit that sometimes even after a poem is published, when I get up to read it to an audience, I will spot things that I didn’t realize before; and often in my books that are my reading copies, I make changes years after the poem was first published. I don’t feel that I’ve abandoned poems but more that I need to see them with new eyes as time goes on and to hear them with new ears as well.

Artist website: www.mariamazziottigillan.com

Poetry Website: www.mariagillan.com 

Poetry Blog: www.mariagillan.blogspot.com 

www.amazon.com/s?k=Maria+mazziotti+Gillan&i=digital-text&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

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Joe Weil:

I don’t really abandon poems (though I forget them) and the usual line is “poems aren’t finished, just abandoned.” I keep writing until I no longer feel I am in the poem. Then I step back, and squint at it, the way a painter might squint at a painting to see its overall effect. Then I leave it alone for two weeks and go back and read it. While I wrote it, I kept going back to the beginning and reading it, so the poem has been read by me maybe twenty times in different phases. But now is different. After two weeks, it doesn’t feel like my poem anymore exactly, and I see where its “parent” forgot to take the tag off the pants, and left the child wearing the cuff of the pants caught on a sock, and how there was a mustard stain on the shirt I’d chosen (almost gone but not quite). And I feel sad, very sad because the poor kid is going to get mocked if I let him go out like that. I change the shirt or tuck it in more where the stain doesn’t show, and I take the cuff out of the sock, and put just a little spit on my hand to flatten out a wayward cow’s lick (but not too much) and more or less make sure the kid is presentable. I don’t dress my poems fancy, so a comfortable lived-in look is what I’m going after. Here’s the scary thing: sometimes I forget to go back and re-read the poem and I never read it again or think about it. Years later, while in a panic about some other poem, I stumble over it. My poem has grown up without me. I either like it or I am sorry I sired it. I lose more poems than I revise. My favorite part of poetry is the writing, and sometimes the revision. Because I read the poems so many times while I am writing them, I always almost have them memorized and that means, even if I lose a poem, parts of it, a part here or there, still hang out in my brain. Those are usually the parts that should be in the world. I wrote 20 versions of “Morning at the Elizabeth Arch”—including one as a Pantoum and another as a sonnet. The final version is in on Rattle’s web site. I do re-takes, not just revisions. To me this should have a sense of dress up and play. When you’ve put together the right ensemble, you know your child can walk out the door, get a lover, and put you in a nursing home when you grow old and annoying. Then the poem is done, John Donne.

www.amazon.com/Joe-Weil/e/B001JOU8LC

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Ed Romond:

When I first became serious about writing poetry I attended a lot of workshops where I received feedback on my initial drafts. I considered my poem “finished” if and when the group, especially the leader, considered it a completed poem. As years went on I became more and more a self-editor although there were and continue to be certain friends I share my drafts with for their take on them. These days I read my drafts out loud to myself to hear how they “sound” and to discern if there is dead language that is impeding the poem’s impact. I think I pay more attention now to how I conclude a poem and might decide to change an earlier moment in the poem that will be more congruent with the ending.  Finally, even though I read my drafts out loud to myself I find presenting it at a public reading gives me a strong indication about the poem’s completeness or, in some cases, its need for some further work.

www.edwinromond.com

www.amazon.com/Edwin-Romond/e/B001K8VCZI%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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Laura Boss:

For me, I almost instinctively know when a poem I’m writing is finished. Maybe because I’m basically an intuitive poet (whatever that may mean to different poets), I invariably hear a click in my head that says “finished.”  Sometimes the intellectual part of me wants to add more details to finish it off (and at times I have), but mostly when I hear that mental “click,” (often at a place of impact), I know the poem is finished.

www.laurabosspoet.wordpress.com

www.amazon.com/Flashlight-Essential-Poets-Laura-Boss-ebook/dp/B00K6N3D1Y/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Laura+Boss+Poetry&qid=1557530739&s=digital-text&sr=1-2-catcorr

www.amazon.com/Best-Lover-Laura-Boss/dp/1630450448/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Laura+Boss+Poetry&qid=1557530777&s=digital-text&sr=1-1-catcorr

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Bob Rosenbloom:

Aside from “never really finished,” I’d like to try and get onto paper the reason why I was drawn or attracted to the poem in the first place. Does the poem get to that point anywhere at all? Are there enough moving parts? Does it click? Can I trim the language, use more striking words, if not vocabulary, polish it up, use some irony, twist it, tweak it. Sometimes, the poem isn’t going to happen, which happens enough. Possibly, I’m too lazy or it’s not such a great idea to begin with. Does the poem get off the launching pad? If I write about a parent, does this poem add to what I’ve already written about them or should that matter?

These are good questions, which I should ask more often. Usually, if I stop writing it’s because I get a general sense I don’t like the poem as much as I thought I would and I should quit while I’m ahead. That’s where writers say keep a notebook. I don’t keep a notebook but it’s probably a good idea. I try to keep an idea in my head but that doesn’t always work.

On the other hand, Saul Bellow said somewhere that we become writers because we liked reading something and feel we could do something like that, repeat a good experience for someone else. Why not?

www.amazon.com/Reunion-Robert-Rosenbloom/dp/1599246511

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Tony Gruenewald:

I like to take the poem for a test drive in front of an audience at an open reading. I can read it aloud at home, but for some reason I get a better feel for the rhythm and breath of the poem in front of people. I also immediately hear what goes clunk to refine the sounds and rhythms. And sometimes someone in the audience hears something, for better or worse, that I don’t hear. A fellow poet once resurrected a poem I’d written off as too obscure and it ended up receiving a Pushcart nomination.

www.tonygruenewald.com

www.amazon.com/Secret-History-New-Jersey/dp/1880764253/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Tony+Gruenewald&qid=1557531004&s=books&sr=1-2-spell

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Renée Ashley:

I do many, many drafts, usually, and the last drafts are oral. I read it out loud, and, if it reads as I’d like it, I read it into a recorder and play it back. I do this a couple of times.  It’s astounding what I catch listening to those recordings. And if I’m changing even a single word or punctuation mark I have to start all over again to assess the whole. And I’d say that I’m aiming to make the language precise and sonically seamless—or, if I’m going for crots, let them have their way (as long as their way is my way)—and that I need to feel a smooth closure that allows me to exit the poem while I still feel I’m pondering the issue or have what may only be a sense of slipping out of the poem but only with a resonant egress. Something needs to be hanging in the air when a poem’s done. No answers nailed down; perhaps a hovering sense of approaching understanding of one thing or another. Something like that. Of course, every time you write a poem it’s the first time you’re writing that particular poem, so you’re a novice every time—who knows what’s going to happen? All this is my ideal composition, though—and how often do we approach our ideal?

www.reneeashleyatwork.com

www.amazon.com/Ren%25C3%25A9e-Ashley/e/B000APV1Y4%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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Nancy Lubarsky:

You don’t always know.  Sometimes you are on a deadline and you have to end it, finished or unfinished.  Sometimes it is too painful to continue and you have to just leave it. Or you write yourself into a corner and don’t know where to go.  If everything is working (and what a great feeling when it is), you finish the last line or the last edit, and you say, “Yes, yes, yes ... this is it.  This is what I wanted to say and the way I wanted to say it!” 

www.amazon.com/Only-Proof-Nancy-Lubarsky/dp/1945752718

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A big THANK YOU to all the poets who contributed their thoughts
(and their time) to this post!

I’ve included links to their websites and/or recently published books.

Please be sure to visit them online!

Prompt #314 – What We Keep

Of course, we all keep memories, but sometimes there are tangible objects that become “valuable” to us because of their connections to our memories. Mementos and keepsakes that belonged to loved ones, that came from places we’ve visited, were gifts given to us, and even old photographs—these all fall into the category of “what we keep.”

When my mom passed away, twenty years ago, I brought many of her things home to my house. Many of the items I treasure most are the small things that she used every day—familiar and  humble. Among them are the salt and pepper shakers from her kitchen—not her crystal, silver-topped antiques, but the dime store set that was part of her daily life. These casual items have become personal and meaningful treasures.

What have you kept that belonged to another time, another place, another person? Why did you keep it? Why do you feel “close” to it? Write a poem about something you keep and treasure because of its connection to someone you loved, a special place, or a time in your life that was especially important to you.

Guidelines:

1. Begin by making a list of things you’ve kept and treasured over the years.

2. Next, annotate each object on your list with the people, memories, and feelings  associated with the items.

3. Then, select one of the items on your list—only one. If the object is handy, spend some time with it.

4. Free write for a while about the item you selected.

5. Finally, work on writing a poem about the item you selected.

Tips:

1. Avoid sentimentality. Anything with a strong emotional attachment can lead you into the trap of becoming sentimental. Be aware of that when you write.

2. Start with a line that will invite your readers into the poem. A “so what” beginning can ruin a poem like this.

3. Include enough details to describe the item, to remember the people, place, and feelings associated with it, but be wary of over-using adjectives, articles, and prepositional phrases.

4. Steer clear of trite expressions, clichés, and hackneyed similes and metaphors. Keep your writing fresh and direct.

5. If you began writing in the past tense try switching to the present (or vice versa), and see which version works better.

6. End with a “punch.” Avoid summing up, and think about concluding with a strong image.

Example:

Read the following poem carefully, and observe how skillfully the poet creates a memoir poem based on her father's cuff links

Work Clothes by Nancy Lubarsky

 (for my father)

Long after you were gone

I found your cuff links

in a velvet pouch among my

bracelets. The A (for Arthur), etched

in gold ovals, leaned right, the tail

swirled left, like a wave receding.

There’s mystery in the curls,

from a time before font names

were familiar, when elaborate letters

pledged stories to come.

I never saw you wear them – never

watched you twist the levers into slits

on cuffed shirts, or slip your arm into

the sleeve of a pinstriped suit.

Your work clothes were heavy twill –  

drawstring pants, an apron –

you left at midnight with them

stashed in a canvas sack, and headed

deep into the Bronx.

Over time, they wore and frayed,

stained with jelly and chocolate.

In middle school, after Home Ec

ended, you surprised me with the

sewing machine. In late afternoon,

at the dinette, you cut patches

while I mended holes and edges.  

My toe touched the pedal, the machine

whirred – you asked me to print

your initials inside along the seams.

From The Only Proof, Aldrich Press, Kelsay Books 
Copyright © 2017, all rights reserved. 

Reprinted by permission of the author.

To Order Nancy's Book, Click Here

Prompt #237 – Relationship & Word

This week’s prompt asks you to think back to a relationship from your past (parent, friend, romantic, work, May-December, toxic, love/hate, abusive). If you think hard you’ll be able to define several. Focus on one and think about one word that describes or relates to that relationship. Can you write a poem about the relationship that uses the word just once for maximum effect (in the title and/or text of the poem)?

Guidelines:

1. Think about your past relationships—don’t limit the kind of relationships you remember, and keep in mind that this must be a past relationship, not one in which you’re currently involved.

2. Choose one of your past relationships as the subject for your poem.

3. Think of a word that relates, directly or indirectly, to that relationship. Just one word, so make it a strong one!

4. Begin writing your poem (about the relationship) and include the word (in the title and/or within the poem). BUT …. here’s the challenge: you can only use the word once. Synonyms (as many as you like) are allowed, though.

Tips:

1. Because you’re focused on two things in this poem (the relationship and the word), work toward incorporating them through imagery and content.

2. Try writing beyond your last line, then go back and find the real last line hidden in what you’ve written.

3. Don’t undercut your poem’s “authority” by ending with trivia or a “so what” line that doesn’t make your readers gasp.

4. Leave your reader something to reflect upon.

5. Point toward something broader than the body of the poem.

  

Example:

Take a look at the poem below, “Red Bud,” from Nancy Lubarski’s book, Tattoos (Finishing Line Press, 2014, Copyright © 2014).

Although the poem wasn’t written for this prompt, it’s still a perfect example of what you might do with your own poem this week. In “Red Bud,” Nancy deals with the relationship between parents and children, loved ones, and losses. There are several relationships at work in this poem. The tree that fell in a storm might well be a metaphor for other kinds of loss. Notice how Nancy’s poem is image-based and written with absolute economy of words. This poem tells a story, but it’s not merely anecdotal—it does more than simply relate something that happened, it goes beyond the obvious and suggests something more than the loss of a tree. As I've noted often before, the best poems have more than one subject: their obvious subjects (of course) and one or more "inner" subjects as well. Think about how you can achieve this in your own work.

Which word in the poem do you think is the defining word in "Red Bud," articulated only once?  (Scroll down for the answer.)

Red Bud

When you planted it years

ago, it was to teach our two

sons about care and tending.

They helped you trim the

branches each spring to

ease its growth upward.

I wish the storm had spared

that Red Bud—the single

gust that ripped the roots

and toppled it.  Now, there will

be no more flowers. The boys

are older; they didn’t notice

that the tree was gone.

  

(Reprinted by permission of the author.)

You can order Tattoos (I recommend it highly!) directly from the publisher.

Click here to order.

(Answer: The defining word in "Red Bud" is “gone,” effectively placed as the last word in the poem.)