Why am I allowed two?
This is the first thing that I've recorded with my new Blue Snowball. Overall, I'm very pleased with the quality of the recording. And I love this poem. It's one of my very favorite of Neruda's work.
You can read this, and many more of his wonderful odes, in Odes To Common Things.
If you want to subscribe to the podcasts on this site, please use the FeedBurner URL. Thanks.
Who's There?
September 15, 2008
I see him, every now and then,
peeking out for a moment,
and then he's gone.
I'd like to think I can coax
him out, cajole him into performing
his trick of writing a few beautiful lines,
but it seldom works
that way. When thrust into the lights
he retreats, embarrassed, into the shadows.
Sometimes he shakes me awake
in the night with something to write.
If I don't get up right away,
he slouches off, discouraged,
and doesn't try twice.
But if I leap up right away, write
as he dictates, he always rewards
my loss of sleep with a clever turn
of phrase that I can seldom arrive at.
alone. The best I can usually produce
without him
is something more like this.
A sestina is a poetic form. It consists of six-line stanzas, with each stanza's lines ending in the same six words, in a different order for each stanza. Then there is a final stanza, called the envoi, in which each line contains two of the six words.
You can see examples of sestinas here, or provide your own six words to see what form comes out.
It is incredibly hard to write a sestina that doesn't sound forced, and hardly anybody ever manages it. A really good sestina, when read aloud, is not immediately identifiable as a sestina. It just sounds like there's a rhythm in there, but you can't quite place it until you read it that third or fourth time, and see it on a page.
Most sestinas, however, work for the first stanza, and possibly the second, but after that you feel that the author is just saying any old nonsense just to stay in the form.
Sestinas work best when they are about a repetitive topic. Examples might be a child's game, or an addiction, or a daily event. So I thought that the latest topic on Inspire Me Thursday - Breath - would be ideal for it. Unfortunately, so far, it just sounds like, after the first stanza, I'm merely babbling to fit the form.
I've had a really hard time writing lately. Everything feels forced, both fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. I keep hoping that if I force it long enough, it'll start to flow. But the pump refuses to be primed.
For the Weekend Wordsmith
Laugh, Baby
August 15, 2008
Laugh now, little one,
it's all tears ahead -
a vale of tears
through which we mourn
and weep, on even the best
of days.
Laugh, and do not listen
to those who tell you your lot
is a harsh one.
I'll let you in on a little secret,
just between us:
They say that only
because they forgot to laugh
when they had the chance -
thought laughter impious,
thought tears the path
of righteousness.
I'm glad John mentioned
that Jesus wept for his friends.
He'd have done well to note
how often he laughed with them.
So laugh, my angel,
while you're yet a baby,
that when you are old
you will still be young.
From the Weekend Wordsmith
Croissants
August 9, 2008
Flour, some water,
butter - mustn't forget butter,
real butter, not oil or margarine,
but butter -
these are the ingredients
for a memory.
A little Nutella for sweetness,
a café au lait to wash it down,
and the Paris sky
warming our faces and our hearts.
