E-Calliope #6 Introduction

Greetings from E-Calliope, the on-line poetry muse. For this visit, I thought we might have some fun with a relatively simple poetic form, called the triolet, which probably originated in France at the end of the thirteenth century. The fun (and the challenge) of writing in a given form is in thriving to say something free and new, despite (or because of) the constraints of certain rules of rhyme, stanza structure, etc.

The Triolet Structure

The triolet is an eight-line poem, built on two rhymes. It is divided into two, four-line stanzas (or quatrains).

The first line is repeated as the fourth and seventh lines. The second line is repeated as the eighth line. One way to begin writing a triolet is to decide on your first and second lines; then, fill in their repetitions, as described above. All that is left to do is to come up with lines 3, 5, and 6, where lines 3 and 5 rhyme with line 1, and line 6 rhymes with line 2.Poets show such a rhyme scheme as follows: A B a A a b A B.

Here's an example of a triolet by Thomas Hardy:

How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee.
--Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Nor memory shaped old times anew,
Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee.


Suggestions for Writing

Using the description and the example by Thomas Hardy, above, try writing a triolet. Consider writing it for a friend or family member and putting it on a homemade greeting card.

If you would like to share your poem with visitors to the Montgomery County Poet web site, please e-mail them to Montcopoet@verizon.net by April 18th for posting on the E-Calliope blog.

Thanks. And have fun!

David Simpson
2007 Montgomery County Poet Laureate

E-Calliope #5 Introduction

The Importance of Precise Language and Clear Syntax in Creating Mystery

When reading a poem, we want to feel that we are in good hands, that the poet knows exactly what she or he is promising the reader. This is never more true than when a poem wants to be mysterious or to create an environment that contradicts the natural laws of our experience. We take pleasure in yielding to a poem's underlying, matter-of-fact, logical narrative, even though we know that certain details in it are wildly incredible. This is not unlike the pleasurable tension we feel between a forward-driving, steady beat in a piece of music, while the melody stretches and relaxes above it with its syncopations.

Here is a poem by William Carpenter, entitled "Girl Writing a Letter." First, read the poem a few times to become familiar with it. Then, read it again, noting how the poem lures the reader into a surprising world, anticipating his or her every hesitation with very adept "moves" that sound like perfectly logical explanations, underpinned by a syntax of simple, declarative sentences.

* * * * * *

GIRL WRITING A LETTER
by William Carpenter

A thief drives to the museum in his black van. The night
watchman says Sorry, closed, you have to come back tomorrow.
The thief sticks the point of his knife in the guard's ear.
I haven't got all evening, he says, I need some art.
Art is for pleasure, the guard says, not possession, you can't
something, and then the duct tape is going across his mouth.
Don't worry, the thief says, we're both on the same side.
He finds the Dutch Masters and goes right for a Vermeer:
"Girl Writing a Letter." The thief knows what he's doing.
He has a Ph.D. He slices the canvas on one edge from
the shelf holding the salad bowls right down to the
square of sunlight on the black and white checked floor.
The girl doesn't hear this, she's too absorbed in writing
her letter, she doesn't notice him until too late. He's
in the picture. He's already seated at the harpsichord.
He's playing the G Minor Sonata by Domenico Scarlatti,
which once made her heart beat till it passed the harpsichord
and raced ahead and waited for the music to catch up.
She's worked on this letter for three hundred and twenty years.
Now a man's here, and though he's dressed in some weird clothes,
he's playing the harpsichord for her, for her alone, there's no one
else alive in the museum. The man she was writing to is dead --
time to stop thinking about him -- the artist who painted her is dead.
She should be dead herself, only she has an ear for music
and a heart that's running up the staircase of the Gardner Museum
with a man she's only known for a few minutes, but it's
true, it feels like her whole life. So when the thief
hands her the knife and says you slice the paintings out
of their frames, you roll them up, she does it; when he says
you put another strip of duct tape over the guard's mouth
so he'll stop talking about aesthetics, she tapes him, and when
the thief puts her behind the wheel and says, drive, baby,
the night is ours, it is the Girl Writing a Letter who steers
the black van on to the westbound ramp for Storrow Drive
and then to the Mass Pike, it's the Girl Writing a Letter who
drives eighty miles an hour headed west into a country
that's not even discovered yet, with a known criminal, a van
full of old masters and nowhere to go but down, but for the
Girl Writing a Letter these things don't matter, she's got a beer
in her free hand, she's on the road, she's real and she's in love.

* * * * * *
The poem opens in a fairly believable way ("A thief drives to the museum in his black van." Of course, by telling us it's "a thief," rather than simply "A man," Carpenter sets up the humor of the night watchman's unwitting reply, " Sorry, closed, you have to come back tomorrow." Carpenter makes each statement a little more outrageous than the one before, raising the bar higher and higher in the poem's demand for plausible explanations, so that the fun and, to some extent, the form of the poem becomes a game of self-imposed problems and adroit answers. When the poem's narrator tells us that the thief "finds the Dutch masters and goes right for a Vermeer", he is quick to say that "the thief knows what he's doing. / He has a Ph.D." And when the thief "slices the canvas on one edge from / the shelf holding the salad bowls right down to the / square of sunlight on the black and white checked floor," he explains that the girl doesn't hear this because "she's too absorbed in writing / her letter." No wonder, then, that the thief is able to slip into the painting, seat himself at the harpsichord, and begin playing "the G Minor Sonata by Domenico Scarlatti! I'm certainly willing to buy it!



And here's a brief prose poem by Russell Edson:

* * * * * *
Oh My God, I'll Never Get Home
by Russell Edson

A piece of a man had broken off in a road. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. As he stopped to pick up another piece he came apart at the waist.
His bottom half was still standing. He walked over on his elbows and grabbed the seat of his pants and said, legs go home.
But as they were going along his head fell off. His head yelled, legs stop.
And then one of his knees came apart. But meanwhile his heart had dropped out of his trunk.
As his head screamed, legs turn around, his tongue fell out.
Oh my God, he thought, I'll never get home.

* * * * * *


Suggestions for Writing

1. Try writing a poem that blends the ordinary world with a magical or surrealistic world. For example, the speaker or narrator might go to see a movie and end up walking into it. Or, suppose the speaker in your poem fell asleep with the radio on and dreamed he was talking with the man in the commercial. Let your imagination surprise you. Then, use vivid details and matter-of-fact tone to give the poem a believable quality.

2. Write a prose poem that immediately places the reader in another world. Russell Edson is particularly good at this. Here's how a few of his poems begin:

“A scientist has a test tube full of sheep. He wonders if he should try to shrink a pasture for them."

“A man had been married to a woman’s high-heeled shoe for seven years.”

"You haven’t finished your ape, said mother to father, who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers."

To learn more about Russell Edson's craft and to read more of his work, I highly recommend an essay by Sara Manguso, entitled "Why the Reader of Good Prose Poems is Never Sad," which you can find in the on-line journal, The Believer, at
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200403/?read=article_manguso.


If you would like to share your poem with visitors to the Montgomery County Poet web site, please e-mail them to montcopoet@verizon.net by February 15.

Thanks. And have fun!

David Simpson
2007 Montgomery County Poet Laureate

First Memory, by Jennifer Hubbard

My first memory is a lie,
A shadow, the smoke that ghosts are made of.
It's a ball batted back, peacock-blue,
A ball won at a bazaar
Along with the goldfish
I found floating on their sides
After two days
Like autumn leaves fallen into a stream.

My first memory is parhelic,
A silver ring around the sun,
With miniature suns flashing bright
At its edges, the halo that foretells
A blizzard.

If I told you
My first memory
I would have to kill you,
(So says the spy, with a wink,
As he sets his fedora on his head.
He turns his back
And stalks off into the fog.)

Ocean City Memories, by Linda Barrett

when I eat a lime taffy,
its odor pierces my nostrils
with its clean, sharp smell
that pulls me back
into my five-year-old's recollection
of the NASA moon landing summer
My first image takes me
to the bright white and green
Ladies' room on the Boardwalk.
My hand feels the overpainted
slick cement walls
and Pine Sol thrusts a clean knife
in my nose, warning me
that it won't tolerate
crude excrement odors.
Small feet feel dank
bathroom water
pooling at the floor's metal strainer.
The lime salt water taffy
conjures up images
of the Boardwalk
but Miss Atlantic Ocean
reeks of rotting fish
and acrid salt water
proving to us all
that she is no lady
revealed in low tides
(she should try feminine hygiene spray!)
Copper Kettle Fudge
sweetens the Boardwalk air
with hot, sugary chocolate smells
made more enticing by salty air
and mingles with burnt wood aftershave
from the sunbaked boards.
The amusement piers
play Top 40 Psychedelia
to show they support
the hippie cause
by giving out red tickets to ride
on droning metal magic carpets
Some dream of time machines
to change the past
As for me,
all I need is to bite
into a lime salt water taffy
and I'm in Ocean City, 1969

E-Calliope #4 Introduction

Note from the 2007 Poet Laureate, David Simpson:
Greetings! I come to you, not only as the current poet laureate of Montgomery County, but also as this year’s incarnation of E-Calliope, your on-line Muse. Please stop by this site from time to time for inspiration.

In my first visit as E-Calliope, I’d like to talk about the role of memory in poetry, but first, let me introduce you to my mother, Mnemosnye, daughter of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth). She was an amazing Titan with the ability to remember everything and to place it in its proper order. (The Titans were the elder gods who ruled until they were overthrown by the Olympians.) It is from her name that the phrase “mnemonic device” (a trick for remembering something) is derived.

It is thought that Zeus, before taking Hera as his wife, posed as a shepherd and consorted with Mnemosnye (my mother) for nine nights, after which she bore nine daughters. Calliope (that’s me) was the oldest of them (I’m proud to say). It is no accident that memory engendered and was essential to all of the muses. Plato, in his work “Saetetus,” said as much:

"Please assume ... that there is in our souls a block of wax, in one case larger, in another smaller, in one case the wax is purer, in another more impure and harder, in some cases softer, and in some of proper quality...Let us, then, say that this is the gift of Memory, the mother of the Muses, and that whenever we wish to remember anything we see or hear or think of in our own minds, we hold this wax under the perceptions and thoughts and imprint them upon it, just as we make impressions from seal rings; and whatever is imprinted we remember and know as long as its image lasts, but whatever is rubbed out or cannot be imprinted we forget and do not know."


The Muse Visits:
In this visit, the Muse once again asks you to dwell in the senses and to write from the body, since this is where memory lives in its freshest, most unadulterated state. Even before we had words, we had sensations—warmth, cold, wetness, hunger, the smell and taste of milk, someone’s touch.


The Muse challenges you:
Let your body take you to your earliest memory; then, write about it! At first, you might just jot down images and descriptive phrases. For some of you, the memory will be quite clear. But, if it isn’t, don’t worry: this can be a poetry of the unknown. Feel free to make up a “first memory” (you might be surprised). Even when we write about what we know, the best poems are those which, by the end, surprise us. Use the poem to tell a bold truth and a bold lie, and don’t indicate which is which.


The Muse Sets a Deadline
Send your poem by July 1 to be posted on the E-Calliope blog.

Among the Missing by P. A. Pashibin

How can the beaches of Mexico lie
under their stars,
without me?

How is it that shore runs to sea
unveiled and pliant,
without my footsteps?

Mountains hold tight to their facade.
It keeps them from falling apart.

But what wills the air
to carry its perfume
without my laughter?

My absence unbearable, yet
faithfully the country endures,
yellow-ribboned to hasten my return.

La Bohemienne by Claudia Beechman

My first flat was the size of a cracker jack box,
so commented a beau, but the rent was cheap:
Three sun- colored rooms where I listened to jazz
learned to love Chris Connor, Ella “Fitz,”Steeleye Span.
I tuned in often, as loud as I wanted, bought cutlery,
bric-a-brac, jeans from the thriftshop on South,
Shot pool at long-gone Longo’s next door,
Grooved to the percussion of my percolator,
before I learned it was the wrong way to make coffee.
The old radiators played all day, had their own
rhythm session : “pop, pop”, “bang, bang”, “ ssssssssssss!!”

My father, the restaurateur, brought eggs to the feast, filet,
bottles of Burgundy, carrying boxes three flights up
on his well-muscled shoulders, humming, and
gleefully proclaiming , “You’re a Townie!”
My mother, the comedienne, hung a rainbow of beads
that went click-a-clack- click when I passed through the rooms;
Once, we had lunch in the bright tiny kitchen-- watercress
omelettes on mismatched plates, a wedge of French bread
with peach jam and sweet butter.

The friends, mostly players, visited and jammed,
perched on the leatherette cushions, the kitchen chairs
Drank tea that I brewed from bright-colored tins
lined up on the tiny gas stove. The tea-kettles’ whistle
trilled high above fluid acoustic sounds.
Listening to Piaf or Brel, I’d gaze at Frans Haals
’“La Bohemienne” that hung from the wall.
Yes, it was as Aznavour sang it,
just enough to get by, and it was enough for awhile:

Until holding my Martin, my guitar, my escort,
I met the gaze of a man whose eyes blazed--
Billy, whose parents financed his trinity,
Latakia lingering long in the courtyard.
Three flights up, a library of sound, from Mahler to
Mingus , from ‘Trane” to Chet Baker.
The night after I heard “Brazilian Byrd”
I slept in my own narrow bed,
I dreamed in scarlet, stabbed through the heart
by an arrow aflame as the lush strings played
and when I awoke, knew the carnival was over.

Only the Losers Fight the Battles by Linda Barrett

the sun hangs over me like an invisible iron
as oppressive my friend's love for me.
It's as bright as her smile and as bright
as the knife she puts into my back at the same time.
She has me out here, standing guard by the house.
which stands on deep gold grass as valuable as
a dog urine stained carpet.
the grass smells just as bad,
with a stench that fills the clammy June air.
Her so-called love clings to me like
the heavy black wool uniform I wear.
Gnats fly around me in circles
their buzzing droning in my ears and
in my unwashed hair.
I try to imagine them as the voices of
imaginary friends that I have conjured up
to comfort me in my lonely post,
guarding this little bay of gray blue water
and this cumbersome old house,
which seems to have no military value.
To my friend, I am a loser.
she has cut me off from her people
who seem to have all the right answers
and see themselves superior to other
human beings who have different colored skin
and different shaped eyes.
My mouth tries to wear a smile
as a necessary accessory to my uniform
to cheer on those perfect Caucasian warriors
who ride on their perfectly mechanically advanced
bicycles as they go off to their meetings and pep rallies
to encourage each other into war against the Liberals
Every one of them,
from the smallest blond-haired and blue-eyed toddler
to the few surviving German-American Bund members
cast me sidelong glances
to tell me that I'm not worthy
enough to be counted with them.
At this rate,
I'd rather be a black hating dog in one of their houses
than this lonely rejected piece of cannon fodder
standing alone on a smelly grass cliff
overlooking a gray blue bay
which has no military significance whatsoever
in the war against the East Coast Liberals



@2007 Linda Barrett

Keeper of the Light by E. Twan S. Crawford

Night awakes from deep sleep, its body spreads across the sea.
At my post I close my eyes and the ocean's briny breath washes over me.
A cool mist settles on my skin, my looking glass becomes slick with moisture.
My eyes open to a single strand of light from across the waters; I know it's her.

On an alabaster minaret on a lonely cape, I encroach upon the dark with light.
My thoughts sail upon waves and greet her on the deck
Standing in the wind searching the stars, maybe for me.
The fireplace smoke rises like tangled bits of dreams she has not yet imagined.

Inside, the amber glow at fireside cradles her softly in its arms.
And as the flames die out my thoughts keep her warm.
Many seasons she has come and stayed alone in silence
And each night I'm with her, across the sea, a stream of light on a distant shore.