Auntie's April 2012 Thread: 30 Poems in 30 Days

You know, Auntie, I usually don't really like literature that speculates on the lives of real people, but this is beautifully done, as your work always is.

Brava, brava, on thirty fascinating days!

It'll take me long, Auntie, to catch up with your April learned, inspired, heroic, so well documented an effort! I will need to spread my reading over May to be able to taste your art fully. My long absence deprived me of the immediate pleasure of your dedicated, Herculean work!

Thank you for the rhyme and raison ! Vive Avril !

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

Thank you, everyone, for reading and commenting on these!
I meant to do a type of index for this thread, but an unexpected event got in the way. Finally, here is a list of titles, poetic forms,and/or genres for "30/30" (Not linked. If interested in a particular poem, please scroll up or down to the appropriate date.)

April 1
“Poetry Month”
triplets

April 2
“The Trout”
rhyming quatrain with line breaks

April 3
“The Crocus”
“netless” (free verse)

April 4
“Gehenna’s Child”
rhyming couplets

April 5
“No More Whining for Bread”
netless

April 6
“A Murder of Crows”
pantoum

April 7
“Nuance”
epigram (sort of)

April 8
“Full Moon in April”
septet; rhyme royal

April 9
“Double dactyl”
double dactyl

April 10
“Man Bites Dog”
netless narrative poem

April 11
“Whale Watch”
iambic trimeter qautrains

April 12
“Termagant is Fair Pay”
really, really netless

April 13
“Triskaidekaphobia”
13-line rondeau

April 14
“Two Amoebae Go into a Bar”
Amoebean; rhyming couplets

April 15
“A Kid Does His Homework”
Martian poetry

April 16
“Centerpiece”
sestina

April 17
“A Night to Remember”
McWhirtle

April 18
“Belatedness”
Petrarchan sonnet

April 19
“Ode to (and on) a Pillow”
mock-heroic, terza rima, travesty, burlesque

April 20
“A Prayer for the Earth”
triolet

April 21-22
“Inside Baseball”
parodies of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and “Casey at the Bat”

April 23
“The Groundling”
Shakespearean sonnet

April 24
“Hock Tuesday”
huitain

April 25
two poems about St. George
narrative, Bob and Wheel; clerihew

April 26
“Words in Bloom”
curtal sonnet

April 27
Ditties inspired by “Sylvie and Bruno”
three parodies after Charles Dodgson

April 28
“What Do Rabbits Want”
netless

April 29
“Love in the Woods”
epyllion, sesta rima

April 30
“30/30"
Limerick

Auntie, I have a question. My current method of writing is just writing down what pop up in my head. finding the right words for them, and digging metaphors from my past. It seems to me that when I follow certain forms, I don't feel I emotionally invest enough. How do you make certain poetic forms naturally flow as if they are yours not copied from the poets of the old? Thanks, Auntie.

Fantastic Auntie. This was (1) an achievement and (2) some real good poetry. I also enjoyed reading some of your commentary on poets and poetry.

Thank you Mikayo73. You're a serious scholar and such a nice girl! Hope someday all of your ambitions become fruitful.

And thank you as well, dear Virgil.

Someday soon, as I begin to get more of my strength back and recover from my clumsy
injury I'll post a blog describing how this self-indulgent thread came to be.

Thank you everyone, for reading and commenting.

I've just gone through and picked out the shorter poems to comment on, Auntie. I'll do the longer ones in the future.

Also, I've read no one else's comments prior to my own.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

[SIZE="2"]

April 1
Poetry Month

Again it’s April, time to write in verse.
It makes me anxious that I can’t rehearse
these feeble lines, which genius makes look worse.

In literary light they fall to shame,
with excellence exceeding fickle fame.
Unworthy am I to mention the name

of Chaucer, whom time never could discard;
nor less the birth and death day of the Bard,
both on the twenty-third. *It’s also hard

with Browning’s fond longing for England’s cool*
clime in the month great Eliot found cruel.
But I’ll try it anyway, like a fool.

---

I'm not usually a fan of poetry about poetry--I usually find it obvious and uninteresting--but this is an exception. I didn't start liking until the start of the third stance, which seemed to add a bit of substance. It reminded me a lot of older poetry when the muses were invoked, the muses in this case being older poets. Not bad. Not much beneath the surface, but entertaining.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

April 2
The Trout

Between the rocks
a silver
rainbow*
flash

above
the clear
and churning
water’s*
splash,

it moves
along
the swollen,
silvan brook

beyond
the human
babbling, and
the hook.

---

I find your ability to be so diverse with structure quite impressive. I like the imagery and minimalism of this one, along with the message at the end, which I assume was that nature, in it's simple and ignorant way, is above humanity. The fish has no use for human inanities.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

[COLOR="Teal"]

April 3

The Crocus

Forget about
the oligarch
and those whose
boots would stomp
upon our will.

Instead submit
to anarchy,
the kind*
that lets
our spirits soar.

Kneel down
and take
a loving look

at the little
purple spikes
conquering*
the shifting ground.

---

I was with this one until the last stanza . . . can't really figure out what that's referencing. Now that that means it's bad--I often don't know what poems are referencing. The first two stanzas, while well written and constructed, reminded me too much of the mindset of an angsty teen extolling the "fight the power" mindset. Nothing wrong with that, but the mere use of the word "anarchy" reminds me of speeches given by high school hipsters.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

April 4

Gehenna’s Child

My Irish ma, devout and proud,
who cherished chalices and The Shroud,
would set aside each Holy Day
as one more reason we should pray.

“Spy Wednesday” * in the last week of Lent–
oh my-- what sinful thoughts that sent:
like cloaks and daggers, furtive feints,
state secrets not among the saints.

Hypocrisy was what she meant,
but I, intrigued, could not repent.

*Matthew xxiii: * 3-5, 4-16

---

My favorite so far. Unlike a couple of the previous ones, this one just seems so dense, layers and layers upon meaning. I can't say I understand it (too lazy to look up the bible verse, honestly), at least not all of it, but that's not always a bad thing. I can't pick out a particular line I like, they're all good. I love the imagery, the word choice, and the message.*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

April 5

No More Whining for Bread

All of us, of course,
need money,
but I love
wildflowers more,

and the blissful sparrow
unaware that
someone’s got
its back.

Death will come
(it always does),
but for now it’s shelved
way back in my mind,

where from time to time
it’s good to recall
that the way
to be remembered
is to do
peculiar things.

---

It's not bad . . . but I just can't get into it. There just doesn't seem to be anything special about it--nature poetry, meh (by the way, I'm being a total hypocrite here since I've written my fair share of mature poetry--probably because it's so easy), It reminds me of Wordsworth without the strict structure, and I've mixed feelings on Wordsworth.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

April 6

A Murder of Crows

The rooks (or black birds) circled round and round
three empty roods on the deserted hill
in sight of scattered thorns upon the ground
so lost and disregarded in the kill.
With empty roods on the deserted hill
was there no sense of sorrow for the crown
so lost? *And disregarded in the kill,
a clash between divine and human will,
was there no sense of sorrow for the crown,
a part of ancient prophecy fulfilled?
Could a clash of divine and human will
be picked up by a sharply pecking bill?
Not part of ancient prophecy's fulfilled
insight, the scattered thorns upon the ground
could be picked up with sharp, pecking bills
of rooks and black birds circling round and round.

---

I liked it, but the rhyming seemed a bit forced. I liked the reporting though, and there's great imagery here. I think with some revising this could be excellent. Also, the parentheses in the first line were distracting. Maybe just go with "black birds" or "rook," rather than explaining what a rook is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

April 7

Nuance

There is very little
difference between
the word “good”
and the word “god.”

Oh.

---

Ummmm, don't really know what to say about this one. I know this will sound harsh, but it seems kind of stupid. There's just not enough there, or maybe there is and I'm not finding it, but it seems like a spur-of-the-moment poem gone bad (of course, one couldn't blame you, forcing yourself to write a poem a day :) ).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Full Moon in April

The other night I thought it no avail,
celestial sights hide, eluding me.
A meteor spray or a rare comet’s tail*
will bolt like a skittish child from a bee.
Although a shower loomed, I still could see–
despite lenticular clouds- clear as glass,
the moon called “Egg” or “Pink” or “Sparrow Grass.”

---

[QUOTE=AuntShecky;1131055]

I can't say I'm a fan of this one, either. I don't dig the fourth line at all, and I'm trying to figure out what it's about, as in what's below the surface. It's one of the poems in which I think maybe I'm missing something.


That's as far as I got for now. I'll take a look at the rest when I can. :)

Thank you M-M, for taking the time to read these and to give such well-thought replies. The one about the crows tries to follow the form of a pantoum, which may have given it that "forced" impression. "No More Whining for Bread" makes oblique references to specific Biblical passages.

I believe I agree with many of your assessments on these. Thanks again.

Here's the blog that explains how all of this nonsense came to be:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...og.php?b=12419