I sit down to produce a jot of verse—
I stand up, and I pace around the room.
What might have been a banger will get worse
The more I pace. To hesitate spells doom.
For any work which takes a focused mind—
And poetry is surely in that group—
Ideas must flow all at once, I find,
Or else I'll lose myself: caught in a loop
Of thinking, and rethinking, and—oh, fuck!
I've dropped the thread entirely by now.
That's what I get for pacing: a big suck;
The glimmer of a topic, but no "pow!"
One saving grace: there is no Poem Boss.
When I screw up, it's no-one else's loss.
To improve my poems, I read the masters. Here are the poems I've found inspiring.
Conventions
Poems are arranged by poet. Right now, poets aren't in any particular order; I hereby declare (on 2020-01-26) that I'll write code to fix this some day.
Strong markup indicates the poem left a particularly powerful impression.
Poets are listed under their full birth names, unless, like Lord Byron, they are better known by another moniker.
Unless noted "in full," anything listed here is an excerpt, not the entire poem.
In checking texts against Poetry Foundation or Bartleby versions, I frequently find differences in spelling and lineation. You have been warned.
Citations are chiefly from these works:
Great Poems of the English Language (GPEL), edited by Wallace Alvin Briggs
How Does a Poem Mean? (HDPM), by John Ciardi
Unauthorized Versions: Poems and their Parodies (UV), edited by Kenneth Baker.
Were I King Ahasuerus
Then never would I see
A Haman full of hate.
My kingdom's Jews, their fate,
Would never safer be—
Were I King Ahasuerus.
Were I King Ahasuerus
No outside threat would scare us.
With Mordecai at hand,
The wisest in the land,
We'd have him to prepare us—
Were I King Ahasuerus.
Were I King Ahasuerus
I'd toss out old Vashti
With bigger dreams than britches.
What's with these ancient bitches?
A diff'rent wife for me—
Were I King Ahasuerus.
Were I King Ahasuerus
To fortune I could bear us.
One people, marked forever:
A Jewish race, together.
To this compact I'd swear us—
Were I King Ahasuerus.
Part of the 2019 Weeklong Wine Country Poetry Fight. Written while hiking in Austin Hills State Recreation Area, in response to a challenge from Chris Stasse: "in five minutes, write a poem on what you see before you."
The north wind rises
Descends onto the ridge
Meets both trees
And swirls away
After I read this aloud, Chris said it reminded him of descriptions of nature from the poet Wang Wei [王维].
My milkshake is a peanut-butter treat
With chocolate, too, appearing in the mix
A glass so large, so sickeningly sweet
That I need less than half to get my fix
I'm in a diner with a weighty tome
Great English Poems, edited by Briggs
Across the table, Adam looks at home
With Murakami, and with coffee swigs
There comes a sudden motion from below
As Adam lays a tickle on my knee
I counter-jest, exclaiming, "Nandato!"
Which Adam laughs at oh-so-heartily
It's Wednesday. We have nothing much to do.
The skies change from a rainy gray to blue.
This page collects my responses to the poetry-writing exercises set by Stephen Fry in his book The Ode Less Traveled.
The entries here are unfinished, unpolished, unvarnished, and unloved -- but they are important. They are not just the first step in the creative process: they are that process.
Exercise 1
2019-11-01
I must remind you that these are not even drafts -- they are scraps, not even fit for animals to hear. Here are the results from Poetry Exercise 1: "Write ~20 lines of iambic pentameter."
Today I have to buy a pair of pants
I have to buy gray pants today — one pair
The pair of pants I buy in gray today
Will be the pair of gray pants that I wear
In a previous update, I succeeded in buying a copy of Stephen Fry's poetry manual, The Ode Less Traveled. The exercises given throughout the chapters are placed and scoped such that it is easy to slip into doing them right as they are called for. Working through the exercises is exactly what I need to improve my skill level. I am posting my exercise responses on this page as I go through the book.
Bunghole! Bunghole! Clenching tight,
On the toilet, in the night.
Curse you, bowels! Set me free!
Has my poo no place to be?
In a distant land of glee—
Somewhere constipation-free—
Man may poo most joyfully.
He knows not of agony.
He knows not the price we pay:
Pants 'round ankles, we inveigh,
Grunting, swearing, moved to pray,
Pooing in a toilsome way.
For what reason, in God's grace,
Did He make man squat in place,
Wasting time, without a say,
On a poo's extended stay?
What immortal hand on high
Moved to make our poo so dry?
Whither Bunghole and his fee?
Whither constipationry?
Bunghole! Bunghole! Clenching tight,
On the toilet, in the night.
Curse you, bowels! I don't see
What I've ever done to thee!
While traveling on the group tour which inspired "A Gift for Gadi", a friend and I spent a day stumbling around a foreign marketplace, our bellies stuffed and our eyes wide. We were totally out of place -- yet we were at ease. I invented a word to describe the feeling of wandering aimlessly without a care: "roaming around like a couple of drongos."
The word "drongo" doesn't have a pithy definition, but this poem (and its companion, "Drongo Explained") should help you get the idea. A hedonist, a bon vivant, a fish out of water, an artist, a scrounger, a drifter, or a jester might all be drongos.
Written in response to something nice that Chance, a new friend, said to me. This is "two thirds" of a sonnet because a real sonnet needs a third four-line verse before the ending couplet.
Has it occurred to you that you deserve
To be called not just chill, but chill supreme?
I have a softness in my heart for those
Who follow through—who realize the dream
Of living in a world where effort's fruits
Are by most sincere comments justly met
Much thanks, for 'tis upon my horn you toot
Exchanging digits was a winning bet
A sonnet, or two thirds of one, for thee
With gratitude from You-Know-Who and me
Written late at night, after getting to know these two fellows at a meetup. If you join the second and third lines in each stanza, the meter becomes iambic tetrameter (save for the line beginning "Knowledge", which must be read as a trochee.)
Tonight I've met a pair of men
Whom I hope I may
Call new friends
Two buds, pointed at PhDs
Knowledge sets both their
Means and ends
Two dudes, united by one car
Stick-shift - they're off! in
Homeward flight
Let's meet again, cognition crew
To pass another
Pleasant night
Hayley, AKA "Blue" or "Bloo," was my roommate (or "shmoom-mate") from September 2018 to September 2019. I started composing poems shortly before I moved in with her, and soon found that life in close quarters provided many poetic inspirations. This is one of my two favorites from this period; the other is "Hayley and her boy toy".
Shortly before moving away from Portland, I got the chance to have a farewell lunch with Professor Hyong Rhew, one of just three or four people whom I call "my most beloved teachers." Also present was my long-time friend Chris Stasse, whom I similarly call one of "my most beloved friends."
This poem commemorates the mischievous post-prandial activities of that day. I believe this is the first poem I've written for Chris; it probably won't be the last.
最后一杯
干了之后
老师告别
哥俩要走
笑着回家
大麻便抽
疯狂假想
做双朋友
A loose translation, 2019-12-20, 11:41:01-0800:
One last cup
Drained
The teacher bids goodbye
The two boys
Leave
Laughing all the way home
"Big Hemp" is
Smoked
Wild fancies take flight
Such is a pair of friends!
Half a dozen friends of mine live in a group house called Friendship Village. The first time I hung out with them as a group, I wrote a Chinese poem for them all to express my gratitude at meeting such lovely new friends.
About a year later, after a joyous night of homemade pizza at Friendship Village, I decided to write poems for each of them. A week later my project was complete. I hand-wrote the poems on cards, and delivered them at Ian's going-away party on 2019-06-13.
A cottage on a hill
A flower patch
A tree of fruit
A mound of herbs
A bunch of beans
A pile of plerp
A bag of blegg
A tin of twomp
A sack of snoob
And a sign out front, big-lettered:
WITCHY WONDERS
"CHAOS, MADE TO ORDER"
Hand-painted
Wholesome winter scenes on
Christmas cards.
How? How does
Someone come to wield such
Skill at arts?
Long, hard work
And a smile for all the
"Not-quite-rights."
No other
Way to learn to paint such
Winter sights.
To me you come off as the coolest housemate
Can it be true that you're the illest villager?
Skate on home, then rouse up that guitar rumpus
"Cool" is too weak: from now on you're a chillager
One of my two favorites of the poems I wrote for my former roommate, Hayley. The other favorite is "Goodbye, Hayley".
Hayley and her boy toy
In the night they giggle
Fingers go exploring
Interlocked they wiggle
Fingertip on her hip
Tracing out a squiggle
This is love, no doubting
Not even a niggle
I once traveled in a touring group guided by an amicable man named Gadi. When the group played Secret Santa and I received his name as my beneficiary, I decided to write him a poem.
Please excuse any awkwardness in the pseudo-literary Chinese. The gift was completed in a hurry, for a non-Chinese-speaking audience, so I judged rhyming more important than phrase construction.
A Gift for Gadi, Original
Gadi Gadi Gadi
我队队长
样子很帅
哥们超爽
人才之峰
留一大胡
教人何为
天天为酷
A Gift for Gadi, Rough English Translation
Gadi Gadi Gadi
Captain of our team.
His style is way fresh,
This Chiller Supreme.
Of eminent talents
And big-bearded too,
He teaches all people
His everyday cool.