Friday, April 20, 2007

Poetry Friday: "we are embracing our mourning"

Several poetry-related items today.

1.
R and I, after discussing creativity and discipline and our own work, have decided to start giving each other poetry assignments and writing a poem a week the way we did in college. The poems are due on Mondays, and we trade off on developing assignments. If I like the poems I write I may share them here; I will share the assignments.

Last week's assignment was rather baroque (and was thus obviously mine):
Our first assignment is based on a poem by Hanna Andrews which appeared in Diagram. Read the poem and her author's note and write a poem in three sections. The first section must be written in full sentences, be at least 14 lines long, and include a primary color, a medical professional, and the name of a tree. The other sections must reinterpret, revise, or translate the first, using only words which appeared in the first section. The third section cannot be more than three lines long and must use only words which appeared in both of the other sections.

Next week's assignment is more simple, but equally challenging:
Write a poem using 12-syllable lines throughout, and somehow incorporating or responding to a favorite quote from another poet.


2.
Yesterday night I went to a reading by a Basque poet, Kirmen Uribe. His book is the first book translated directly from Euskera into English without a detour into Spanish. The poems were simple lyrics, not really my thing, but it was lovely to hear such a melodious and fascinating language spoken.

3.
Lastly, and importantly, Nikki Giovanni speaking on the events at Virginia Tech.

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