Supporting Your Local Poets
Entry posted by MichaelS36
1,184 views
The other day, my husband tim told me about a little poetry challenge on GA, offered by @AC Benus He had decided to rewrite his Tanka Poetry prompt.
I decided to 'support my local poet' and offer myself up as a guinea pig. But frankly, I had doubts even though I've written some okay poetry, following the instructions and writing something 'properly' rather worried me.
But, I just had to try.
So I read the prompt.. Tanka's should be personal, emotional, show how things affect you. Of course there's the syllable count 5-7-5-7-7 as well. AC had given lots of wonderful examples. Here is one I really enjoyed:
The bursting cherries,
Blooming with all their might,
Bid me to please stop;
To give them some attention,
If not all of my power.
You can feel the power in this little piece, the beauty of the blossoms, and you are in the moment with the poet, urging those blossoms to open.
So with AC's excellent prompt read and sort of in my head and along with some history and examples, I wrote the first:
Cool in his t-shirt
No longer afraid to be
The man that he is
There is no shame in his scars
They are badges of courage
AC had included a checklist, so you could try and determine if you were close or not to writing one of these gems correctly. Well, to me, the 'personal' wasn't really in that poem. So I reread the prompt
and tried again. I hoped this effort would be better.
Cooling soft breezes
Chase off remnants of the heat
They chill my hot flesh
And I stop to watch my skin
Reply with welcome shivers
I sent them off to AC, saying be honest, I will not collapse into a heap of ego if you say they aren't right.
I hope AC doesn't mind me quoting him here:
Well, it's true that you as the poet are missing from the first one, but perhaps me knowing it's Tim made up for that. I can see your point and I'm really glad it led you to try again. I thought perhaps you thought the first one was too like a series of complete lines. What you did by providing no punctuation is one to deal with that, but I think with some careful punctuation, you can make it flow. That being said, you did make the theme of the poem travel over the five lines (and create a stanza), so that is very good to see.
As I think you already know, the second one you wrote is stronger as a Tanka. Your efforts give me hope the checklist self-quiz is going to be a good tool to help people improve That's a relief.
For punctuation (if you want it), I might suggest the following:
Cool in his t-shirt,
No longer afraid to be
The man that he is,
There is no shame in his scars:
They are badges of courage.
Cooling soft breezes
Chase off remnants of the heat;
They chill my hot flesh,
And I stop to watch my skin
Reply with welcome shivers.
I think anyone who truly wants to try and learn more about poetry will want to do this. I see what he is saying about the punctuation. But too, I see what he means about flow and single lines, rather than the whole stanza being a single flowing thought.
I wish more people would consider poetry. Prose is wonderful, but poetry offers more for the soul I think. In any case thank you for reading, if you don't want to write, then please give reading some poetry a try. Poets have come a long way. Support Your Local Poet!!
Only by trying will we do ...
Thanks AC!
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