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Poetry Prompt 20 – Found Poetry Let's Create some Found Poems! When I was a young man I once attended a poetry reading in the basement of a Tokyo dance club called "Blue." Blue was sleek and modern, on the gradient scale of glass, stainless steel, and cool-colored illumination. Its sister club, Yellow, was warm and cozy, but both were themed on Alice Through the Looking Glass. Next to Blue's light court with the up-lit stand of bamboo was a large reception space, and this is where I heard a Canadian poet read from her newly published volume. She had gone through stacks of vintage same-sex porn magazines, cobbling together salacious 10-syllable lines of text in sets of 12, and then concluding her Found Sonnets with a couplet borrowed from one of Shakespeare's W. H. poems. The effect made me laugh. I got nasty, uncomfortable stares – glares, really – from the poetry-reading crowd, but later the poet herself found me and said: "You're the only one who got it. I was pretty uncomfortable reading here. Everyone took it so seriously!" So what is a Found Poem? It is a modernist take on forcing a deconstructivist's eye to an existing text. It is cut up and reassembled to suit the higher emotional goals of the poet; in other words, it's a collage. The history of this type of verse goes back a long way. Walt Whitman built a memorable poem around a recurring line and theme he found in a novel by Herman Melville. The poet wrote: O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. This is based on Melville's: "Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck's – wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, paternal old age! Away! let us away! – this instant let me alter the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket."[1] Few people know Whitman's poem about the murder of President Lincoln is grounded on a found item from Moby-Dick. Later poets who used found technique are Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. In the same way that Whitman left his Lincoln poem unacknowledged to his source material, Pound began his Cantos in the middle of an un-credited translation of Homer: And then went down to the ship, Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and We set up mast and sail on that swart ship, Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward Bore us out with bellying canvas, Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess The poet paid eight dollars to have his first volume of poems self-published in an edition of one hundred, and his first reviewer had this to say: "French phrases and scraps of Latin and Greek punctuate his poetry.... He affects obscurity and loves the abstruse."[2] As for Eliot, William Packard writes eloquently about his found poetry technique. "T. S. Eliot in The Waste Land drew on mythology and anthropology, which he interwove with colloquial voices of twentieth-century women in London who were all frustrated and out of touch with their own fertility."[3] In contemporary understanding, Found Poetry maintains a few rules to adhere to. Namely, that sections of text should be lifted verbatim – usually only on a line-by-line basis – from the source material; only the most minimal editing is allowed to achieve the artistic goals of the poet; the resulting work should follow the 'old' standard and be a unified whole made up of lines and images that flow and work together (which naturally can be achieved through contrast as well); and finally, a single piece of writing is usually the object used for deconstruction. The prompt: write three Found Poems on the themes of 'Loss,' 'Memory,' and 'Celebration.' Your source material is The Dead, by James Joyce. You may decide if you wish to explore metre in your poem or not, or rhymes to accent certain parts. You may also wish to consider using a repeating section as a refrain. Let your imagination run free, as long as you allow the three principal themes to guide your creation of three freestanding works. -------------------------------------------- [1] From chapter 132, The Symphony, Moby-Dick, New York 1851 [2] See: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/ezra-pound [3] P. 107, The Art of Poetry Writing, New York 1992

Poetry Prompt 18 – Rubaiyat Let's Write some Rubaiyat! There are two areas to explore: the historic form of this poem as a complete, self-continued unit, and its later use in English as a stanza pattern. First, the original form: Omar Khayyám may not have invented the ruba'i, but he was a master at writing this type of verse. The term comes from the Arabic word for 'four,' and means a stand-alone poem in four lines. The plural is rubaiyat, and as such means a collection of these poems in one volume. Khayyám, born in medieval Persia, was an all-around Renaissance man and bona fide genius; a great mathematician whose texts on the subject of algebra are still current today, an astronomer, geologist, and philosopher, it's a miracle he still had time to pursue his two main interests in life – wine and handsome young men! Those less scholarly pursuits led him to create some of the best poetry mankind is lucky enough to have. Often these beautiful four-lined verses came spontaneously to him while he was at a gathering and would be written down by others. Soon after his death in 1131, his many young men and acolytes gathered them together and published a collection of approximately 300 rubaiyat. So, what makes a Rubaiyat a Rubaiyat? Four lines of equal syllable length – usually 10 beats for Khayyám – and a rhyming pattern more often than not conforming to a-a-a-b-a. This means a quatrain with three words that rhyme and one that does not; this 'oddball' is often the concluding word of the third line, but sometimes it can shift to the second. Now that we know the basics of the form, the harder question arises as to what is the soul of this type of poem. It is a rather philosophical one, and for Khayyám personally, it rests squarely in the school of the ancient Greek thinker Epicurus. Akin in many ways to modern existentialism, it can be glibly summarized as 'eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!' Let's look at an example.[1] عاشر من الناس كبار العقول وجانب الجهال أهل الفضول واشرب نقيع السم من عاقل واسكب على الأرض دواء الجهول رباعيات خيام Eashir min alnnas kibar aleaqul wajanib aljihal 'ahl alfudawl washrab naqie alssmm min eaqil waskab ealaa al'ard dawa' aljuhul Omar Khayyám One tenth of the top-minded people, and also those people ignorant of curiosity, drink the poisoned infusion of sanity while pouring on the ground the medication of alcohol. Omar Khayyám Here we see the poet has chosen to use consistent 10-syllable lines, and a rhyme pattern of a-a-b-a. In this regard, it's a good example of the form, and also shows the type of philosophical subject Rubaiyat excel at. More examples: يا نفس ما هذا الأسى والكدر قد وقع الإثم وضاع الحذر هل ذاق حلو العفو إلا الذى أذنب والله عفا واغتفر رباعيات خيام Ya nafs mma hdha al'asaa walkudur qad waqae al'iithm wadae alhidhr hal dhaq hulu aleafw 'illa aldhdha 'adhnab walllah eafa waghtafir Omar Khayyám Hey, what is this same sorrow and chagrin that has signaled sin and lost restraint; it may have tasted sweet, but he who forgives both 'guilt' and God pardons the excuse. Omar Khayyám ----------- اي بس كه نباشيم و جهان خواهد بود ني نام زما و ني نشان خواهد بود زين پيش نبوديم و نبد هيچ خلل زين پس چو نباشيم همان خواهد بود رباعيات خيام Ay bs kh nbashim w jhan khawahid bud ni nam zama w ni nshan khawahid bud zyn pysh nbwdim w nabud hych khalal zyn ps chw nbashim hman khawahid bwd Omar Khayyám Suffice to say, we are not of the world that will be, they will outshine this time that was, and not be saddled with our piled-up damages; if only we could do the same for us now. Omar Khayyám Two more examples I cannot find the original for are these; they give a beautiful sense of Khayyám as a poet: Everywhere that there has been a rose or tulip-bed, It has come from the redness of the blood of a king; Every violet shoot that grows from the earth Is a mole that once was on the cheek of beauty. Omar Khayyám [Clement Wood, translator] ----------- Hell is a spark from my useless worries, Paradise is a moment of time when I am tranquil. Omar Khayyám [Clement Wood, translator] Second, the modern form in English: Due to the stunning popularity of Edward FitzGerald's book, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, published in 1859, the Rubaiyat form became very well-known in English. So popular in fact, that rough parodies of it arose in blatant praise of drinks and carousing (ones which Khayyám no doubt would have cheered!). In addition, the attention FitzGerald's flowery and un-abashedly Victorian language received influenced generations of poets who came after him.[2] In time, the Rubaiyat was adapted into a stanza form. It followed the originals in having consistent line lengths (either narrative like Khayyám: 10 syllables; or lyrical with 8 beats per line), and a rhyme pattern of a-a-b-a. From this, a totally new type appeared called the 'Interlocking Rubaiyat.' This poem consists of multiple stanzas with the 'oddball' word forming the main rhyme for the next strophe. Thus, this pattern was born: a-a-b-a; b-b-c-b; c-c-d-c; d-d-e-d; e-e-f-e, and so forth. Now for examples. First, a taste of FitzGerald: I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose, as where some buried Caesar bled; That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head…. Edward FitzGerald, after Omar Khayyám Believe it or not, that is supposed to be the same poem that Clement Wood translated so beautifully and accurately above. Here is another Rubaiyat: Tudor indeed is gone and every rose, Blood-red, blanch-white that in the sunset glows Cries: "Blood, Blood, Blood!" against the gothic stone Of England, as the Howard or Boleyn knows. Ezra Pound Suffice to say, the florid language of FitzGerad became associated with the form, but other poets were attracted to it as well. Few people realize that Robert Frost's best-known poem is a Rubaiyat. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening was first published in 1922, and recaptures some of the lost spirit and soul of the true Rubaiyat of Khayyám. It is an Interlocking example, and the rhyme patterns are this:[3] …know. ...though; …here …snow. …queer …near …lake …year. …shake …mistake. …sweep …flake. …deep, …keep, …sleep, …sleep. Frost chose a lyrical metre for this poem, and also concluded with a four-line strophe of a single rhyme, but the three preceding Rubaiyat work beautifully to bring the thought of one's own mortality to mind without even mentioning 'death.' The prompt: write one four-lined Khayyám-style Rubaiyat on the theme of 'your muse' (with or without references to drink and pretty boys ). In addition, write one multi-stanza Interlocking Rubaiyat based on the sights and feelings stirred in you by watching Ambrose Bierce's short story, An Occurrence at Owl Bridge.[4] Use the consistent line lengths you think are best for the individual poems, and follow the basic rhyme patterns for the two types of Rubaiyat. --------------------------------------------- [1] Translations, such as they are, are mine and based on Google Translate with reference to the meaning of the poems rendered in English by others. I provide the originals because they are available online here, but I have no way to verify the veracity of the text. The phonetic rendering of the original is also generated by Google Translate, and I make no claim on its legibility in Farsi or Arabic. I include it so we can see the relative metre and length of the lines, and the poet's rhyme scheme without translation. I have avoided all references and use of FitzGerald for this section. [2] In should be noted that FitzGerald's book is not an accurate rendering of the original in any sense. FitzGerald exercised a free hand in cobbling together various bits and pieces found in some of the Rubaiyat to make them more 'poetic.' Nevertheless, FitzGerald's influence as a poet cannot be understated; he just did not bother to present Khayyám in an accurate way. The Rubáiyát can be found here. [3] The full version of Frost's poem can be found here. [4] There are several versions of this video on youtube, but so you are not influenced by Bierce's word choice, please avoid reading the actual story while writing your poem.