Poetry Friday: The Poetry Peeps are writing Raccontinos! (And so am I!)

The challenge: 

Last month, Tanita (who also happens to be this week's Poetry Friday host) said: 

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of June! Here’s the scoop: We’ll going to write a couple of couplets and make a Raccontino. Never heard of the form? No worries. If you can count to two, you can play with this delightful form. Of course, we’re turning our faces to the winds of ‘conversation,’ as always. Are you in? You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on June 27th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope you’ll join the fun!

I haven't joined in on a poetry challenge for a while. (Was it last October? Really?!) When I sat down today, waffling over what to post for Poetry Friday, I remembered the month-end challenges. 

"Didn't Tanita say something about couplets last month?" I said. 

"The Raccontino sounds so easy!" I said. 

"It'll be fun!" I said. 

(It was not easy.)

But it is always — in its twisted way — fun to write, even when writing is torture. (As Thomas Mann said, "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.") 

So, the Raccontino. The poem must:

• be composed of any number of couplets 
• have even-numbered lines sharing the same end rhyme
• have the title and final words of odd-numbered lines telling a story

Because the Poetry Peeps are exploring the theme of being "in conversation," I chose conversations within marriage. The story I came up with was: 

"In Marriage, conversation is sometimes lively, sometimes sweetly silent." 

I started with that, and then had to work on the rhyming lines. Not easy, but pretty satisfyingly fun in the end. 

In Marriage

We're having another conversation
and this is how it goes. 

He, angry at the state of the world, is 

enumerating his (and my—he knows me so well) woes. 

We stop, we sigh, we know sometimes

that this is how it goes. 

We'll share the angst, trade lively 

plans for how to conquer foes. 

But other times, sometimes, 

(oftentimes, many) far more on the nose 

is the deftly perceived shared glance, the sweetly

invisible current that flows 

from him to me, me to him. Silent, 

more electric than life. This is how it goes. 

~ Karen Edmisten 

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Visit Tanita for the Poetry Friday round-up, including links to all the Poetry Peeps 

who joined in the challenge. 

Photo courtesy of Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: "The Summer You Read Proust" by Philip Terman

Should this be the summer I finally read Proust? 

I must confess that this theater major-turned-English major (oh, and I threw a philosophy minor in there my senior year, just before I dropped out in existential misery, with no job prospects in sight) has — yikes! — never read Proust. I did, however, end up with several jobs through the years that admirably put my acting/writing/philosophical skills to work. So. There's that. Nothing is ever wasted, kids.

I can't remember when or how I stumbled across this short and as-perfect-as-a-well-baked-Madeleine poem by Philip Termin. I found it this week in my "Poetry Friday Possibilities" file and it really, really makes me want to read Proust. (Or maybe I just can't get Madeleines and/or Proust off my mind since reading Jama's last Poetry Friday post.) 

The trouble, of course, is that I also really, really want to get through my never-ending, already-teetering TBR stack. But the other trouble is that I read a piece in Lit Hub called "Six Reasons Why You Must Read Proust" and now I want to read Proust. (One of Lit Hub's reasons: "If you are or are considered a human, you must and you can read Proust." Well, then. I'm generally considered to be a human, so apparently Proust is going on my TBR list, if not yet on the literal, teetering stack.) 

But another trouble is that I'm such a mood reader! If I start Proust and I'm not in the mood for Proust all summer long, well, then what kind of catastrophe will befall me and my reading life? (Can you tell I was a theater major? I have to inject drama into everything. Imagine my painfully contorted face as I strive to convey the urgency of this dilemma to you, dear reader!) 

Are there any other problems? Honestly, it's probably nothing a Madeleine can't cure. I can tell you (with no drama) that there is not a single problem with this short and lovely poem. Read it, savor it as you would a buttery Madeleine, and then ponder with me your relationship with Proust. And please, please, please let me know what you've done about Marcel, or what you plan to do, won't you? 

The Summer You Read Proust
by Philip Terman

Remember the summer you read Proust?
In the hammock tied to the apple trees
your daughters climbed, their shadows
merging with the shadows of the leaves
spilling onto those long arduous sentences,
all afternoon and into the evening—robins,
jays, the distant dog, the occasional swaying,

....

(Read the rest here at The Writer's Almanac.) 

P.S. Atticus found our copy of Swann's Way for me, so I guess it is going on the literal, teetering stack. :) 

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The Poetry Friday round-up this week is at The Apples in My Orchard. 

Photo thanks to Pixabay. 

Poetry Friday: Hayden Carruth, "I Could Take"

Last week I mentioned Wendell Berry's poetic tribute to Hayden Carruth, so this week I'm sharing some Carruth poetics. This one's for Atticus, because we are indeed "two imperfections that match." 

I Could Take
by Hayden Carruth

I could take
two leaves
    and give you one.
Would that not be
a kind of perfection?

But I prefer
one leaf
    torn to give you half
            showing

(after these years, simply)

....

(Read the last few lines here.) 

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The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted by 

Buffy Silverman. 

Photo thanks to Nika Akin, Pixabay.