*Inspired by Rachel McKibbens' writing prompts (Prompt #26)

You carry your father's habits 
underneath the curtains of your omentum,
hoping to stop the infection of 
your mother's impuissance.

You've seen your phone flash 
with missed calls from a jail cell, 
but you deny deny deny that 
you are worst as their hybrid.

Drugs land you a sentence so you might 
go down easier written as a liquid addict.

Bottle bottle on the floor, 
whose memory did you kick out the door?
Bottles scattered in boxes, 
under beds, in your vagina, 
but you got it under control, right?

Hold on there fancy child, 
don't you see your gut growing?
You're carrying too much 
rejection in your lymph nodes,
stuffing down your want, need, 
want, need because of you think 
everyone probably sees the witch in you:

The nothing-good-comes-out-of a girl 
who brands her liver with wine sales 
and club shots, hoping to magically bottle
pin-prickles of love to cure 
the loneliness filtering in her stomach.

I am totally obsessed with Japanese forms of poetry. Most of them thrive on brevity. Brevity is a perfect way to make sure that you always have time to write (though hard when there is a lack of inspiration). Brevity is also a challenge, especially with Japanese forms. You have to tell a story or a fragment of a story with only a few words, lines, and/or syllables. If you write real traditional Japanese poetry, you also have a theme to keep up with (nature for the most part, which I certainly have trouble with...thank goodness for Modern!). The most common form is haiku. After that, it's tanka and if you dig just at the surface, there is renga, haibun, and haiga.

What most fail to realize is that there are many more forms. The only problem is that most of them are “dead”. For instance, tanka was originally a form of waka which literally means “Japanese poem”. Waka had about five forms under its genre which were tanka, chōka, bussokusekika, sedōka, and katauta. As with most Japanese poetry, the common syllable count was 5-7 with these forms.

I partially understand why the other four forms died. They were all variations of 5-7 lines, but were longer. Why have five forms when you can have one? However, it’s their pattern variations and length that sets them apart and could make for good modern literature. There are modern attempts, but not a lot of awareness of the fact that they exist. In a regular poetry college course (a practicum, ideally), from my experience, you won’t hear about these forms. You probably wouldn’t even be asked to attempt one even if you did hear about them. I found about these forms via the internet.

Hopefully now that you have become aware (and have hopefully clicked the links within this entry to find out more), you might try out some of these on your own. I know I will. I might start with a chōka. I will leave you with a chōka by (I’m going to assume since it’s in article about chōka) Jack Huber:


Camouflaged

Suitably quiet,
he succeeds in blending in,
quite invisible,
while he waxes nonchalant.
Indeed, he'd rather be
anything but recognized,
just another sapling
camouflaged by the forest.
Every now and then
he is freed from his cocoon
and shows brilliantly
his talent for spectacle,
as crippling stage fright
releases its hold on him
ever so slightly.
Whispers become raucous songs,
telling the world, "Look at me!"

forget rose colored, i have
love-colored lens;
      
      your skin, a veil over
      my eyes seeing a world
      of simply you, too easily
      bubbling to the surface

where each breath
each blink of the eye, 
evokes a universe of you
before moments are 
imagined, created, or lived.

Hello Write Queen Readers!

Happy poetry month! I am very excited about this year's NaPoMo especially because of NaPoWriMo, which I will be participating in once again. I've been doing so much lately. But I have been missing poetry so much! I don't break promises so when it comes to do the challenge, I know that I am making an effort to dive into my craft. But I want do more than just write a poem a day. I hope I can write about poetry discoveries everywhere this month, whether it's about a show, a website, a journal or whatever.
I don't know how I'm going to play that out yet, but there will be a poem here later on today. So until then, go on the NaPoWriMo site and see who else is participating by clicking the picture below.