Category: My Poetry

Robert Frost Hates My Guts

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn My Poetry, New Things, Poetry, Reading6 Comments

How’s that for a title? Today’s device is Free Verse. It seems an obvious choice, since that is the kind of verse I mostly write; however, I did not choose it for that reason. I chose it because of the detailed definition Packard offers. From The Poet’s Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Devices, by William Packard:

Free Verse:  Poetry of any line length and any PLACEMENT on the page, with no fixed measure or METER.

Of course there are those for whom the very idea of free verse is anathema – from T.S. Eliot in his essay “Reflections on Vers Libre,” where he says “No vers is libre for the man who wants to do a good job,” to Robert Frost, who once commented caustically, “I’d as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.”

The lack of any imposed or a priori form in free verse does not necessarily mean the poet has license to do anything he or she wants; on the contrary, the poet must concern him- herself even more attentively with the organic requirements that grow out of the materials at hand. […]

This is to say that the poet, in a purely intuitive state, may not necessarily be aware of external requirements of form but can trust to creating his or her own order simply by following the impulse of his or her own genius in action. […]

This being the case, a poet may be said to have an even greater responsibility to him- or herself when departing from metered lines and strict end-rhyme to embark on the uncharted terrain of free verse.  The poet must now at all points stay attuned to the peculiar form and shape of his or her own impulse or breath line or process poetry, and will independently create line placements, STANZA breaks, and all the other external manifestations of form that previously had been given to poets.

Surely some of the greatest examples of free verse writing in our literature occur in the Psalms of the Old Testament – in language that is unaccented and unmetered, having only breath units and and clusters of images and ideas to tie them together.

Wow.  I did not know that about Robert Frost.  Did you know he played tennis?  See, you can learn something new every day.

I love this discussion of free verse.  When I do workshops in the schools, I tell the students that I mostly write free verse.  I explain the difference between that and formal poetry, and when I describe free verse, I say that there are no rules, except for those rules which make for good poetry.

What follows most definitely is a draft, but since I had hoped to use this as a kind of forced writing exercise, I won’t apologize.  This draft poem is not yet titled.

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April 7th Poem

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn My Poetry, New Things, Poetry, Reading3 Comments

[Honestly, with riveting titles like these, I don’t understand why I’m not getting a gazillion hits a day …]

Today’s device is

Epithalamion:  A poem for marriage, or for a wedding celebration.

from The Poet’s Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Devices, by William Packard.

The name sounds like a layer of skin.  I’ll just let that one go, like a high hanging curveball.  Swing away.

This next poem is one of my favorites because it is one of those poems that wrote itself.  I literally pulled off the side of the road, grabbed some trash off the floor board of my car (don’t judge) and wrote it down as it came out.  The sight of a tree was the prompt.  The poem was originally published in Main Street Rag Literary Magazine, Winter (2000) issue.  Thanks for reading!

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Taking the Easy Way Out

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn My Poetry, New Things, Poetry, Reading2 Comments

And since it is axiomatic to say, “There are worse things than death,” it is appropriate that today’s poetic device is

Elegy:  A poem of grief or mourning; a lyric lament.

The Poet’s Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Device, by William Packard.  While I am thinking of it, I should tell you that I am only partially quoting most of these definitions.  The examples and elaborations Packard gives for some of them go on, quite helpfully, for pages.

And so for my version of a lyric lament, which was written many years ago., thus, this post is taking the easy way out by using a pre-existing poem, which may or may not disqualify me from your assurances.  As for there being worse things to befall us than death, I would have to say, that may be true for the individual who experiences the departure, but it is not true for those of us who are left living.

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April 5: Three for Thursday on Monday (and other symptoms of insanity)

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn My Poetry, Observations uncategorized, Poetry, Reading, Your Poetry3 Comments

Today’s poetic device, as defined by William Packard in his book, The Poet’s Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Devices, is

Dramatic Poetry:  Poetry that involves two or more notes or TONES or VOICES, as opposed to lyric poetry which involves a single note or tone or voice.  Dramatic poetry is not often represented in standard anthologies for English or American poetry because most dramatic verse is written for the theater.

I wrote a poem several years ago that I have entitled many things, but the final version ended up with the title, “Interrupted Monologues.”  I wrote this poem to be read through twice. The first time, Part I is to be read first, then Part II. The second time through, the lines are to be read straight across the page, as if the voices are interrupting each other, or finishing each others’ sentences.  Because it is written in columns, I cannot post it here in its true form, so I am providing a link herein, so that you can see the poem on the page.  You can hear the poem read (along with a poem written by Anthony Abbott, and a poem written by Gary Metheny) in the video below.

Here is the link for the poem itself:  Interrupted Monologues

Thanks for viewing and reading.

April 4 Poem

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn My Poetry, New Things, Poetry, Reading, Your Poetry5 Comments

Today’s device:

Confessional Poetry: Poetry that reveals crucial material about the personal life of the poet. The term was coined by critic M.L. Rosenthal to describe a loose movement in contemporary American poetry that began to focus on intimate details of the poet’s own psychic biography.

from The Poet’s Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Devices (by William Packard).

I want to take the opportunity here to say that I love my mother and I loved my father, may he rest in peace.  While that fact is not completely irrelevant, it is also not controlling.  Pastor Scott W. Gustafson wrote in his book, Biblical Amnesia, the following:

This commandment [to honor one’s father and mother] is the only one that has a promise associated with it.  The promise says that, if the 12 tribes of Israel honor their mothers and fathers, they will live a long time in the land that God is giving them.  Israel was, in fact, relatively successful in keeping this commandment.  The Bible itself is testimony that they honored their mothers and fathers.  The Bible tells stories of their mothers and fathers.  It does not lie about these people.  We see them “warts and all.” Yet, the Bible interprets these people in relatively positive ways.

[emphasis mine]

In poetry, we see people “warts and all” too.  I could write much more on the topic, but I prefer not to do so.  Only this:  There is redemption and forgiveness in poetry, but there is also lamentation; all of those things are legitimate.  Before there can be any of those things, however, there has to be emotional truth.  This poem attempts to describe the truth as seen by a 12 year old girl.  It was first published in Cairn, vol. XXXV. Continue reading “April 4 Poem” →