Under the Wire

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn My Poetry, PoetryLeave a comment

I traveled home today from being out of town, so forgive me for skipping the poetic device prompt today.  Here is a poem that was published in Wellspring a few years back.  Thanks for reading!

Kaibab Trail
by Suzanne Baldwin Leitner

We went to what the Pink Jeep Tour guide
called the big crack in the birthday cake –
the Grand Canyon.
Headed north out of Sedona
with hordes of others:
loud and irreverent or
quiet pilgrims. Once there, a few
focused like astronauts
seeking that jumping off place
that grants vista to the whole universe.
Others couldn’t bear to turn
from their lives, bawling out the spouse
pushing their children
whining about food, weather, bathroom facilities
perpetuating fascination with gas mileage-
taking up space. Wasting film.

We were like souls departed:
boundaries fell away so we were in many times
and one thousand places.
With every fraction of a turn
of the head, a new world.
Red and flat – white and ridged – scrub green and peaking –
gold and glowing, painted with the brushes
of clouds’ shadows and sunshine
by ravens and raindrops, a copper river.
Even the heavens were desultory.
White cumulus north – gray stratus east – wisps, piles, and feathers south –
to the west, only blue or bluer.
We crept way down
into the canyon in some vain
attempt to be part of it,
trying to touch the sky, as it seemed to go down
with us – this place so vast, so mystic
we – mere parasites scuttling over its surface
incapable of understanding our host
like flies on the back of God’s hand.

April 10 Poem

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn New Things, Poetry, Reading1 Comment

I have said many times that the region where I live is thickety-full of talented writers and poets.  My home state has boasted many a fine writer, and given shelter to other fine writers who have come here from elsewhere, but have made North Carolina home.  I have no doubt that the beauty of the state, in part, lures some and convinces them to stay; but I am also certain that the discovery of so many “of their own kind” is a big part of the reason some writers settle here.

I consider myself fortunate to be acquainted with many of the writers in my region;  I am blessed to call a few of them “friend.”

One such friend is the talented poet, Ann Campanella.  Ann is the author of three books of poetry and has many credits to her name, not the least of which is having been named the recipient of the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Poet Laureate Award – twice!  One of those poems is the poem I choose to share today.

Today’s poetic device, from William Packard’s The Poet’s Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Devices, is

Georgic:  Any didactic poem that instructs or teaches a skill in some art or science.

I might make the argument that every good poem is Georgic, either directly or indirectly.  Of course, I’ve been known to make quite a few arguments.  I have also been known to bend rules until they are unrecognizable.

As I read the above definition, I thought, “Oh!  A ‘How to’ poem.”  As soon as those words came into my mind, so did the title of Ann’s 2001 award-winning poem, How to Grieve.  I don’t know whether it is, technically, Georgic, but I do know it is beautiful.  I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading!

April 9 Poem: Taking a Break

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Intervals, My Poetry1 Comment

Hi all. I am taking a break from the Dictionary prompt today, because today was a travel day, and I am just about out of creative energy.  I did want to post a poem, however.  So with no device in mind, I give you the following poem written a couple of years ago.  Thanks for reading!

Still Life
(by Suzanne Baldwin Leitner)

She sits with no list
of things to do
no phone calls
to make
or receive
no bus to wait for
no door to listen
for or at or through.
No one to see.
Windows – glass and wood
separate her from the world
and she separates bottles
from cans, bottles and cans
from their contents,
content with numb
ticking of a clock
she won’t wind.
When she was busy
her days flew
and her nights were brief
resting places
for her mind, her fast-talking
mind. The hours
stacked neatly and quickly
one by one the way cards
stack neatly and quickly
one by one when shuffled
by the deft hands of players
taking turns dealing, too fast to see
the sly wink of Jack
or stern look of Queen
or haughty stare of King
or lonely perfection of Ace
or the scrolling and symmetry
or craft of numbers.
This day’s hours are like the turning
of pages of a magazine, glossy
slick, slow;
but there are no pictures.

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!

Continue reading “April 7th Poem” →