English 204's Poetry Broadsides

As your PoetryBroadsides come in, I'll post them on the blog. Thanks for a great poetry reading this morning, and for a semester full of inspiration and risk!

"Anorexia," by Eavan Boland. Barbie Broadside by Amy Dawson.

"Blue Poles," by Inger Christenson. Broadside by Laura Campbell.
"This is Just to Say," by William Carlos Williams. Broadside by

POETRY BROADSIDES

Remember that first blog post, way back in September? I asked you to start thinking about a poem broadside to present at the end of the term. Well, here we are. Time to move from thinking to creating. [Also, all the actual broadsides that I brought to class to share are posted on or around my office door; come by anytime for another look.]

An on-line source for wonderful broadsides is http://guerillapoetics.org/whatisgpp/ ; be sure to click on the "Broadsides" link on the left side of their home page to see some amazing examples. A couple of my favorites (click on these photos for larger images):

Here is a great excerpt from "Poetry Broadsides:How-to and Why," from Pudding House Press (see their broadsides here http://www.puddinghouse.com/pub-guide.htm ):

What makes a poem worthy of a broadside?What makes a broadside worthy of a frame?

Message. Visual possibilities. Yes.

Name? The author’s reputation? Not important to us.

Message. It’s worthy if the message is great.

Great as in large. Especially if universal in the specific but not always.

Great as in classic quality but fresh.

Give it a door for us to walk into its room—a ready accessibility, such as has been the nature of Write, Dance, Sing, (some of my broadsides) and now many of our newest broadsides: Poetry is of Anything, The Age of Asparagus, Rain Dance, and Steve Abbott's Vespers to name a few. These have that accessibility but at the same time do not lapse into a prosy, narrative style. Not a format so much as an awareness that the piece will be, revisited.

Picture chunks of language that glimmer in the lake that is this broadside. We want always to be able to visually catch these fish time after time in their waters.

Here as much as anywhere, “make words dance together that have not danced together before.” This is my dictate for poetry, period.

If you’re going to enlarge it, hang it on a wall, it is especially so.

Pudding House is looking for poems suitable, no not “suitable” … let’s start over.

Not merely “suitable” for broadsides or posters. No no no.

We’re looking for poems to place on broadsides that will change people’s lives. That’s all.

It should work well on one large page, be visually interesting or attractive, and if you’re passing in front of it the eye should easily fall into it and remain.

The poem or language art must drive the reader to re-read,

to hover over the work for long periods of time,

to experience such emotion that the chest feels like it will explode

if you hold back any longer, or such laughter that you couldn’t possibly contain it.

Well, it should do that for a few people anyway,

and not simply the sentimental among us.The work should get better with each subsequent reading. One should never get used to the message, it should never wear out.

It must offer that and more. It has to work on your mind and body like a million dollar masseuse.

This poem does not merely be, but mean.I most appreciate broadsides that call us to action, that drive us to gratitude, or that change our minds or the direction we were headed. It should stop traffic, create controversy. Nearly everyone who passes it should scratch their heads or doubt or want to sign up for something they never wanted to sign up for before. People must NEED to own it.

Poet Dorianne Laux (her website is http://www.doriannelaux.com/) teaches poetry at North Carolina State University.

[BREAKING NEWS! New post by Dorianne Laux about her experiences with student broadside assignments, with more examples and some great commentary! See http://pionline.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/the-art-of-the-student-broadside-a-photo-documentary-by-dorianne-laux/ ]

She's been posting broadsides by her students, and I'm including a few here to give you ideas/incentives. As a broadside creator, your interpretation of the poem involved is key to the final look and feel of the broadside: you want to do the poem right. Laux's class produced some classic broadsides (those on paper with visual or graphic designs accompanying the text), as well as more innovated (using texture, 3-dimensional objects, or giving the poem a concrete context, like putting the Li-Young Lee's poem "Peaches" on a roadside fruitstand crate), are shown. Another example from Laux's class is a "video broadside" of Arthur Millar's "Names I'd Forgotten" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CndKke7ZAcE .
You may choose to do your broadside on one of your annotated poems, or you may choose a completely different poem. The key is to show your interpretation of a poem in a visual, textual way; let us know how you see that poem, how you see the work of the poem or the message of the poem.

Have fun! This is due the last day of class, during our poetry reading.

LOVE

Poet Nikki Giovanni says: "Writing a good love poem is like being a good lover. You have to touch, taste, take your time to tell that this is real. The Supremes say You Can't Hurry Love and you can't fake it, either."



Love


She tries it on, like a dress.
She decides it doesn’t fit
and starts to take it off.
Her skin comes, too.


by Lola Haskins


This poem performs the difficult but amazing task of describing an abstract concept in very concrete, tactile terms. We know exactly what kind of love this is: something that started casually, something that she thought would be reversible, or temporary; something that literally gets under her skin, becomes part of her. To remove it is akin to skinning oneself.

All in four lines!

Or check out how Billy Collins plays with cliches of love, then subverts them, twirls them around, and manages to sound romantic all at the same time:

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

-Billy Collins


Your assignment this week is to write a love poem using the following rules:

1. do not mention the word love
2. stay entirely in the concrete
3. surprise us - reject cliches
4. You may use any form you like (you can try a new form, like the Villanelle, or stick with one you've already tried; you can also use free verse).

The problem with love poems, of course, is that so many have been written that we have a whole array of cliches, expectations, images and symbols that accompany our thoughts about love poems. These rules are designed to kick you out of those ruts, force you to be original, and encourage your personal originality.

In class today, we did freewrites about objects and nouns that you volunteered: rock, raspberry, window, chicken, footprint. the first prompt was, "Write about [pick one] as 'Love is ____.' Remember how many different kinds of rocks there are, how many origins, colors, sizes, weight. Remember that some rocks are alive with colonies of moss or lice or even animals. Go for 5 minutes. What is love? Don't use the word love at all."


The second prompt was similar; I asked you to take another word from the board, maybe one that hadn't appealed to you much, and write about it as if you were in love with it. What would it require from you to love a rock? What would your relationship with that rock be like? What kind of person would you be, or become?"


The results in both cases were great - surprising, startling, strange! Thanks to those who read their excerpts aloud - I think that helps us all take more risks.


Here are two freewrite examples (yes, mine), for those of you who were absent.


Love is a Window

"One of those old ones from colonial times, with wavery glass that distorts your vision. When you try to open it, to lift the sash, it sticks, goes up in little shudders of wood and old paint. The weights inside the side panels have long since broken, cords frayed or mouse-chewed. So you have to find a stick, or a book, or an old shoe, to hold the windo open. Then of course, it's too old to have a built-in screen, so you shove in or finesse in one of those expandable wooden-frame screens, hope no bugs get past, but know they will. You are in for a sweltering, buggy, breezeless night with this window. It won't be pretty. It might shove a splinter up your fingernail when you try to open it too far. The glass might crack if you push too hard. Don't even think about trying to lock it shut in winter."

I could have a good time with this free-write, coming up with the kind of love that a weary, worn-out, rode-hard-and-put-up-wet heart might feel.


Loving a Footprint

"You must love impermanence. It will appear suddenly, then become blurred, distorted, scuffed, gone. Other tracks will cover it up, obscure the fact of that shape. Only you will remember if it ever existed: the deep cup of the heel, long ridge of edge, delicate suggestion of an arch, five toes neat as peas. Loving a footprint means loving travel. You must have a willingness to go, to move, head out, keep on. Stay off the pavement if you want to stay visible. Hug the clay, sandy verges, muddy shoulders where you can follow with the eye what you love with your heart. Be observant. Make good guesses. Anticipate loss, the disappearance at the edge of streams. Loving a footprint makes you love fast, before something comes along to sweep it away. Remember those ancient human footprints in lava, hardened over millenia? We can't all be so lucky."


Another way to approach this assignment, as we'll see on Friday, is to think about hearts. How do poets describe hearts in love, hearts surviving loss of love, hearts trying to bear grief? If hearts could speak for themselves, what would they say? Here are a few examples:


This is My Heart

This is my heart. It is a good heart.
Bones and a membrane of mist and fire
are the woven cover.
When we make love in the flower world
my heart is close enough to sing
to yours in a language that has no use f
or clumsy human words.

My head, is a good head, but it is a hard head
and it whirrs inside with a swarm of worries.
What is the source of this singing, it asks
and if there is a source why can’t I see it
right here, right now
as real as these hands hammering
the world together
with nails and sinew?

This is my soul. It is a good soul.
It tells me, “Come here forgetful one.”
And we sit together with lilt of small winds
who rattle the scrub oak.
We cook a little something to eat, then a sip
of something sweet, for memory.

This is my song. It is a good song.
It walked forever the border of fire and water
Climbed ribs of desire to my lips to sing to you.
Its new wings quiver with
vulnerability.

Come lie next to me, says my heart.
Put your head here.
It is a good thing, says my soul.


- Joy Harjo



Mongrel Heart

by David Baker

Up the dog bounds to the window, baying
like a basset his doleful, tearing sounds
from the belly, as if mourning a dead king,

and now he’s howling like a beagle – yips, brays,
gagging growls – and scratching the sill paintless,
that’s how much he’s missed you, the two of you,

both of you, mother and daughter, my wife
and child. All week he’s curled at my feet,
warming himself and me watching more TV,

or wandered the lonely rooms, my dog shadow,
who like a poodle now hops, amped-up windup
maniac yo-yo with matted curls and snot nose

smearing the panes, having heard another car
like yours taking its grinding turn down
our block, or a school bus, or bird-squawk,

that’s how much he’s missed you, good dog,
companion dog, dog-of-all-types, most excellent dog
I told you once and for all we should never get.


The Heart's Archaeology

by Maudelle Driskell

On some fundless expedition,
you discover it beneath
a pyracantha bush
carved from the hip bone
of a long-extinct herbivore
that walked the plains on legs
a story tall. An ocarina of bone
drilled and shaped laboriously
with tools too soft to be efficient
by one primitive musician
spending night after night
squatting by the fire.
No instrument of percussion:
place this against your lips,
fill it from your lungs to sound
a note winding double helix, solo
and thready calling to the pack.


Little Clown, My Heart

- Sandra Cisneros

Little clown, my heart,
Spangled again and lopsided,
Handstands and Peking pirouettes,
Back flips snapping open like
A carpenter's hinged ruler,
Little gimp-footed hurray,
Paper parasol of pleasures,
Fleshy undertongue of sorrows,
Sweet potato plant of my addictions,
Acapulco cliff-diver corazon,
Fine as an obsidian dagger,
Alley-oop and here we go
Into the froth, my life,
Into the flames!


Heart, My Lovely Hobo

Heart, my lovely hobo, you
remember, then, that afternoon in Venice
when all the pigeons rose flooding the piazza
like a vaulted ceiling. That was you
and you alone who grinned.

Fat as an oyster,
pulpy as a plum,
raw, exposed, naïve,
dumb. As if love
could be curbed, and grace
could save you from the daily beatings.

Those blue jewels of flowers in the arbor
that the bees loved. Oh, there’ll be other
flowers, a cat maybe beside the bougainvillea,
a little boat with flags glittering in the harbor
to make you laugh,
to make you spiral once more.
Not this throbbing.
This.


~Sandra Cisneros

Heart
By Margaret Atwood

Some people sell their blood. You sell your heart.
It was either that or the soul.
The hard part is getting the damn thing out.
A kind of twisting motion, like shucking an oyster,
your spine a wrist,
and then, hup! it's in your mouth.
You turn yourself partially inside out
like a sea anemone coughing a pebble.
There's a broken plop, the racket
of fish guts into a pail,
and there it is, a huge glistening deep-red clot
of the still-alive past, whole on the plate.
It gets passed around. It's slippery. It gets dropped,
but also tasted. Too coarse, says one. Too salty.
Too sour, says another, making a face.
Each one is an instant gourmet,
and you stand listening to all this
in the corner, like a newly hired waiter,
your diffident, skilful hand on the wound hidden
deep in your shirt and chest,
shyly, heartless.

· From Margaret Atwood's The Door, published by Virago

Heart to Heart

- by Rita Dove

It's neither red

nor sweet.

It doesn't melt

or turn over,

break or harden,

so it can't feel

pain,

yearning,

regret.

It doesn't have

a tip to spin on,

it isn't even

shapely—

just a thick clutch

of muscle,

lopsided,

mute. Still,

I feel it inside

its cage sounding

a dull tattoo:

I want, I want—

but I can't open it:

there's no key.

I can't wear it

on my sleeve,

or tell you from

the bottom of it

how I feel. Here,

it's all yours, now—

but you'll have

to take me,

too.

The Human Heart
- by Campbell McGrath

We construct it from tin and ambergris and clay,
ochre, graph paper, a funnel
of ghosts, whirlpool
in a downspout full of midsummer rain.
It is, for all its freedom and obstinence,
an artifact of human agency
in its maverick intricacy
its chaos reflected in earthly circumstance,
its appetites mirrored by a hungry world
like the lights of the casino
in the coyote’s eye. Old
as the odor of almonds in the hills around Solano,
filigreed and chancelled with the flavor of blood oranges,
fashioned from moonlight,
yarn, nacre, cordite,
shaped and assembled valve by valve, flange by flange,
and finished with the carnal fire of interstellar dust.
We build the human heart
and lock it in its chest
and hope that what we have made can save us.

Finally, in the following poem ("Broke"), I try to write about the hearts of people I know and love, people who seem to always get a raw deal, people who never seem to love wisely or get a good start on healthy relationships. Of course, I imagine myself as one of those hearts, at least in the moment of conceiving the poem, and create a community of other "broke" hearts to keep myself company. I play off the way "broke" also means "penniless" and "poor" also means living in poverty. If love were money, I wonder, how would we describe being broken-hearted? Is love a kind of currency that some of us will always be perpetually short of? Concrete imagery was the key to exploring those ideas.

Broke

Poor hearts rattle paper cups on the sidewalk,
earn rent limping in three-inch stilettos,

burn holes in their pockets with unrequited love.
Poor hearts slouch in the unemployment line every month,

have more lust than sense, believe tenderness
is the root of all evil. Poor hearts

support someone else’s illegal habit,
post bail for an unfaithful lover,

squander their savings on get-love-quick schemes in Florida.
They lose their shirts when the bubble bursts,

fall for counterfeit affections, don’t have
no change for the lonely bus home.

Poor hearts love under the table all their lives,
operate on the barter system, pray for fair trade,

believe if you love hard enough …
Poor hearts can’t budget for the long haul,

get lunch at St. Leo’s kitchen, recycle
the same cheap passion till it’s threadbare.

Poor hearts do the loving no one else wants to do,
avoid the dentist till the tooth’s rotted out,

moonlight with coyotes to make ends meet.
Poor hearts flutter so thin and faded

they just need to be taken
out of circulation altogether -

set fire, burned right
down to newborn ash.

- Deborah Miranda