I have to admit I like these prompts. It is like taking a class with no precise hours, no exams or grades and you don’t have to do the homework unless you feel like it. It’s pass-fail without the fail.
Today’s prompt is to write a poem in dialogue. In the past I would have run away from this one but I’m getting more daring the more I do this. I wasn’t aware of this format until recently I discovered a poem in dialogue in Meadowlands, by Louise Gluck. The dialogue took me unawares: no quotation marks. It took me a while to feel appreciative but I found that it works as poetry, at least in her hands.
Here is an excerpt from The Wish:
Remember that time you made the wish?
I make a lot of wishes.
The time I lied to you
about the butterfly. I always wondered
what you wished for.
What do you think I wished?
I’m not printing the end of the poem because I believe it pushes the edge on copyright law. But you get the idea.
I ‘m going to borrow Gluck’s format for my poem which is a dialogue with myself. Talking with myself is something I do far too often.
Poetry
So, don’t you feel a little silly,
Doing all this poetry stuff?
Yes, it’s not what I intended.
I’m a prosaic sort. No imagination,
I guess.
If it doesn’t engage the real-life senses it isn’t real?
Sometimes it seems like that.
Isn’t poetry a sort of adolescent journaling
You should have outgrown by now?
Yes. Like love letters and mooning
Over a favorite teacher.
Then why do you do it?
To dance with words, each line a pirouette or plie
My body could never accomplish.
But my mind can.
Won’t they laugh?
Not if I don’t tell them.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
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8 comments:
This is great, S! I especially love the "To dance with words..." part.
I like the idea of your mind accomplishing what your body can't. Well done.
Oh, Sarala... just lovely. I love how you answer yourself as to why you do it... it is a dance, isn't it?
Thanks...
I like this. Made me feel like I was watching a movie and the character was having a dialogue in her head that only the audience knows of. good stuff!
"Yes. Like love letters and mooning
Over a favorite teacher."
That sounds so familiar..me as a student and now me as a teacher..
Yes, poetry is dancing with words! Nice dialogue!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I think poetry is best barometer of the soul's growth, so says me. :)
Great poem, thanks for telling us anyway.
Rose
xo
Lovely poem, I can completely picture this inner dialogue in my head. I am also a big fan of Gluck.
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