I’d like to invite all of you to participate in our very first edition of what was previously known as the Virtual Poetorium under its new name of The International Imaginarium For Word & Verse this month (to be posted on our brand new Inaginarium website on the evening of July 26th) with John Ormsby, a very talented writer, poet, and blogger (originally from Canada but now living in the United Kingdom) as our featured poet.
To be part of our Imaginarium open mic this month,, please send us one to three of your own original poems or stories (under 2000 words altogether please) either in a Word document file or pasted in the body of an email along with your name, any opening remarks you care to make, and where your poem has appeared if it was previously published to poetorium@mail.com by Sunday, July 24th.. Also if you like, you can send us a photo of yourself to be posted above your poem, but that is totally optional.
We will also need contributions for our very first Imaginarium Group poem. We will be trying something a bit different this month, and write a group ekphrastic cento (ekphrastic meaning inspired by a work of art such as a photo, painting, or sculpture while a cento is a patchwork poem consisting completely of lines taken from other poems or writing). To participate, please write and send us a six-line poem inspired by the following photo:
At least one line (but probably more) from each submission will then be taken and rewoven into one long seamless, flowing poem that hopefully can stand on its own by the editor (which in this case will be me). We will retain our usual policy on anonymity that we used for the Poetorium group poem, but that is totally optional, and poets can receive credit for their contribution and have their individual poems published alongside the collaborative poem if they wish. Please try to send me your individual poems by Sunday, July 24th, so I will have time to edit the resulting cento. Also kindly let me know if you want to have your identity known and/or your original poem published.
If you have any questions about submitting to the virtual open mic, the group Imaginarium poem, or anything else about the International Imaginarium For Word & Verse itself, please leave them in the comments of this post, and I will try to answer them right away.
Thank you so very much for reading, folks! As always, I really appreciate everyone’s continued support of this blog, and hope to hear from you soon with your contributions to our very first edition of the International Imaginarium!
“Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.”
“I am not a prophet but I think you will make it if you learn to revise, if you take your time, if you work your guts out on one poem for four months instead of just letting the miracle (as you must feel it) flow from the pen and then just leave it with the excuse that you are undisciplined.”
“Poetry, after all, milks the unconscious.”
“Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.”
“Everyone in the world seems to be writing poems … but only a few climb into the sky.”
“My poems only come when I have almost lost the ability to utter a word. To speak, in a way, of the unspeakable.”
“You must be a poet, a lady of evil luck desiring to be what you are not, longing to be what you can only visit.”
“Poetry is my life, my postmark, my hands, my kitchen, my face.”
“Writers are such phonies: they sometimes have wise insights but they don’t live by them at all. That’s what writers are like…you think they know something, but usually they are just messes.”
“I was born doing reference work in sin, and born confessing it. This is what poems are.”
My dear readers, please forgive me for being so neglectful! It’s hard for me to believe, but I haven’t posted a post on invented poetry forms (a series that has always been the mainstay of this blog) here on “Paul’s Poetry Playground” since last February, so it’s certainly time for me to do another one. Today I will discuss the Mariannet, a name I coined for the previously unnamed poetic form that the poet Marianne Moore created to write her classic poem “The Fish” first published in 1918. Since the form was invented over a hundred years ago, it isn’t exactly new, but in many ways, it will be to most poets, because as far as I can tell, I may be the first to start writing them again since Moore.
The mariannet is an isosyllabic rhyming poem, consisting of one or more five-line stanzas (quintains) with one syllable in the first line, three in the second, nine in the third, six in the fourth, and eight in the fifth and final line. The first two lines rhyme with each other, and so does the third and fourth, but the fifth is nonrhyming and does not rhyme with any other lines. Thus its rhyme scheme can be expressed as aabbx for each individual quintain (with x representing the nonrhyming line). In Moore’s original formatting of the form, the third and fourth lines were indented five spaces and the fifth ten spaces. Unfortunately, such formatting would be very difficult for me to do in WordPress, so I’m treating the indentations as optional. However, if you are writing one, and you can indent, I highly recommend that you do – it will make your own mariannet more authentic and pleasing to the eye. To serve as a model for your own attempt at the form, here is the very first mariannet ever written, Marianne Moore’s The Fish (sadly, sans indentations):
The Fish
wade through black jade. Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps adjusting the ash-heaps; opening and shutting itself like
an injured fan. The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave, cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the
sun, split like spun glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness into the crevices— in and out, illuminating
the turquoise sea of bodies. The water drives a wedge of iron through the iron edge of the cliff; whereupon the stars,
pink rice-grains, ink- bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green lilies, and submarine toadstools, slide each on the other.
All external marks of abuse are present on this defiant edifice— all the physical features of
ac- cident—lack of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and hatchet strokes, these things stand out on it; the chasm-side is
dead. Repeated evidence has proved that it can live on what can not revive its youth. The sea grows old in it.
—Marianne Moore
After reading such a poetic masterpiece as “The Fish”, I doubt you will need any more inspiration to try your hand at writing your own mariannets. But in case you do, here are my own humble (and obviously inferior) attempts at the form:
My Uncle Max’s Most Favorite Maxim
“Sad kids go bad.” is what Uncle Max constantly said. “They’ll wind up jailed or dead.” His own son Sam seemed so damn glum.
Yet Young Sam met No such terribly tragic fate. He still lives… to this date. Never trust what your uncles say!
You Think, Therefore You Are?
Some thoughts may come and go, in a flash fade from your mind. There are others you’ll find taking up permanent residence,
Fixed in place, mixed thoroughly through waking life and dreams, woven within the seams of your being, your existence.
You may be who- ever you wish, you’re defined by thought. Then again, maybe not. Are you you… or just think you are?
Tick, Tick, Tick…
Soon it’ll be noon. This once new day at its halfway mark, following the same arc of each previous day before.
So it will go on this way, continue on and on (until Mankind is gone and the concept of Time’s erased).
One day, the sun may roast the earth in a fiery blaze, bringing the End of Days, but I pray, my friend, not today…
The Hermit
Lack- ing the knack for chit-chat, he fled conversations, social situations, and took refuge in reading books.
A reader may (he soon found) interact and converse with the whole universe yet still stay apart from the world.
He learns what we don’t – how to savor being alone, through the years having grown accustomed to his solitude.
The company he keeps (his own, and of Keats, Thoreau Socrates, and Plato) — all the Society he craves…
So what do you think of the mariannet, my dear readers? Like with all the invented poetry forms that I have the pleasure of introducing to you on this blog, I sincerely wish you will try writing one for yourself, and if you do, please don’t hesitate to share. I hope you enjoyed this post, and thank you so much for reading!
I have some major news about the Poetorium to announce! First, it’s official – our live Poetorium at Starlite shows will finally begin again (after a hiatus of two years due to Covid) with our first show to be on Thursday, June 30th, 2022, from 7 pm to 10 pm at the newly reopened Starlite Bar and Art Gallery at 39 Hamilton Street in Southbridge, MA. With this new development, you may be wondering “What will happen to the Virtual Poetorium now that the live Poetorium shows are beginning again?”. Although there certainly won’t be one next month in June, I am committed to continue doing them at least for now, already having scheduled some wonderful featured poets for July and August. After that, we may still stay monthly (with occasional hiatuses) until the end of the year, but next year in 2023, it most likely will change to quarterly, with a new edition every March, June, September, and December (with perhaps a special Halloween-themed Scaretorium in October). It will also probably undergo a name change to avoid confusion with the live Poetorium shows. I promise I’ll keep you updated on this blog as the status of the Virtual Poetorium changes, but meanwhile, here is the link to the May 31st, 2022 edition of the Virtual Poetorium posted last night on the Poetorium website for you to hopefully peruse and enjoy at your leisure: https://poetorium.home.blog/virtual-poetorium-may-31-2022/
I want to thank my fellow bloggers (Gypsie) Ami Offenbacher-Ferris, Poetisatinta, Goutam Dutta, Selma Martin, and tommywart for graciously accepting my invitation to participate which I previously posted on this blog. Once again, I have decided not to repost the entire Virtual Poetorium here on this blog as I have often done with previous editions because I feel that it is probably too long a read and thus far too overwhelming for most of my readers (as a result, some really excellent poetry might be skipped, and that would be a real shame). So instead, I will just post this month’s Poetorium group poem (which is always one of my favorite segments of the Poetorium). I’m not exactly sure why, but for some reason, the response to the group poem this month was tremendous with the number of contributions being probably the most we ever had, and making this perhaps our longest group poem yet. I want to thank Karen Durlach, Ariel Potter, Tom Ewart, Robert Eugene Perry, Howard J Kogan, Selma Martin, Angela (aka Poetisatinta), and the slew of others who wish to remain anonymous for contributing and making the following poem possible:
May Is the Month…
May is the month, Most pleasant passage Spring coolness bridged To Summer’s swelter Offering a brief glimpse Of a temperate paradise.
May is the month To take nature by the hand Dancing into silent space Wearing blossom as a gown And hawthorn As your Crown.
May is the month Of our mothers and May flowers, Of forsythia and bloodroot, Violets and sentimentality, Both genuine and commercial.
May is the month To tend the garden, Pull the tools from the shed, Pinch the weeds from the ground, Watch your arteries as they harden, Probe for parasites that are ahead Of time, boring into the soiled bed Of your body, leaving you to cast around For straws that won’t leave you dead.
May is the month I mourn my mother, Alive but estranged, Close in miles But faraway in heart.
May is the month Of war on Ukraine And here at home the war On the last seventy years Of progress in democracy. It’s a May that makes me mad.
May is the month The air conditioner goes in And we are not yet Sick of the heat.
May is the month The cat escapes onto the air conditioner And balances on the box outside the window Until tempted back inside with a bowl of cool milk.
May is the month My beloved and I sip Lime rickeys, listening To a creepy podcast While the box fan spins.
May is the month You begin to sweat at the bus stop (Masks suggested but not required) As people board the WRTA Bound for downtown.
May is the month Sweaters go ignored At the Goodwill, and Thrifters sort through Secondhand sunglasses and visors, Shorts and sun hats.
May is the month Of come what may, Swan song for Spring, Harbinger of Summer.
May is the month Of maybes, but a maybe that will be: There be rain, there be sun There be color, there be breeze. There be hellos, there be smiles There be you, and there be me. There be less worry, there be more love There be fecundity, there be more hope.
May is the month Of “May Be”: May you be safe May you be healthy May you be happy May you be blessed May you find peace May you find courage May you find joy In May, may you Be.
May is the month Of may we, oh! may we unfurl our treetop leaves to bask in the sun? May we, oh! may we thrust our tender green tips out through warmed soil? May we, oh! may we blossom brightly and smile, Welcome widely to dragonflies, butterflies, wasps, and bees? Yes, oh yes! May is the month of YES.
Since both the Virtual Poetorium interviews with James R. Scrimgeour and Jonathan Andersen, which I previously reblogged here on this blog, seemed to be fairly popular with readers, I am following them up today with a more recent interview I did with the poet & novelist Robert Eugene Perry that originally appeared just a few months ago in the February 22, 2022 edition of the Virtual Poetorium (I hope you will enjoy reading it)…
Robert Eugene Perry is a native of Massachusetts. Both a talented novelist and poet, his first novel Where the Journey Takes You, a spiritual allegory combining poetry and prose, was published in 2007. This was followed by three collections of poetry The Sacred Dance: Poetry to Nourish the Spirit in 2008, If Only I Were a Mystic, This Would All Come So Easy in 2011, and Surrendering to the Path released by Human Error Publishing in 2020. His latest book Earthsongs, also published by Human Error Publishing in March 2022 (a month after this interview) is a collection of 50 of his poems as well as 50 companion black and white sketches by his artist friend Ferol Anne Smith (All his books can be purchased online via links found on his website: https://roberteugeneperry.myportfolio.com) Perry hosted a poetry group for disabled individuals at the former New England Dream Center in Worcester MA, and has emceed the monthly Open Mic at Booklovers’ Gourmet in Webster MA since May 2017. Three poems were included in NatureCulture/ Human Error Publishing 2021 anthology Honoring Nature. Two of Perry’s poems were published in Poetica Magazine’s 2020 Mizmor anthology. He has had several poems published in Worcester Magazine, and his short story “In The Company of Trees” was published by WordPeace journal in 2021. A metaphysical poet, he draws inspiration from nature endeavoring to reveal connections between our higher selves and the natural world. He is a devoted husband and father of two grown boys.
A Virtual Poetorium Interview With Poet Robert Eugene Perry
PAUL: Good evening, Bob! My first question for you tonight is who or what first inspired you to start writing poetry?
BOB: I was 12, seventh grade English class writing assignment. We had just finished reading some famous poems by Frost, Dickinson, and William Carlos Williams. I especially remember “This Is Just To Say”, I had never heard anything like it.
The first poem I wrote was called “Night”. It went something like: “Night is calling/ the bats are hunting/ the owls are hooting/ something is moving/ is it man or beast?/ I’ll never know/ it’s going away.” My teacher loved it. Everyone else gave me a hard time because it didn’t rhyme.
PAUL: Who are some of your favorite poets and can you tell us why you like them?
BOB: So I will start with my two favorite poets, both of which I was fortunate enough to do Dead Poets segments at the live Poetorium in Southbridge: Mary Oliver and T.S. Eliot.
On the surface, their poetry may seem to be disparate. Upon closer examination, they both write about faith, connection, and our place in the universe. I discovered Eliot in High School, where I took on The Waste Land out of hubris (the most difficult choice given) and waited until the last minute to start it. My professor gave me a D, which was actually more than it deserved. Through the years I have read & reread most of his other works, and found a depth, unlike any other poetry, especially in Four Quartets.
I came late to the Mary Oliver party, only discovering her in the last decade. Her connection to Creation and ability to use language to describe it is beyond compare. These are the only two poets that I have multiple volumes and return to again and again.
I am very fond of poetry anthologies for two reasons: discovering poets who resonate with me, and also hearing many voices not only broadens my perception of the universe, but it also keeps me from trying to emulate anyone else’s style. I am grateful to have poems included in two anthologies over the past couple years: Poetica magazine’s 2020 Mizmor Anthology: Spirituality in Nature and the NatureCulture/ Human Error Publishing 2021 anthology Honoring Nature.
I also receive two daily emails and one monthly to keep up on current poetry: poets.org, Writer’s Almanac, and Gratefulness.org. Poems that move me I will share to Facebook, and so encourage others to discover modern poets.
PAUL: How has your writing style changed and progressed throughout the years?
BOB: As I mentioned earlier, the first poem I wrote did not rhyme. I spent the next ten years or so working on rhyme scheme, meter, and cadence until I reached what I felt was the apex in Cold Seasons of Self. The next decade was honing narrative, finding the cadence in blank verse, finding the correct words to express what was going on inside me. I would define these two decades as my intellectual quest for expression and connection.
My poetry mirrored my faith journey, which moved from Agnostic to Pentecostal (at age 21) to Non-Denominational to Catholic to Episcopalian to Who Gives A Damn About A Label (my current home).
My first two chapbooks were more religious in nature, as that was the way I expressed myself at the time. I have used the term metaphysical poet for the last few years as it most adequately describes the place where I am coming from: trying to see how the divine manifests in creation, and express that through whatever means possible – generally using allusions, symbols, and metaphors from nature.
PAUL: How would you personally define “Poetry” and for you what do you feel are its most important aspects (imagery, rhythm, word choice, etc.)?
BOB: To define a thing is to try and put it in a box. Some things should be left wild & free to develop in whatever way they grow. I know that you are an aficionado of poetry forms, so I hope that does not rub you the wrong way!
For me, it is always about the message first. No matter how well crafted, or true to poetic form, if I cannot understand what the poet is saying (on some level) then it will leave me cold. The message does not have to be obvious, but it has to be there.
The next in importance is cadence, it has to have some type of flow to move it along. Imagery is wonderful for getting immersed into the poem itself. A rightly placed word is like finding a gem along the path.
PAUL: How would you describe the poetry you are currently writing?
BOB: I just sent a new manuscript off to Human Error Publishing, called Earthsongs. It is a collection of 50 poems and 50 black and white sketches with my artist friend Ferol Anne Smith. This was an extraordinary venture, because it caused both of us to view our art through the eyes of one another.
The majority of the poems are nature-themed, so certain images naturally presented themselves. She used many of my photos from my weekly walks in the woods as springboards, but some were intuitively grasped from the message of the poem.
It was absolutely a labor of love, we would confer about the sketches and we found that we were in sync in almost every instance. I am in awe of her gift, and it moved me as a poet to see how the message came across and translated into the image.
PAUL: Do you recall the first poem you ever had published? Could you tell us where it appeared, and if possible, share it with us now?
BOB: The first poem that won an award was published in an International internet forum called the Poets of Mars. The poem is called Quest, and was the January 2019 winner…
Quest
Restlessness aside, this day is all I own to try and piece the mystery of all that’s right in front of me the passion and calamity each single heart has known.
Preposterous indeed, to attempt to understand the music of the spheres and if god interferes when the verdict of the years lies beyond my mortal span.
Indescribable, this joy, that masquerades as pain the veil of this uncertainty longing for eternity deep and wide as any sea the risk could all be vain.
Ineffable, this grace, which launched a foolish quest to seek out a connection between each path’s direction towards the divine reflection and find my soul at rest.
—Robert Eugene Perry (originally published on the Poets of Mars internet forum)
PAUL: Have you developed a regular writing routine, and if so, can you describe it to us?
BOB: I sit by the French River every day after work, listening to the river flow. I do that in all four seasons, each season has its own beauty and voice. In fine weather I will walk in the woods after work or on the weekends.
Some days a poem will come, some days it will not. I always have pen & paper. I never worry. If I am in the mood to write, I will write even if it does not seem particularly good. Those words are sometimes the inspiration for another poem down the line.
PAUL: What is your actual writing process like, and how do you go about starting and shaping a poem?
BOB: Almost always the title of a poem will suggest itself to me with a basic idea of what I want to write. Sometimes these come out of meditation, walking in the forest, sitting at the beach, or a situation in my daily life.
I write the title down, and if there is a start to the poem I will include that. Most times it is just the title, and writing it down makes a concrete intention to create something. When I was younger, the most important thing was to express that which was deep inside. Now when I write, connecting with others is paramount.
The poem itself takes its shape and form as it is being created. I never start out saying I am going to use this form or that style. The poem has a life & voice of its own, and when it is released into the Universe it will affect people differently according to where they are in their own journey.
For the final edit (and also along the way) nothing is more important than reading the poem out loud. I will catch errors, inconsistencies and rhythm/meter problems easier that way. It is also great practice for reading out at open mics & such.
PAUL: How important do you feel revision is in writing poetry, and how do you know when a poem is finished?
BOB: I know some poets who never revise, and others who edit to the point of distraction. I had one friend who spend so much time on a particular poem she said she thought she “edited all the goodness out of it”!
I think once the poem finds its voice, it is important to edit the structure and cadence so as to reveal the intonation of the poem in the written form. When a person reads it, they should be able to hear the way I would read it out loud in their head.
PAUL: Could you tell us about any poetry or writing projects you are currently working on?
BOB: I mentioned Earthsongs has been sent to the publisher, I anticipate the book being available sometime in March 2022. I have scheduled a book launch party at Booklovers’ Gourmet in Webster MA for April 2nd. We will have two sessions 1-2 and 3-4 PM so promote a more intimate atmosphere and to provide smaller crowds. It will be multimedia, with Ferol showing her sketches on a large screen while I read.
The next book of poems I am working on are more confessional in nature, a little more edgy. I think it is important to look for different ways of expressing myself and making that connection with others.
PAUL: What advice would you give to someone who is just beginning to write poetry?
BOB: Read everything you can. Anthologies are wonderful, because you are exposed to so many different voices. If you are just starting out, write every day. Keep a journal, oftentimes your thoughts will turn into poems. Also, when keeping a journal you are less likely to throw away poems that you think are no good.
I used to throw away tons of poems before I came to my current way of doing things. Find your own way of doing things. Crossing things out is a wonderful way of helping the poem to evolve, you can see your progress that way. If you crumple it up and throw it out it is gone forever.
PAUL: My final question of the evening is there any question that you would like to answer about your life, or poetry, or anything else that I have failed to ask you during this interview? If so, please answer it for us…
BOB: Nothing is ever wasted. Every single life experience, no matter how painful or humiliating can be used to help another along the path. Poetry is art, and all art is meant to be expressed and shared with another. We absolutely need each other.
I am very pleased to announce that we will be producing a May edition of the Virtual Poetorium this month (to be posted on the Poetorium website on the evening of the 31st) with Kevin King, a very talented novelist and poet from New Hampshire (author of the novel All the Stars Came Out That Night and the collection of poetry Ursprache) as our featured poet. Once again like I have done in previous months, I am going to once again open up May’s Virtual Poetorium for anyone who would like to participate and extend an invitation to all my fellow bloggers and faithful readers (or just anyone just happening to be reading this) to be a part of our unique online poetry gathering in print.
To be part of our virtual open mic this month, please send us one to three of your own original poems or stories (under 2000 words altogether please) either in a Word document file or pasted in the body of an email along with your name, any opening remarks you care to make, and where your poem has appeared if it was previously published to poetorium@mail.com by Friday, May 27th. Also if you like, you can send us a photo of yourself to be posted above your poem, but that is totally optional.
We will also need contributions to this month’s Poetorium Group poem. This month, the group poem will tentatively be titled “May Is the Month”. To participate, please send us one to eight lines with the first line starting with either the phrase “May is the month of…”, “May is the month for…”, or “May is the month to…”. All contributions (which will remain anonymous unless otherwise requested) will be compiled and included in this month’s Virtual Poetorium Group Poem. Once again, the deadline for submissions is the night of Friday, May 27th.
If you have any questions about submitting to the virtual open mic, the group Poetorium poem, or anything else about the Virtual Poetorium itself, please leave them in the comments of this post, and I will try to answer them right away.
Thank you so very much for reading, folks! As always, I really appreciate everyone’s continued support of this blog, and hope to hear from you soon with your contributions to this month’s edition of the Virtual Poetorium!
I want to thank my fellow bloggers (Gypsie) Ami Offenbacher-Ferris, poetisatinta, and tommywart for graciously accepting my invitation to participate which I previously posted on this blog. Once again I have decided not to repost the entire Virtual Poetorium here on this blog as I have often done with previous editions because I feel that it is probably too long a read and thus far too overwhelming for most of my readers (as a result, some really excellent poetry might be skipped, and that would be a real shame). So instead, I will just post this month’s Poetorium group poem (which is always one of my favorite segments of the Poetorium). I want to thank Karen Durlach, Dwayne Szlosek, Ariel Potter, Howard J Kogan, and poetisatinta for contributing and making the following poem possible (I hope you will enjoy it):
Photo by Paul Szlosek
Six Different Ways of Looking at a Dandelion
I Pinching out early weeds from the March mud, Wet roots giving up easily, Leaving naked beds to welcome new seed Careful to leave the rosettes of jagged leaves That promise of dandelion, Their golden smile not a weed here Until their white fluff flies off To harass the neighbors.
II Do the mayflowers tremble When they hear the dandelion roar?
III Dandelions delight the early bees, frustrate the lawn perfectionist delight the poet by rhyming with Mayan and Zion implying there there is a dandelion in play in the deepest yellow-headed way
IV “Do not cut off the dandelions’ heads!” I cried to my father at five years old. “They are tiny yellow Muppets, And I love them…”
V Dandelions are a nuisance to a perfect lawn. But such a perfect pretty flower of bright yellow It is bright like the sun, but if you put the dandelion flower under your chin your chin will become yellow with fun. People want to know how it is done. And you will tell them it is magic (That’s how it’s done…)
VI The dandelion’s feathers have already flown their offspring rise and lean towards the sun peeking over wild grass sunbeams – everyone.
I am very pleased to announce that we will be producing an April edition of the Virtual Poetorium this month (to be posted on the Poetorium website on the evening of the 26th) with long-time Poetorium regular and founder of The Poets at Large Poetry Word reading series in Connecticut and Massachusetts, Karen Warinsky, as our featured poet. Once again like I did in previous months, I’d like to once again open up April’s Virtual Poetorium for anyone who would like to participate and extend an invitation to all my fellow bloggers and faithful readers (or just anyone just happening to be reading this) to be a part of our unique online poetry gathering in print.
To be part of our virtual open mic this month, please send us one to three of your own original poems or stories (under 2000 words altogether please) either in a Word document file or pasted in the body of an email along with your name, any opening remarks you care to make, and where your poem has appeared if it was previously published to poetorium@mail.com by Friday, April 22nd. Also if you like, you can send us a photo of yourself to be posted above your poem, but that is totally optional.
We also will need contributions to this month’s Poetorium Group poem. Even if you were a long-time Poetorium regular, you still probably wouldn’t remember way back in July 2019 (when the Poetorium poetry readings were still live) that we rewrote the classic Wallace Steven poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” as our group poem. Well, this month, we will be once again using that classic poem as a template, but this time we’ll be substituting the word “dandelion” for “blackbird”. So, to participate, please send us one to eight lines containing either the word “dandelion” or “dandelions”. Your contributions (which like always will remain anonymous unless otherwise requested) will then be numbered and compiled into this month’s group poem which will be tentatively entitled “Different Ways of Looking at a Dandelion”. Once again, the deadline to contribute will be Friday, April 22nd.
If you have any questions about submitting to the virtual open mic, the group Poetorium poem, or anything else about the Virtual Poetorium itself, please leave them in the comments of this post, and I will try to answer them right away.
Thank you so very much for reading, folks! As always, I really appreciate everyone’s continued support of this blog, and hope to hear from you soon with your contributions to this month’s edition of the Virtual Poetorium!
I want to thank my fellow bloggers Melissa LaFontaine, and (Gypsie) Ami Offenbacher-Ferris for graciously accepting the invitation to participate which I issued on this blog last month. Since this was probably the most successful Virtual Poetorium ever with fifteen poets participating, it may be too long a read (thus far too overwhelming for most of my readers), so I have decided not to repost the Virtual Poetorium in its entirety here on this blog as I have often done with previous editions. Instead I will do like I did last month, and just post this March’s Poetorium group poem (always one of my favorite segments of the Poetorium). Happily, as opposed to February’s poem for which we got only two submissions, we received contributions from seven poets (besides myself) so this poem is a bit longer this month. I want to thank Joe Fusco Jr., Tony Fusco (no relation), Dwayne Szlosek, Robert Eugene Perry, Melissa LaFontaine, Howard J Kogan, Cheryl Bonin, and Elizabeth (who didn’t leave the last name) for contributing and making the following poem possible (I hope you will enjoy it):
Just What Is This Thing Called Spring?
Spring is butterflies and buzzing bees.
Spring is the raucous ravings of avian angst.
Spring is Cherry Blossoms and blue skies. Spring is the scent of bursting green blades.
Spring is the first dandelions slow honey bees from the hive, the fond hopes of the new year tempered by memories of the past year.
Spring is falling in love all over again.
Spring is meeting someone new, as pretty as a spring rose. Come dance with me, under the full moon tonight. Come, the music is soft like the beauty I hold in my arms. I can not look away, as I look into your eyes, I see two people falling in love. That’s why spring is, only for you and me to see our future And love becomes one of the same, my true love to be.
Spring is dancing in the light sprinkle of rain. Spring is cloud shapes transforming into ships and dragons. Spring is a baseball hotdog and salted peanuts.
Spring is baseball… Oiled gloves, tarred bats, chawed tobacco, Coiffed grasses, smoothed dirt, powdered lines, Old-timers, baby-faced rookies, renewed rivalries Herald the coming of Spring.
Spring is the very nature of time changing speed.
Spring is effusive and too far away to be considered real I can’t see the buds on the trees or the watering of potential no warm breeze to feel I do hear the birds singing but it seems like they do it in spite I do sense the longer days and memories of my own fanciful flight but it comes so silently I might as well not wait or listen for the calls of geese as they break winter’s long state.
Spring is a non sequitur in Woosta!
Spring is only a rumor in New England. Winter fades to Summer so quick You’ll see us in shorts and winter jackets Sandals and scarves, our cars’ back seats Looking like a rummage sale.
Spring is now just a mere stopover on the long trek from Winter To Summer, but back when I was a kid, it was our prime destination, and I recall swinging on the backyard swing, and first noticing new buds on the branches of the once bare elms and oaks, the daffodils and paper whites in bloom, and experiencing the inexplicable thrill of knowing that we had finally arrived!
“What poetry is asking us to accept can be difficult. Our proximity to our mortality, the fragility of our existence, how close we live in every moment to nameless abysses, and the way language itself is beautifully, tragically, thrillingly insufficient…these are some of the engines that drive the poem. It’s natural to want to turn away from these things. But we have to face them, as best we can, at least sometimes. Poetry can help us in that nearly impossible work.”
“For me, form is something I locate in the process of writing the poems. What I mean is, I start scribbling, and then try to form the poem – on a typewriter or on my computer – and, by trial and error, try to find the right shape. I just try to keep forming the poem in different ways until it feels right to me.”
“There is all this stuff about how sensitive poets are and how in touch with feelings, etc. they are, but really all we care about is language. At least in the initial stages of the process of writing the poem, though later other things start to come in, and a really good poem usually needs something more than just an interest in the material of language to mean anything to a reader.”
“It is funny, and also a bit sad, that poets are so often asked to justify our vocation. There seems to be something vaguely mystifying and even hilarious to people about being a poet, especially in these times. Why would anyone choose to do something so…useless?”
“I’ve noticed that there can be a visceral reaction to strong statements about poetry, as if anyone who has an opinion and expresses it is shutting people down. It’s funny to see that expressed, and then to go back and read poetic statements by the great poets of the past: they are full of a passionate conviction! It is clearly possible to express strong feelings about poetry while also defending the absolute right of myriad approaches.”
“A poem is like a person. The more you know someone, the more you realize there is always something more to know and understand. A final understanding could probably only begin upon permanent separation, or death. This is why we come back to certain poems, as we do to places or people, to experience and re-experience, to see ourselves for who we truly are, and to continue to be changed.”
“This, in the end, might be the greatest social good of poetry: to get us to live differently, with a different sort of thinking and concentration, even if it’s just for a few moments.”
“I personally believe the role of poets as poets (which is something different from our obligations as citizens, community members, humans) is to write poems. I believe this because I am quite sure poetry can do something no other form or writing, or human activity, can, at least not in such a powerful and distilled and undeniable way. And that we need this type of thinking for our survival as individuals and as a species.”
“I’ve always been more than a little mystified by poets who seem to think talking to people as directly as possible is a bad thing. I mean, I don’t want to set up a straw man here: I understand that for many poets – and for me, at times – writing truly means writing in a way that is difficult, simply because the poem is trying to grasp for something elusive. So the difficulty of the poem is just unavoidable, and not in any way artificially imposed. So “as possible” is the key part of the phrase above, I suppose.
“All my closest friends came to me through poetry. My wife, too! Other than my family, poetry is the gravitational force of my life.”
Paul's Poetry Playground 