April 13th Mom’s Poem a Day Challenge 2013
What Berryman Said to Merwin
just one time he suggested
changing the usual order
of the same words in a line of verse
why point out a thing twice
W.S. Merwin
in “Berryman”
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(he said)…you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write
W.S. Merwin
in “Berryman”
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Write a poem that messes with the expected word order in your lines to the effect that sense is not totally obscured but that the poem’s mystery is enhanced. You might write your poem first in a more conventional linear language and then experiment with minor jumbling and omissions. Work with one of your earlier April poems, if you wish, to create a tangled twin. (exercise credit Janet Cady Hutchinson)
At the top of the veins I hear
the finger on the bowstring
I hear my feet continuing
upward I hear you
hair in wind
I learn from you of the bare slope
where you are nowhere in sight
so we climb the mountain together after all
even with it between us
W.S. Merwin – from” Kore”
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A second option would be to write about not knowing the worth of your creations in this lifetime.
I don’t need to know, do you?
we write just because we do —
same as we climb out of bed
or pull on socks.
jch 3/13/13c
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