Poetry Exchange
Poetry Exchange by Lyman Grant and Robert Wynne
About the Poets
Lyman Grant taught at Austin Community College for 45 years, where he also served as Dean of Arts and Humanities. He has published several books of poems, the most recent being 2018: Found Poems and Weather Reports (Alamo Bay Press). He is the father of three sons and currently lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia. In 1985, with William A. Owens, he edited the Letters of Roy Bedichek. Currently, he researching and writing a biography of William A. Owens.
Robert Wynne earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. He is the author of 6 chapbooks, and 3 full-length books of poetry. His first full-length collection, Remembering How to Sleep, was the recipient of the Poetry Society of Texas’ 2006 Eakin Book Award. His second full-length collection, Museum of Parallel Art, was published in February 2008 by Tebot Bach Press. Tebot Bach published his third collection, Self-Portrait as Odysseus, in 2011. He has won numerous prizes, and his poetry has appeared in magazines and anthologies throughout North America. He lives in Burleson, TX with his wife and a German Shepherd, and his online home is www.rwynne.com.
Introductory Comments
Lyman: Robert Wynne and I have been exchanging poems for over a year. We began in April 2021. Many years ago, as a poetical diversion, we wrote new lyrics to Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick, line by line (he would write a line, then I would write a line) duplicating the rhythm and sounds as best we could. During the pandemic, I had found my poetry-life plodding along exploring the same old topics in the same old moods. So I asked Robert if he would like to embark on a second rewrite. We had once talked about trying “The Wrath of Kubla Khan,” somehow blending Coleridge with Star Trek.
Robert responded, “I would love to share poems back and forth, but I'd prefer to do it more as call and response—as opposed to another line-by-line lyrical parody/reference. So, to that end, I've attached a poem. If this strikes a chord with you, I would love it if you'd write something as a result of that chord's vibration. And then send that to me, and I will respond in kind.” I agreed and we began.
Robert: I had really been missing having a regular poetic dialogue and had been looking forward to seeing Lyman online for the Austin International Poetry Festival, at which we were both scheduled to feature. When that was canceled last year, I was very glad to hear from Lyman. We have written 180 poems, 90 each, so far. Most, if not all, of the poems we’ve created, would certainly not exist were it not for the lively emails back-and-forth.
Lyman: Our deal was that our exchanges would be anxiety-free and to some extent serve as poetry prompts. No one was critiquing. This conversation was not a workshop. We were not trying to “improve” ourselves or our art. The occasional “correction” would be suggested to a line that did not scan or to a misspelled word. Mostly, we offered one or two lines of appreciation: an allusion subtly hidden, a little dance of sound effects, a moving final line.
Robert: I have been re-energized by this endeavor. I have written more poems in the past year than in any 12-month period in the past 2 decades, even writing a poem each day in April this year in addition to the poems I traded with Lyman. I check my email much more frequently than I used to.
Lyman: More than a year later, we are still exchanging poems. On April 26, 2022, Robert sent a poem that mentioned centaurs. Since Robert often writes ekphrastic poems, I tried my hand at one. If we were to say which of the Texas Poetry Assignments I began with, it would be # 11, “Time.”
The Poems
Listening to the Centaur by Lyman Grant
after “The Meeting of St. Anthony and St. Paul” by Master of Osservanza
Let us not be coy.
We know the story
of this and every life.
The journey
is always right there
before us.
All of it.
Ignore the cave
where the saint lives,
the path with our thousand
footsteps, the forest
where light disappears,
and focus on the centaur.
You have been lost
for so long.
This almost unhuman
creature might lift
its front hooves
and crush you, or
also, if you listened,
speak the secret words
that opened your eyes
to the rest of the story.
Minotaur with Dead Mare in Front of a Cave by Robert Wynne
Pablo Picasso, 1936
The sheer size of him
is staggering. Left hand
out with an open palm
toward a veiled girl
he emerges smiling
with the white horse.
His right arm hooks
around the limp neck
through the front legs
to hold the mare aloft.
Is the dead animal
an offering, a warning
or something else?
And in the black space
of the cave’s opening
whose hands are those
or are they wings?
Ceremony by Lyman Grant
after “Minotaur with Dead Mare in Front of a Cave”
by Pablo Picasso, 1936
All of us
whenever we marry
proffer some murdered
part of ourselves to love,
like this minotaur
lugging the carcass
of a mare’s wild
beauty and grace.
The bride, pleased
with his sacrifice,
is lifting her veil,
perhaps to tender a kiss.
But something
from his darkness
is reaching out,
broken and mourning.
Picasso in Disguise by Robert Wynne
after a photograph by Edward Quinn, 1959
A huge wicker bull’s head
covers his face completely.
Shirtless, he steadies the visage
with his right hand, empty eyes
fixed and perfectly round
above wide, dark nostrils.
Even with an unlit cigarette
sprouting from his left hand
he has become the minotaur,
inhabiting the myth fully
before a massive blank canvas
as if he just stepped out of it
into our own twisted labyrinth
where right angles wither
under the weight of this world
we can’t stop explaining.
A Thing with Horns by Lyman Grant
after “Charles Chaplin,” by Richard Avedon. New York. 13 September 1952
At first, I thought he was a bull,
eyeing the camera, a red
lens shuttering, stomping his hooves,
calculating, whimsically,
the lift and twist of his whetted
horns. Such wild applause for tramping
on the entrails of dead horses!
But then I learned he was waving
goodbye, a little devil, pan
returning home after lifting
the skirts of our hypocrisies.
Rene Magritte’s “Charlie Chaplin Leaving America” by Robert Wynne
The little tramp stands still
in front of a low cinderblock wall
and a sky full of clouds. His face
is obscured by an apple pie,
steam rising from the crust.
There is an open door next to him
with a boat drifting into view
through it. The sun has abdicated
and the whole scene is lit instead
by a single candle, wax snaking
lazily down the door frame
into a puddle at Chaplin’s feet.
The doorknob is a lidless eye
that follows you all the way home.
Transubstantiation by Lyman Grant
after “The Endearing Truth,” by Rene Magritte, 1966.
We know it is only paint
on the cinderblock wall
of time. Don’t run into it.
The refusal of hard reality
to imagine kind welcomings
is merely another joke,
whose comic has gone
missing. Concussions
and headaches lay ahead,
and what use is a stale
loaf of bread, sour wine,
and a bowl of plastic fruit?
Keep your wings tucked.
There is no reason in flight.
I bet there’s a hidden door
in one of those three alcoves.
Rene Magritte’s “Narcissus” by Robert Wynne
A man in a bowler hat and business suit
kneels on a mirrored floor, palms flat
against the insistent shimmer below.
His face is obscured by the black brim
and his reflection is the view from above:
dark hat and coat floating in a wide sea
of cloud-shaped birds and bird-shaped clouds
softly goading the light. Each of us sees
whatever we need to, until we stop relying
on our pupils. To appreciate this world
fool yourself into glimpsing it askance
because only the irises can make out
the edges where all the beauty hides.
Dialogue by Lyman Grant
after “Narcissus” by Caravaggio
I should plan to trash this poem
as soon as it is finished.
What good comes from gazing
into the pool of words
for hours, or days? Don’t believe
the lectures of our betters:
revision doesn’t change
the composition of water.
Sure, I could be kneeling, staring
into still shimmer of admiration
and wonder, paused in the dialogue
of recognition and insight.
One voice offers a name. Another asks
if we have met before.
One voice asks if I would like a drink.
I say there’s somewhere else I have to be.
Caravaggio’s “Christina’s World” by Robert Wynne
Blades of grass blur into shadow
as they recede from the space
around her lonely, prone form.
Lit from within, her pink dress
provides a perfect pale respite
from the wide darkening field
and four distant buildings
barely visible on the horizon.
The knife in her left hand
shines against the meadow,
spotlighted so bright
like any unanswered question.
Is that blood on the blade?
Is she pushing herself away
or rising toward the farmhouse?
Christina Applegate’s World by Lyman Grant
lines spoken as Kelly Bundy
She’s on the edge of her feet.
She’s going to dig a hole
in the ground and throw away
the key. She’s always wanted
to drive to Europe. She didn’t
come all this way to spend
her vacation in a one-whore town.
She’s on the horns of an enema.
She has heat probation. But
words roll off her like water
off a duck’s quack. She’s striking
a balance between ping and pong.
She hopes he doesn’t make
a testicle out of himself.
She knows that those who can,
do; those who can’t, do not.
It’s like Chinese waiter torture.
It’s as inevitable as death and Texas.
The check is in her mouth. Squid
pro quo. The prostitution rests.
She laughs last, and laughs west.
Arrivedouche!
Married Without Children by Robert Wynne
spring rain of bullets
spares imaginary kids
still so much blood pools
Our Responses about Each Other’s Poems
And so we end, with Texas Poetry Assignment #27: Texas Shooting. Robert sent this poem on May 27, 2022, so in the thirty-one days, each of us had written six poems for the other to consider. It was an interesting journey, from centaurs to minotaurs, Picasso, Charles Chaplin, Richard Avedon, Rene Magritte, Carravagio, Andrew Wyeth, Christina Applegate, and school violence. More recent poems reflect this painful turn in American life.
Lyman: If I were to praise Robert’s poems, it would be to call attention to their endless and seemingly effortless invention. His series of invented ekphrastics—actual works imagined as if created by a different artist—is one of the cleverest poetic maneuvers I have ever encountered. Secondly, I would praise his sense of compassion. Beneath the wit and the surprises of his lines is a true heart sympathizing with our difficulties in navigating this life: such as, “where right angles wither / under the weight of this world / we can’t stop explaining” and “To appreciate this world / fool yourself into glimpsing it askance / because only the irises can make out / the edges where all the beauty hides.
Robert: Lyman’s work grounds me to the physical realities of human life, particularly when he invokes his garden. I am also drawn to his juxtaposition of everyday images with simple, direct statements, such as “There is no reason in flight” and “I should plan to trash this poem / as soon as it is finished.” And I love that he has let humor leak into his poems, so he doesn’t seem too judgmental when he’s “Lifting / the skirts of our hypocrisies.”
Poetry Exchange by Elisa Garza and M. Miranda Maloney
June 9, 2022
About the Poets
Elisa A. Garza, a native Houstonian, has published two chapbooks, Entre la Claridad (Mouthfeel Press, soon to appear in a second edition) and Familia (The Portlandia Group). She has taught students from elementary through senior citizens in public schools, universities, and community programs. Currently, she works as a freelance editor.
M. Miranda Maloney is the author of The Lost Letters of Mileva (Yuguri editorial, Uruguay, 2019), and Cracked Spaces (Pandora Lobo Press, Chicago), forthcoming in August 2021. She is the founder of Mouthfeel Press. She lives in Huntsville, Texas, with her husband, Dan, dog Caspian, and two cats, Edison and Oni. She has three children in college, attending Texas universities.
On Finding Four Fish in My Grass by Elisa A. Garza
A pandemic is a sign
of apocalypse, a plague
that won’t end. But I worry
more today about the fish I found
this morning in the grass,
laid elegantly on their sides,
each eye glaring at the sky
like a burned-out beacon.
Only one is damaged, a few
missing scales tempting
green-black flies to feast
and leave eggs that will soon ripen
into greedy maggots that will eat
the flesh away. The other three fish
flex their tails in a soft curve
as if they are swimming,
moving smoothly through the grass,
seeking open water, as we
seek a life beyond illness,
beyond fear of infection,
seek freedom from plague,
from pestilence,
freedom from fearing,
from our own end,
an end we know is near,
an apocalypse nigh,
a plague of fish
just one of many signs.
Maria’s Response to Elisa’s Poem
The poem's title immediately opens a door of curiosity for the reader. It's an unusual title that begs the question: "How did they get there?" And, if I were a journalist, I'd continue with: How, when, why? Therefore, I want to read more. Curiosity piqued, I dive into the poem. Its first three lines: "A pandemic is a sign / of apocalypse, a plague / that won't end. But I worry" is a statement that turns inward at "But I worry," and here, suspended by enjambment, I'm able to ask, too, what can be more problematic than a pandemic. The answer comes quickly, as the poem moves briskly through the strategic interplay of enjambed lines that create a rhythmic flow, delightful to the tongue, beautifully structured lines. The sixth line, "laid elegantly on their sides," is a testament to the poem's form, including the space between lines that allow the poem to flow on the page, aesthetically pleasing to the eye, even as I encounter the next line "each eye glaring at the sky." The image is stunning. I love the word glaring. I think of other words: angry, glassy, defiant. The next line, "like a burned-out beacon" pulls me away slightly from the image. The comparison seems contradictory. But then, finding fish in the grass is unnatural, a contradiction.
The poetic voice describes the fish's position and condition in the second stanza. In the line "Only one is damaged, a few," the words one and few are positioned to continue to explore the contradiction. There's a play of words as if, at any moment, the syntax can be arranged to "Only one damage a few." I return to the beginning lines of the poem. It only takes one in a pandemic to spread to a few, and then more. Again, this stanza is full of assonance. The image pushes the poem forward to the third stanza in the last three lines. Here, the poem turns into a contemplative monologue. The poem's rhythmic and concrete identity the reader has grown accustomed is abandoned; instead, the reader is invited to reflect upon the experience of seeing four fish as a symbolic end. The final loop of the poem ties the significance of the fish found in the grass to our inward fears, to our external reality.
Lovely poem!
What was the process you used to tie in the various themes in the poem?
Maria
Elisa’s Reply to Maria’s Comments
I really appreciate you noticing the contradictions in the poem, and how they build upon each other. The main contradiction, that the fish are in a suburban yard of grass, not water, is where the poem began. After finding and photographing the fish while gardening, I contacted my biologist friends, who had a few theories: osprey (unlikely to drop one, much less four fish), or racoons who were startled at the beginning of their meal and ran. They settled on the latter, because of the bite marks on one of the fish. That afternoon, when I started writing the poem, I was thinking about the biblical plagues of fish, toads, and locusts, so fear of apocalypse and its signs, like the pandemic, became the focus of the poem. As you point out, the contradictions are central to the imagery and the themes of the poem: “a plague/ that won’t end” or is already over, dead fish “glaring,” “burned-out beacons,” “one” or “few.”
To answer your question, another key theme was things that are veering out of control: the pandemic, fish thousands of yards away from the nearest water, “greedy maggots that will eat/ the flesh away,” “fear of infection… plague… pestilence… our own end…apocalypse… many signs.” The image of the flies and maggots in the center stanza was an important way to tie together several uncontrollable things: the pandemic, the sudden appearance of the fish in the grass, and the many inward fears the speaker mentions about the ending of the world. The assonance you mention, as well as alliteration of Bs, Ps, and Fs in the first and last stanzas also help to tie the images and themes together.
I’m Rooting for the Coyotes by M. Miranda Maloney
We spent winter turning over mottled leaves, twigs
and branches, limbs of Itztlacoliuhqui, the Aztec god
of damp and dark, asleep or in decay. We unfolded chairs
on warm days beneath trees, our mutt ran creeks amok
with the chaff of plastic bits and bottle caps. I planned
to return to this place in summer. Humidity, rain, or sweat
weaving low to the bow of my back. But I don’t. Instead,
I visited the Gulf, its beach bedecked with waving shades
where children played. There was still a pandemic.
Except the ocean carried none of it but for sticky waves.
I may go to the desert. There, neighbors are losing pets
to coyotes jumping over rock walls to devour their flesh,
drink marrow like water. My heart breaks over their hunger,
and thirst. I can’t help it. I’m rooting for the coyotes. I keep
thinking if only the razing stopped, if only the scaling stopped
for one more strip mall, to squeeze in one more house. If only
I’d quit my want. But there are many like me. Searching
the horizon, my eyes seek the slender shapes of creatures stirring
farther where I cannot touch them, where I cannot hurt them,
where their string of sound is lost at last. All I say, I’m sorry.
Elisa’s Response to Maria’s Poem
I like the subtle details of this poem, how they build on the title, which lead me to wonder, is this a game or a competition? As I read, I realized that it is neither: the coyotes, and the planet as a whole, are already losing to our want. The “creeks amok/ with the chaff of plastic,” the ocean’s “sticky waves,” and the “razing” and “scaling” of the desert are the clues that this poem is about loss. As we lose the “string of sound” of the coyote, we also forget all the other things we have sacrificed to our greed for more: other animals, the landscape, water, natural beauty. All is “in decay,” although our “want” blinds us to this.
I know you were working on the line breaks as you revised this poem. I think the tercets were a great choice because I noticed that many of the lines and most of the stanzas are enjambed. I like how the long lines and sentences move us quickly through the poem and enable us to pause when the sentences are short, for emphasis, in lines 9, 11, 14, 17, and the final line. That final “I’m sorry” is so powerful. It apologizes not just to the coyotes, for the damaged landscape that leads to their thirst, but to the polluted waters, which we can no longer enjoy, and even to Itztlacoliuhqui, who would surely disapprove of what we have done. Some decay is necessary for renewal, he might say, but this has gone too far.
My question for you is: Can humanity come back from this environmental destruction and repair our drive for more things while we attempt to repair the planet? The poem suggests not, and I am wondering what you think.
Thanks so much for sharing this poem with me!
Elisa
Maria’s Response to Elisa’s Question
Thank you, Elisa, for your comments. To answer your questions: I still have hope in humanity. I believe that discourse about the environment should be changed to be more inclusive of the situations many working-class people face. As it is now, the media utilizes technical terms when discussing environmental degradation that distances humanity from being a part of nature – instead we are relegated to statuses of indifferent consumers who submit to the whims of technocratic bureaucrats. I hope my poem addressed this point. I do believe much of what is needed is for language to be inclusive when referring to the environment. We use language from a western perspective, as if the environment (and nature) is just another “issue” to address. Finally, I feel that the worst is on its way for our planet, but that we will learn from our impending trials and overcome them. I do have hope, certainly.
Thank you,
Maria
Poetry Exchange by Jan Seale and Katie Hoerth
January 4, 2022
About the Poets
Jan Seale, the 2012 Texas Poet Laureate, lives in Texas on the U.S.-Mexican border. She has held a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry and has served as a Humanities Scholar for Humanities Texas. Her latest book of poetry is PARTICULARS: poems of smallness, published by Lamar University Literary Press.
Katherine Hoerth is the author of four poetry collections, including Goddess Wears Cowboy Boots, which won the Helen C. Smith Prize from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2015. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Lamar University and Editor-in-Chief of Lamar University Literary Press. Her next poetry collection, Borderland Mujeres, will be released by SFAU Press in 2021.
Family Portrait by Jan Seale
Certainly the white-haired grandparents
with their naturally rounded bellies
will have dropped out of the picture
but what of the father on the left
who sired the four almost-tall teenagers?
He is absent by way of a troubled heart
and his daughter in short-shorts
as befitting the summer day this picture
was taken now gone to some heaven
the rest of us are not. Another father
far right, contributing the three sprouting lads?
A ghost, only his music remaining.
Two sisters, who started it all, smile giddy,
hold hands in the success of the outing.
The six who are left have long been stretched out
of their teenage skins, stretched to a day’s work
and incurable conditions, to poor plumbing
and trips to the vet and the hardware store,
to the band hall and the football game. But
look at them here in their matching striped shirts,
one boy on his knees (so as to get everyone
in the picture) who doesn’t know that he’s kneeling
in prayer for the falling away of the principals
and for his car-wrecked big sister, for the
eventual falling away of everyone here to make room
on the photographic paper for the next batch
to come cheerfully, innocently, to occupy
the frame, which is in fine condition even
after so many years and can be refilled again
and again on this pale blue dot sailing the sky.
The Recipe for Fudge by Katie Hoerth
Because I have a sweet tooth just like hers,
my mother says she’ll teach me how to make
grandma’s secret fudge. Let it be known
I love the taste, the memories it brings,
the scent of chocolate wafting through the kitchen,
the grit of sugar sticking to my teeth.
I crave, I long for one more taste of her—
the way she knew to love, a wooden spoon,
no need for a thermometer, she read
the sheen of chocolate like an open palm
and knew exactly when to beat the batter
and when to let it cool. Her fudge was love
in bitesize squares. I always left her house
with armfuls of the fudge, an aching belly
and a face stained umber. Love like this
can rot the teeth, can spoil the appetite,
can poison blood, a river full of sugar
flowing through the tired pancreas.
So when my mother tells me that she’ll teach
me how to make this fudge, I hesitate.
I think of grandma, knee-deep in her sickness,
making batches for the ones she loves
and sneaking little nibbles for herself.
She loved until it hurt, and when she died,
my mother soon became the queen of fudge
slinging batches in her kitchen, keeping
memories of grandma on the tongue,
or in the belly, flowing through the blood
of her, of me. Sugar of her sugar,
blood of blood, a batch of fudge atop the table
cooling in afternoon’s long laze,
my mother grins with grains of sugar grit
between her teeth. I have no choice, I’ll learn
to love like this, to love with sweetness hard
until it hurts, until it kills—embrace
of cocoa, kiss of candy, nourishment
of full-fat milk, a couple pats of butter,
the plundered center of vanilla beans,
heaps of joy. The hardest part is waiting
for the fudge to cool. My mother watches
with the glinted simper of her mother,
of me, our blood a muddy river flooded
with sugar, saccharine and love that flows
through the veins, into the heart, the glucose
inundating, rising, falling, ebbing.
I take a piece of candy from the dish,
remember grandma as it starts to melt
atop my tongue. I take the recipe
into myself, the recipe for love
all the women in my family know by heart.
Katie’s Response to “Family Portrait” by Jan Seale
I love this poem. The title, “Family Portrait,” hints of ekphrasis, and sure, the poem describes a family portrait, but it moves beyond that muse about life’s biggest questions. In other words, it’s deceptively simple. It’s about the permanence and the impermanence of life—how we leave a legacy, and how that legacy carries on without us. It makes me think about the immortality wrapped within our mortality—if that makes any sense.
At the start of the poem, we’re introduced to a family through a single photograph, perhaps taken at a joyous family reunion. The speaker tells us all the wonderful details about the people that feel so full of life. We have grandparents with “naturally rounded bellies,” “almost-tall teenagers,” and sisters who “smile giddy, / hold hands.” There are people absent from the photograph as well, and the speaker speculates about them—one father “absent by way of a troubled heart,” another “a ghost, only his music remaining.” They also remark that one of the young girls in the photograph is “now gone to some heaven.” This adds a shade of darkness and complexity in the piece, warding off any hint of sentimentality. It also makes the family feel more real and relatable. Who among us hasn’t lost someone? I think of my own family and extended family—my brothers, parents, and a brand-new baby niece, and also my grandparents who have exited the metaphoric frame.
So we get all of these delicious details as the poem unfolds. I appreciate the imagery of each person in the photograph that makes me feel as though I’m beside the speaker, examining it, learning about this family as though it were my own. However, the poem turns in stanza eight with the final, winding sentence: “But” it begins, signaling a shift in tone. The speaker directs us to examine two brothers kneeling in the photograph as if “in prayer for the “eventual falling away of everyone here to make room for the next batch” of youngsters, parents, and grandparents, to occupy this simple picture frame, this moment in time, this earth. The final stanza simply takes my breath. The speaker expands the lens to the cosmic level, making me feel connected to this family and my own too, both grand and small at once. The photograph’s frame becomes a metaphor for the present, for life, which “can be refilled again / and again on this pale blue dot sailing in the sky.” The last line is my favorite part of this poem—such profundity!
The poet chose to write in tercets, which feels exactly right to me, as this creates pattern that goes hand-in-hand with the patterns of life, the poem’s theme. Each of the lines is roughly the same length, and there’s some lovely enjambment throughout that creates suspense, pulling the poem’s argument forward. For instance, poet chose to break stanza two at “troubled heart” and pulls the reader’s attention forward. Where there’s more aggressive enjambment, there’s also more tension in the narrative. Thus, form meets function. It’s simply masterful.
QUESTIONS:
What was your writing process like for this piece? It reads as though it flowed from you so naturally!
What advice do you have for someone wanting to write about family? 😊 I know you have much wisdom on this topic!
Jan’s Response to Katie’s Questions
1. Writing process for this poem:
I had been thinking about my family, going over and over (a pastime in the middle of the night) how my extended family had shrunk in recent years. When I looked at the photo of this family outing, I both mourned the loss of some key members, but also celebrated the paths that the young people in particular had chosen. They are middle-aged now and have their own sets of teenagers.
The picture virtually freezes time, and I wanted the poem to reflect that. So I chose to describe the family members as if I was showing the photo to someone. At the end, I wanted it to seem as though this tiny band of family would go on and on, except there would be descendants in the used frame, and this process of re-picturing the frame would be natural and destined, though miniscule in terms of the universe.
2. Advice for a poet wanting to write about family:
It can be done in a number of ways: focusing on one particular member, or commenting, as I did in this poem, on generativity. Also, it might be a moving narrative, with events out of family life, or a still, like my family frozen in the frame.
A few cautions: Family members will be much more real to the poet, so a poem needs to be very selective in details in order for the audience to identify with the figure without being bored or overwhelmed with all that the poet knows and has experienced with the individuals.
Keep in mind that the heirs of the family figure may be reading the poem years hence. What do you want them to understand about their parent, uncle, aunt? It would be a kindness to err on the side of understanding and generosity for a subject that is difficult and not particularly winsome at the time the poet is writing.
And try for some commentary about the family, not just a description. There needs to be a reason for writing the poem, a conclusion that assures the poem audience that the poet has thought about the implications of his/her particular family in common with other families.
A poem I wrote many years ago, a mini-biography of my pioneering maternal grandmother ( “Pearl Bell Pittman 1888-1976”) has been a surprisingly popular poem through the years. I think it touched a nerve in people. So many have come up to me after a reading to say how it made them think deeply about their own grandparent, and I was cheered by that response, because that’s what we poets want, isn’t it?—to touch someone with our words so that they take them into their lives and hearts and apply the meaning to their own existence. As Maya Angelou said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Jan’s Response to “The Recipe for Fudge” by Katie Hoerth
The title stands like the heading on a recipe card, slyly belying the theme of the poem, which turns out to be a celebration of female family love. The fudge is the—pardon the expression—glue that sticks the basically narrative idea together.
The components of the recipe itself come rather late in the poem, after the stage is set for the grandmother-mother-daughter lesson and especially by a worried enumeration of all the bad effects of this super-sweet treat. The stalling adds suspense—What’s in fudge anyway?? And will the hesitant “I” cave in and learn how to make the recipe?
There are satisfying dichotomies in the poem: sugar good vs. sugar bad; the grandmother cooking a treat while “knee-deep in her sickness”; hot bubbling fudge vs. cool fudge ready to savor “atop my tongue.”
The precise language in this poem raises the subject from ordinary to exceptional. (Isn’t that true of any good poem?) The use of phrases and terms like “grit of sugar,” “one more taste of her,” “the sheen of chocolate,” “afternoon’s long laze,” “face stained umber” and “glinted simper” makes us realize that the poet is taking care in how she presents her story; thus we can trust her with our attention. The easy swing of the long sentences, divided as they are into unrhymed couplets, gives heft to the basic idea, as well as keeps us reading.
The ending is effective and appropriate, with a dash of surprise.
The thing I liked best about this poem is how Hoerth used an ordinary activity to illustrate a deep connection, all the while avoiding the sentimentality that would have been so easy to fall into.
QUESTIONS:
Why did you choose unrhymed couplets to tell your story?
[Question 2: When will I get some of this fudge????]
Katie’s Response to Jan’s Questions
Hey Jan,
The couplets were actually a last-minute decision. I wrote the poem originally in two stanzas—one long one, and then one short one at the end of just five lines. My idea was to have the beginning, long stanza kind of flow and tangle into itself, like the speaker’s train of thought, only to be interrupted when she herself exercises agency and takes a piece of candy. However, when I returned to the poem some months later, I felt overwhelmed with that long block of text and the syntax got confusing. It was suffocating, and while that was my intent, it was just a little much. I then tried couplets, which opened the poem and I think make it more inviting to the reader to reminisce with the speaker. The poem was an even number of lines, so it worked out. Deciding on a stanza length and arrangement is often one of the last things I do when writing a poem, though I will confess I’m still fussing with it here.
As for unrhymed, this poem was just born unrhymed. That’s the way it wanted to be! I do write rhyme occasionally, but I usually reserve it for sonnets. This poem is written in blank verse, which works with the narrative elements of this piece. Blank verse is probably my default form to write in!
And to answer your next question, the next time I visit for tea! 😊
Poetry Exchange by Sarah Webb and Melanie Alberts
September 4, 2021
About the Poets
Sarah Webb co-edits the Zen magazine Just This. Her collection Black (Virtual Artists Collective, 2013) was named a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award and for the Writers' League of Texas Book Award. Her Red Riding Hood's Sister (Purple Flag, 2018) was also short-listed for the Oklahoma Book Award. She posts at bluebirdsw.blogspot.com
Writer and psychic artist Melanie Alberts works at the University of Texas at Austin. Her non-fiction and poetry have appeared in the Ransom Center Magazine, Just This, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Wisteria: A Journal of Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka, and other journals. Follow Melanie on Instagram @clair.circles.spirit.art.
The Exchange
Melanie met Sarah through the virtual Just This Zen writing circle held on Thursday evenings. Sarah is a founding member of the writing circle, and Melanie discovered The Texas Poetry Assignment website through Sarah’s comments on a poem she wrote during her first sitting with the group. Melanie invited Sarah to join her with this particular assignment and the pair began a correspondence. Sarah’s poem is “Time Lapse” (Assignment 11: Time) and Melanie’s poem is “Brown Recluse” (Assignment 13: The Texas Onesie).
Below this exchange is a video of Sarah and Melanie reading and discussing their poems and their exchange.
First Drafts of the Poems
Time Lapse by Sarah Webb
Clouds slide over the lake, flat-bottomed cumulus
that puff custard at the top and presage storm. They shadow
white-capped water; they lift past the hills and travel on.
If we were to set a camera to catch them for the day,
we'd see them speed past, dissipate, then edge back in,
lines of cloud following the currents of the sky,
and if we kept on filming, a week, a month, a year,
the air would flicker—white gray blue, rain sun fog—
clouds blinking into being and passing on.
Decades would show us winter, dim, wind from the north,
summer glare slapping from waves—a perpetual pattern,
days lengthening and shortening in their season.
A hundred years might pass, morse code of light and dark,
and then more, a blur like a stream photographed at twilight,
whose current turns to hair, pouring between forest stones.
Beneath the ever-changing torrent of the sky, windows
gleam on the far shore. Their lamps pulse the dark,
flashes and shadows on a quiver of water.
In centuries, lights outline the growing sand, cluster high
and haze the night. They fade, give way to a necklace of light
faint through heavy trees along a twist of canyon.
Now, gaps in the string, and now a single lamp under the stars.
A firefly on a river bank, dark and bright, dark and light,
it lasts its moment, before the trees close round it, black.
Night comes and then day, mist and then sun, the years stream,
and all the long passing, the clouds sweep over.
Brown Recluse by Melanie Alberts
Please don’t hate me,
a spiderling suddenly born
homeless during a summer of rain,
poured out of silk with fifty
sisters, fighting for space
as your hand hit me—yes, I fanged
your flesh not because I hate you—
(I have nothing but this precious salve
to slow down a clumsy great
body like yours, cutting through everything,
crushing life in a single step) simply put,
my fear is a reflex, like how
now I must hide—I must
leave this restless weed born
essentially alone as I was, hatched
during a season of prayed-for rain,
between a Hill Country highway
and a service road lined with tents,
luscious cardboard hiding places, breathtaking beauty!
Reflections on Each Other’s Poems
Sarah sent in “Time Lapse” first and Melanie spent several days sitting with it, reading it aloud, thinking about what it meant to her. She wrote her reflections on each stanza and at first, had many questions, but felt better to winnow it down to what she felt was her most pressing question. Melanie emailed her comments along with, accidentally, two drafts of “Brown Recluse,” to Sarah who sent her impressions back. Melanie gratefully used them in rewriting of the draft. It turned out that both writers will be attending Laurene Musgrove’s workshop on writing a “onesie” and Melanie may continue to make edits to “Brown Recluse” after that class.
Melanie’s comments (in italics)
Time Lapse
Your title gives me the sense that there will be a play of words with lapse or perhaps a comment on loss, or shifting of memory? Looking forward to what unfolds!
Clouds slide over the lake, flat-bottomed cumulus
that puff custard at the top and presage storm. They shadow
white-capped water; they lift past the hills and travel on.
Such delicious opening imagery, I am reminded of being served a puff pastry and the passing feeling of guilt that comes after eating one.
If we were to set a camera to catch them for the day,
we'd see them speed past, dissipate, then edge back in,
lines of cloud following the currents of the sky,
Yes, I can imagine that.
and if we kept on filming, a week, a month, a year,
the air would flicker—white gray blue, rain sun fog—
clouds blinking into being and passing on.
Yes, I can imagine that. A time lapse can be jarring that way.
Decades would show us winter, dim, wind from the north,
summer glare slapping from waves—a perpetual pattern,
days lengthening and shortening in their season.
I love the music in this stanza, and wonder how spring and fall would appear. I’d like more of this as it’s engaging my senses.
A hundred years might pass, morse code of light and dark,
and then more, a blur like a stream photographed at twilight,
whose current turns to hair, pouring between forest stones.
Very pretty imagery along with a sense of cool detachment as you increase the length of time of your magical time lapse. Time is a blur, indeed
Beneath the ever-changing torrent of the sky, windows
gleam on the far shore. Their lamps pulse the dark,
flashes and shadows on a quiver of water.
Lyrical use of language! I’d like to be moved or emotionally involved with what is happening, but you are keeping the reader at a distance...the distance of a camera.
In centuries, lights outline the growing sand, cluster high
and haze the night. They fade, give way to a necklace of light
faint through heavy trees along a twist of canyon.
There is growth in the number of habitations, and the geography is shifting, apparently. I’m not sure if that’s what you mean here, but that’s what I think you’re expressing.
Now, gaps in the string, and now a single lamp under the stars.
A firefly on a river bank, dark and bright, dark and light,
it lasts its moment, before the trees close round it, black.
Now humanity has disappeared completely. I imagine that the firefly is a symbol of our very short lives, how life is over just like that...
Night comes and then day, mist and then sun, the years stream,
and all the long passing, the clouds sweep over.
Sarah, I find your language really delightful to read. Your words capture the surface tension of time lapse photography. So much appears to be happening but nothing is happening, time is pretty much the same throughout the centuries, life comes and goes as the clouds come and go. Your poem is like a static landscape, it’s comfortable but passive. I keep wanting the poem to challenge me emotionally or engage me beyond asking me to imagine a frame of the now swiftly being replaced by another frame. As a mood piece, I think your poem succeeds! I wonder what it would be like to be left with something more that relates to the human element: what are we trying to capture as time passes? And what isn’t being captured? Would you consider inserting a person, the time lapse photographer, into the poem?
Sarah’s response
Melanie,
I think you caught what the poem was trying to do, portraying the long view of a place over time. It is a thought experiment, like your recluse poem is. You took your reader into a new perception, what if we changed the emotional labelling on a feared creature. In my case, it is, what if we took the view of Long Time, rather than focussing on immediate changes. What would it mean to look at the lake where I live from that vantage point. What will be there as the years pass, as the dam breaks and the river returns, as civilization changes with populations that swell and shrink and maybe even cease (although I didn't mean that people died out everywhere, I wanted that to be ambiguous).
It might be possible to get across that perception with a person or people involved, but I think that would have to be an entirely different poem. Perhaps something in a city or with a person immune to time. I see the passivity in the poem as it is, but it may be a consequence of the long view itself. Long time may necessarily be detached. It is an alternative to our usual state of passionate involvement, worry, despair at how things are going wrong. That detachment may seem wrong —don't we care? aren't we going to act to make things better? And it doesn't stir the emotions. But it is useful in another way, a different way of approaching reality, one less jerked around by our hopes and fears.
Still, it might be possible to have a more dynamic way of getting the idea across. Perhaps clouds and water and lights and houses are too indirect. I'm remembering a poem that is not about long time but is about change and things passing. I don't remember where to find it, but it is very short and it presents an image of children playing on a beach and building an elaborate sand castle and then they go home for supper and the tide comes in and washes the sand clear. That has more poignancy and emotional resonance. For a Long Time poem with people, it might be possible to take a lake house with its people and show how it might change over centuries-- people, house, and land. I'll think about that.
Sarah’s Reflections on “Brown Recluse” (in italics)
Brown Recluse
Please don’t hate me,
a spiderling suddenly born
homeless during a summer of rain,
poured out of silk with fifty
sisters, fighting for space
as your hand hit me—yes, I fanged
your flesh not because I hate you—
(I have nothing but this precious
salve to slow down a clumsy great
body like yours, cutting through everything,
crushing life in a single step) simply put, consider but, simply put, because
my fear is a reflex, like how
now I must hide—I must
leave this restless weed born maybe a comma between weed and born?
essentially alone as I was, hatched
during a season of prayed-for rain,
between a Hill Country highway
and a service road lined with tents, luscious
cardboard hiding places, breathtaking beauty!
You've made the recluse very sympathetic--asking for understanding, a spiderling, homeless and alone, defending herself from a great clumsy giant and following instincts. And then when the little spider has won our sympathy, we see the side of the highway through her eyes as a place of beautiful hiding.
I love that switch in perception and how you have made something fearful into something to be loved and appreciated. There's a lightness of tone to it, not quite comedy but I would imagine it with lyrical music.
My question: since it's a Onesie, have you drawn/diagrammed the relationships that hook it together grammatically?
I see you've used lots of tactics to put that long sentence together, an excellent job of putting it all together in one spider line :).
Melanie’s Response and Rewritten Draft
Sarah,
I really appreciate your kind comments, especially that you feel I succeeded in stringing together this spiderling’s tumbled thoughts. I considered your question to diagram the poem but I’d pull out my hair doing so! (I guess Laurence could’ve made diagramming the poem a part of the assignment, I’m so glad he didn’t.) I just now realize that I sent you two versions of the poem, the one in the body of the email was the more recent draft than what I attached, but no matter. I agree with your suggestion of the comma, so thank you very much.
Brown Recluse
Please don’t hate me,
a spiderling born suddenly
homeless during a summer of rain,
poured out of silk with fifty
sisters, fighting for space on a branch
as your hand hit me—yes, I fanged
your flesh not because I hate you—
(I have nothing but this precious
salve to slow down a clumsy great
body like yours, cutting through everything,
crushing life in a single step) simply put, fear
is born into us, how we turn aside,
how we must hide—I must leave
this restless weed, born
essentially alone as I was, hatched
during a season of prayed-for rain,
between a hill country highway
and a service road lined with tents, luscious
cardboard hiding places, breathtaking beauty!
Sarah’s Reply
Yes, I like what you've done very much. I can follow the structure through it readily now (and diagramming was drilled into me as I went through school but I didn't teach it later because for so many people it's just an additional barrier, not a helpful tool). I also follow the twists and turns of your thoughts much better now. I suspect more than a little of that is because I'm reading your later version. Anyway, I like it, and I find the little spider charming (even if she can be lethal)
And I was thinking about your feedback and have a couple of fixes to my poem after all, not big changes but clarifying some meanings (sometimes it takes a while for my unconscious to work on these things). I may be able to get to it today but it will probably be over the weekend.
The following Tuesday…
Well, I did get the poem revised. I revised it and wasn't satisfied with the changes, sat on it, showed it to a friend, and walked some of the changes back (they did remove some ambiguities but made it flatter). I reread it this morning and am good with it.
Sarah’s Revised Poem
Time Lapse
Clouds slide above the lake, flat-bottomed cumulus
that puff custard at the top and presage storm. They shadow
the white-capped water; they lift past the hills and travel on.
If we were to set a camera to catch them for the day,
we'd see them speed past, dissipate, then edge back in,
lines of white following the currents of the sky,
and if we kept on filming, a week, a month, a year,
the air would flicker—white gray blue, rain sun fog—
clouds blinking into being and passing on.
Decades would show us winter, dim, wind from the north,
summer glare slapping from waves—a perpetual pattern,
days lengthening and shortening in their season.
A hundred years might pass, morse code of light and dark,
and then more, a blur like a stream photographed at twilight,
whose current turns to mist flowing between forest stones.
Beneath the ever-changing torrent of the sky, windows
glisten on the far shore. Their lamps pulse the dark,
flashes and shadows on a quiver of water.
In centuries, lights outline the growing sand, then cluster high
and haze the night. They fade, give way to a necklace of light
faint through heavy trees along a twist of canyon.
Now, gaps in the string, and now a single gleam under the stars.
A firefly on a river bank, dark and bright, dark and light,
it lasts its moment, before the trees close round it, black.
Night comes and then day, storm and then sun, the years stream,
and all the long passing, the clouds sweep over.
Poetry Exchange by Thomas Quitzau and Jesse Doiron
August 10, 2021
About the Poets
Thomas Quitzau is a poet and teacher who grew up in the Gulf Coast region and who worked for over 30 years in Houston, Texas. A survivor of Hurricane Harvey, he recently wrote a book entitled Reality Showers, and currently teaches and lives on Long Island, New York with his wife and children.
Jesse Doiron spent 13 years overseas in countries where he often felt as if he were a “thing” that had human qualities but couldn’t communicate them. He teaches college, now, to people a third his age. He still feels, often, as if he is a “thing” that has human qualities but can’t communicate them.
The Exchange
To accomplish the Texas Poetry Assignment 12 – Poetry Exchange, we established a partnership by way of E-mail with the help of Laurence Musgrove. Once we had agreed to work together on the project, we exchanged poems that we were working on for the Texas Poetry Assignment 11 – Time, including“Puzzled: Middle Passage” by Thomas Quitzau and “All Fall Down” by Jesse Doiron. See below the poems as they have been revised. Our various comments follow the poems.
The Poems
Puzzled: Middle Passage by Thomas Quitzau
It was the manner in which you were transported
like cargo, like sardines, with attitude
It was the manner in which you were treated once here,
like animals, with fortitude
Brought to Brazil mostly, the puzzle piece needed
sharing rocks with the Ivory Coast latitude
Holding clay bowls from nations greeted
with enslaved retrograde notions’ lassitude
of tectonic motions
of temporal commotions
of Creole Haitian potions
of burials in gigantic oceans:
missing “pieces” of this corpulent
flattened and expedient
molten and turbulent
moving and fraudulent
unfathomable puzzlement.
All Fall Down by Jesse Doiron
No hero holds us all
in thrall forever,
for never can he be the same –
always.
His name will change,
as will
our willingness
to praise.
It fades in days,
though they be counted by in years,
and years be counted by in decades
– more, in centenaries.
Days will be counted by and by,
and, then, someday,
they will pass by – away.
They will – away.
By then, they will be past.
A hero cannot last in stone.
His monument
is only for the moment.
Reflections on Each Other’s Poems
After the initial exchange of poems, the two of us sent our reflections to each other, offering our comments and concerns. We noted the aspects that we most enjoyed as well as the aspects that called us into confusion. Through these candid exchanges, both of us were able to improve upon our initial drafts, honing what our partner felt most effective or cutting what our partner felt to be ineffective. Some of our comments were clarifications of motivations. Some suggestions focused on technical elements of structure. Diction, of course, became an important part of the conversation.
Comments on Thomas Quitzau’s “Puzzled: Middle Passage” by Jesse Doiron
Working on the Meaning of the Poem –
ORIGINAL DRAFT LINE-BY-LINE EXPLICATION
It was the manner in which you were transported bringing the reader (you) into the moment
Like cargo, like sardines, with attitude large and small
It was the manner in which you were treated calling the reader to a sense of propriety
Once here like animals with fortitude paradoxically demeaning and admiring
Brought to Brazil mostly the puzzle piece needed a place of allusions and illusions
Sharing rocks with the Ivory Coast latitude joining disparate parts
Riding plates holding nations greeted enlarging the conversation
With enslaved retrograde notions’ lassitude remembering the past
Of tectonic motions accepting the unstoppable
Of temporal commotions accepting the ephemeral
Of Creole Haitian potions mixing of magical mysterious power
Of burials in gigantic oceans accepting the insignificance of life
Missing pieces of the corpulent realizing the absence of answers
Flattened and expedient the vastness of necessity
Molten and turbulent the chaos
Moving and fraudulent the allusive
Puzzle the unanswerable
Aspects of the Poem –
SHAPE
You mentioned earlier that the shape of the poem figures highly in the meaning – a separation of the continents and a dwindling of the abducted Africans. This shaping of the lines certainly directs the mind’s eye to see where the mind must travel. And there is a sense of traveling, agonizing journeying, that the lines and spacing connote.
Perhaps this element of “middle passage” can be enhanced. Consider italics to buttress shape.
IMAGE
Cargo puts the reader in motion, and the following comparison with sardines places the reader on board a ship, uncomfortably crowded.
“The manner” of transportation and treatment calls up a cavalier if not brutal handling of the reader, reminding the reader of the awful nature of the trip, the final destination as awful as the travel.
The Middle Passage carries the grim mood. Images exercise their force subtly. Consider eliminating the note about that historical designation. You have enough context to allow the careful reader to intuit what you mean.
What is not to like about magic? Especially the voodoo religion of Haiti. This opens the magical realism that permeates the poem. From the stability of known home shores to the soul-crushing of shores of foreign oppression.
The clash of civilizations and civility comes crashing down upon the reader at the end of the poem.
DICTION
The nice blending of geography and geology also can be enhanced by taking away rather than adding. Before you use the word “tectonic,” you say “plates.” Before you say “plates” you say “rocks.” You might try working out a segue in diction here. Perhaps “clay bowls” instead of “plates.” That will bring the rocks into the tectonic movement and remind the reader of the vessels – for cargo and potions.
Rather than use the word ”puzzle” twice, change the ending word/line to “unfathomable puzzlement.” Such a change can move the physical commotion back into the mind of the reader. It can also steer the reader back into the cruel and confusing waters of the Middle Passage.
Comments on Developing “Puzzled: Middle Passage” by Thomas Quitzau
The original title of mine was “Puzzled,” but I changed it to “Middle Passage” after remembering the name of that section of the Atlantic. Also, I distorted the middle section of the poem to create a pseudo-concrete poem. I intentionally made the first “stanza” proportionally bigger than the last signifying the number of enslaved Africans that actually survived the “journey” and the first couple of years of life. So many died in such horrific ways.
I tend to obsess over titles sometimes, but especially for such a heavy subject as the centuries of African enslavement.
Comments and Questions on “All Fall Down” by Thomas Quitzau
What great variety in shape and content; very interesting. My immediate sense on All Fall was that you have struck a treasure, that quintessential solid sound as the shovel through fresh earth strikes wood? Metal? Something different and we know there may be treasure there. All Fall leaves me waiting for someone (you?) to lift the lid after brushing away the dust to see what “we” may have uncovered, not discovered because someone buried the idea, the futile attempt to freeze time, to live forever via something material. But only observers in close proximity could appreciate “the moment,” however long. How effective a placeholder is a statue? A mummy? How informative of the moment?
Did you have a particular thought or collection of ideas in your mind entering into that poem?
The poem derives from the politics of the day and memories of past days.
In the mid-1980s, I moved to Madrid, Spain. My first year there coincided with the nation’s celebration of Diez Anos Despues De – Ten Years After. The “after” referred to Francisco Franco’s death. The longest surviving fascist dictator left a country intoxicated with socialist liberties. Plaza Malasana had tables on the wide terrazas where young men cut slices of hash for cut-rate prices. I worked down the way from the dope dealers at La Escuela Mayor – High Command School for the Spanish Military. My boss was a colonel in the Army. His office had 20-foot ceilings and a portrait of El Caudillo that easily ran half that height hanging behind his desk. The Plaza de Colon was a magnificent tribute to Columbus. Quevedo stood above the underground garage where I kept my car that I won at a MacDonald’s restaurant on Fuencarral. The most popular film director was Pedro Almodovar – a proudly uncloseted homosexual with a cult of cultivated fans. Madrid was in flux.
In 1991, I lived in Kyiv, Ukraine. From the moment it declared independence from the Soviet Union, every day peeled away its past – symbol after symbol, statue after statue, hero after hero.
I remember well the day I arrived home from an exhausting end-of-work journey aboard the rusting metro. I walked the several blocks from the train station to my neighborhood, practicing my Cyrillic by reading aloud the various signs along the way. I was taken aback when I noticed the familiar Karl Marx street sign had been changed to pay tribute to some Ukrainian hero whose name meant nothing to me.
On Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), the magnificent statue of Lenin was unceremoniously removed – bit by bit – after being defaced with illiberal slogans scrawled across the base by the liberated proletariat. It took weeks to send their first Communist leader to the trash heap of history.
I lived another six years in the Former Soviet Union, traveling throughout the nations of the former Eastern bloc. Every month, I saw a bit more of the Russian Empire falling into ruin -- worthless rubles, wanton oligarchs, worried faces.
Nowadays, I see the same irreverent destruction of the old monuments I had grown up reverencing. Heroes for the moment.
Do you like the way the poem was birthed? And if not, I am curious about how you wrote it (quickly and in a burst? Or over time?)
Poems come fitfully to me. Scintillating rather than bursting. Everyone is a breech birth.
And finally, and only if you wish to share, I am curious what your feelings are about the subject(s) of the poem and/or my comments written at 39000 feet.
I was surprised you selected “All Fall Down” for our conversation. Then I studied your offering – “Middle Passage.” Seems we are both sailing the same winds.
Quitzau’s Responses to Doiron’s Answers
The life experiences you shared make the poem even richer for me. I wondered about the dashes (punctuation which can be very effective in poetry, and I would leave them all right where they are. They are like "rests" in music, to pause just the right amount at just the right times. As I may have already said, I love the structure and conciseness of the poem as well.