I. the breathing of human nature
her poetry weaves a chimera
through ontario maples,
ghostlike songs intoned in late november breath;
i don't really want to be a pretty girl...
whispers of woodsmoke fall from sky
[sky, pink as cochineal, pink as avarice
sky, blue as bruises, as jazz, as tropical waters]
she steps from the fog and ash into the beckoning trees,
with their leaves' seduction,
an autumn saturnalia of honey, flame, amber,
nectar, pistil, anther.
she is cupola and chalice,
budding fuchsia and iron cherry--
but she writes and breathes
as if something more than a woman
who knows all the names for the ocean
stirs and struts inside her.
II. the statue and sobriquet
piano wires melt into statues,
heat steals rusty bottle caps
and bends them eerily into vision.
butterflies perch astutely on the shoulders,
violet, violent, a mosaic of shredded lilies and shellac,
paris in flames, flowering tea-houses,
the mariana trench, a thicket of morning glory.
nature sculpted this metaphysical tribute to her
for all that she has done, for all that her bent fingernails
and snow-covered lips have given
to inspire solstice and equinox
in the night-songs of the crickets,
crystal bells and rustic chirps
she was lauded.
III. declaration
she feels the songs in her eyelashes
and writes of wine and palest bone,
fragments of bashful moon--
roots her fingernails into the tarnished canadian willows
and finds her way through magnolia clouds and sea-spray sky;
after all, she can soar.
Author notes
This is for Laura... or sweetpearl, as you all may know her.
Prompt: "Not A Pretty Girl" by Ani Difranco + Debussy's Clair de Lune
In a list
A contest entry
- Poet Laureate of all AP for the year 2007 Contest # 87 at The Winkler by Andantino.
875 points, ended January 12, 2007, 65 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Prewrites by Myjoy.
1000 points, ended November 16, 2007, 43 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Choose your own prompt and get on my favourites list... by silverscent.
475 points, ended January 4, 29 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 26 of 26
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Absolutely beautifully written. I enjoyed the read very much. Thanks for entering.
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You have a wonderful grasp on words, metaphore, escriptions... all around. Thank you for entering my contest.
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first off congrats on all those wonderful trophies. And thanks for sharing this with us. And thanks for entering this into my contest.
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Oh thank you for sharing. Wonderful real. Well done, thank you for sharing and good luck.
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This is... wow. I don't even know what to say. You have a talent for weaving words in a way I have never seen before. I read the first line and was hooked. Thank you for entering this, it's just amazing.
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this is definatly bookmark worthy; i want to remember this. im very much a friend of laura and im so sure her heart swelled in reading this. you are a overwhelmingly beautiful writer
<3
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Excellent !
I really, really liked this one. You are a great writer. Keep up the great work.
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Quite a wide variety of unusual words used in these lines. Liked the Canadian willows mentioned at the end, the flow and the vivid visual images presented in this write.
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Interesting piece to be certain, nice flow to it with an intriguing lilt to it. Best of luck in this and all of your endeavors.
Hetohke'e 
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wow this was wonderful, you used such beautiful language. Everything was so flawless, and just incredibly beautiful.I am actually lost for words at this, your imagery was incredibly beautiful, the words were just wow wow wow wow. Well done on this, I just seriously can't believe how much I love this, I'm bookmarking it for sure. Well done lovely.
<33
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BRILLIANT Simply put, Flawless.. spectacular.. one of the best poems I have ever read.. the imagery, the gorgeous word usage, the emotions, the strong messge, all of it was just spellbinding.. I had to read this twice it was jsut so riveting.. I also loved the information you put in your author's comments.. No secrets and no regrets? Sounds like a perfect belief to me. I am truly breathless and utterly amazed by this gorgeous remarkable, out of this world piece of art. You are honestly extrememly talented. Thank you, thank you for entering this heart grasping and mind provoking piece into my contest.
Amy -
A lovely tribute to your friend. That aside, there is nice imagery used here as well, kind of rolling off the tongue, seducing into reading more. I'm not much of one to analyze, but I know what I like, and this is a good one. Congrats on the trophy.
peace
doug
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I liked it, and furthermore...
I'll try to be purely diplomatic, although I'll admit up-front that I suck at it.
I've never written a tribute to someone else before. If someone said that my writing has a hand in the changing of the seasons, I think I'd feel pretty flattered. I don't know Laura, but it sounds like you do very well, and she sounds positively druidic. Maybe she likes to be outside, and keeps a garden, or something. I probably would have something more insightful to say about this if I knew how she likes to write.
I can't picture the first line of II really, and that threw me. Sounds like you're saying she's got brown eyes and a wiry build, and/or that her trials have made her resilient, efficient, and strong-willed ...strong-somethinged, in any case. Hm. I guess I like that part more than I thought I did. First line still throws me, though. I think it's the "melt into" that does it.
I quite like L4-L7 of that stanza. Such an original way of describing a countenance/intellect/personality/spirit with the same images. Butterflies seem ubiquitous in poetry anymore, but they do their job in an interesting way here. It's like she's a whirling cloud of every form of grace, vitality and emotion that spills out of "her," and into the world.
Question marks: Don't get the mariana trench part; can't get my mind around the idea of sculpting metaphysics.
"Sobriquet" says "nickname" to me, and you talk about bird claws later, using language that appears in II. When she is lauded by the crickets as a metaphysical construct, I guess it's the bird you're talking about. Does her nickname have something to do with birds?
Part III is the strongest section of this poem. Always nice to have a good ending. You speak of her, if you will, "poetic perception" using physical language, and I think that is just spiffy as hell.
OK, here's the part where I slip up, and maybe get yelled at for my ineptitude as a diplomat. Forgive me. I'm pathological, and can't help it. The idea works very well, but I wish the last line was either absent or less direct. You've used thigh-deep abstraction (groovy) and your metaphor is a multi-layered affair, composed of strange bedfellows and utter nonsense (also neato)--never concrete, and at most implicit. I think the last line is too simple--says too much--to match the five (particularly the last two) that precede it. I like the image of the bird taking flight from a willow branch, but I don't think you need to go out and actually say it. Swap your semicolon for a period and stop there, and this ends with a windy sigh. To me that would be more satisfying. As your reader, I've been using your words to draw my own picture--for the style you use dictates that I must--all throughout this work. I want to finish it myself.
She's the seasons; she knows all aspects of the ocean; other than the cup and the cupola, her entire being is composed of bits of nature and man-made objects that nature has had her way with. I read the first five of those last six lines (which are fabulous), and even though you describe the way she interacts with nature, to me she still seems to do so as part of it. That is, perhaps she's not bird qua actual bird, but rather of nature as bird aspect. That also lends itself well to her poetic intuition as described, because she doesn't have to interpret; she just feels through her eyelashes. I say nix the last line. If she is the wind/ocean spray (which seems fitting, since she has already been attributed to them), then her flight need not be explicit. I would say the same on purely aesthetic grounds.
OK, I've sinned, so let me have it. I know I richly deserve it.
I like your poem, and would just love an opportunity to give it the cruel and unusual punishment that every good poem deserves in a proper review. Hit me up if you're interested.
One last thing: If you happen upon another living orgy of fire, flowers, and honey, please point her in my direction. We're thin on those in my neck of the woods.
Almost forgot: Congrats.
Best,
Morgan
Edited on Aug 22, 6:08 p.m. because 'I felt like it'. -
congrats!
best,
rachel
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Hey,
Congrats with the winning
XXJeannette
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what made this poem powerful was adjectives and piling descriptions. None were wasted in my mind. Bravo
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wow, this was really really good. The vocab you used really brought the person into the story the poem was telling...chimera is my favorite word of all time..
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This is very beautiful. I found myself getting so caught up in the beautiful imagery it was easy to forget what I was reading about. You did use creative language which is very refreshing. Thanks for entering and following the rules (in your own way).
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Flawless.
"through ontario maples,
ghostlike songs intoned in late november breath"
--I like how you took a lot of me to make this. Ontario, ghosts, songs, and November (late too).
"an autumn saturnalia of honey, flame, amber,
nectar, pistil, anther"
--the best dictionary of words I've come across in a poem lately.
"who knows all the names for the ocean"
--awesome line ... do you really think that's true? Haha.
"violet, violent, a mosaic of shredded lilies and shellac,
paris in flames, flowering tea-houses,
the mariana trench, a thicket of morning glory"
--somehow this does remind me of me ... why?
"she feels the songs in her eyelashes
and writes of wine and palest bone,
fragments of bashful moon--
roots her fingernails into the tarnished canadian willows
and finds her way through magnolia clouds and sea-spray sky;
after all, she can soar"
--this makes me feel so honoured. You know, you've done so much better than I could have ever hoped for but what was I thinking? You write like the moon captures me every night. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You write beautifully and you damn well know it. -
i think that if i could understand half the words i didn't know, it would be twice as perfect. but if i were to look up every word i didn't know...well, it would take forever and wow why do you ask for comments from such an idiot? lol...fine, i'll look up all the words and come back to this.
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This is thick, I'm going to have to come back and read it a couple more times when I'm not trying to get out the door and get to work. But I really liked this. Fantastic imagery and diction.
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I think it was quite a riveting piece and i do believe that you have maintained your composure through out the poem it ws a well crafted poem which keeps the reader glued till uits end
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I loved tis. I realy loved the way that you make the readers see the colors. blue skies as dark as bruises. very illustrative. very expressive. This was great and I thank you for sharing it.
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she is cupola and chalice,
budding fuchsia and iron cherry--
but she writes and breathes
as if something more than a woman
who knows all the names for the ocean
stirs and struts inside her.
You have created magic with a melodiously mature imagery in this write. It's sophisticated, brilliant, bright, crisp......! Keep up the good work! God bless!! -
Oh, wow. I truly enjoyed this piece. Thank you so much for writing it!
It was sexy and provocative... yet descriptive and moving. I really liked your diction... I just get lost in words like "saturnalia", "chimera", "metaphysical", etc. I love to hear words in poetry that are not used enough! I just get lost in the diction. Your poem kidnapped me, and I think that is just what a poem should do.
Thank you so much for sharing. -
Promising. Was the poem supposed to behave more like a papier colle or like a trompe l'oeil, though? It felt a bit like you pasted a botanist's editorial from Le Journal at the end of the first part. Also, there seems to be an unintentional neurosis between the captivation of the metaphors and the unfulfilled climaxes in those runs on related terms. The composition is interesting, and the melody is new, but the tempo is off and the celloes are missing. I look forward to reading what else you've got, though I'll have to read them eight times over.
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