What is poetry? My mother, a poet, attempted to define this genre her poem, “The Uncontained.” Poetry for her was the art of chasing that which is rarely caught.
In her poem there is an allusion to this in the words: “no sooner born, beheld than slipped the fragile snare.” Even when a poem succeeds, that which is present for the reader may be merely a flicker of the familiar which is vaguely–unexpectedly–alien.
She at one time wrote about a “catch of changelings”. The idea was that the writer begins writing to capture some idea or feeling and when the poem is complete, the poet discovers that what has been captured is something other than what inspired the writer, in other words a changeling**. This is the challenge of writing poetry.
In her chapbook, Glass Rain, Golden Rain, she also speaks about a “safari into soul country.” I prefer this description. When city dwellers go on safari, they expect to see both that which is familiar and what is alien to our native homes. They will encounter the familiar—plants—but such as would never grow in their own gardens. Animals will appear, but nothing like they might see in a city neighborhood. Everything is at once recognizable and strange enough to inspire awe.
That feeling of wonder is what the poet is always attempting to hold within the framework of words we call a poem. A poem succeeds when the reader feels that sense of awe after reading the words the poet has provided.
*(see Glass Rain feature this week)
**For those unfamiliar with the term “changeling”, it come from folklore. Wicked or mischievous fairies supposedly would sometimes steal a human child leaving one of their own kind in its place—the changeling.
#EnglishLanguage #Poetry #PoetryCommentary
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
Splinters for April 2021
There was an old man with a beard
Who said, “It is just as I feared.
Two owls and a hen
A lark and a wren
Have all built a nest in my beard.
The Poet and the Night
(for D. S.)
The lyric tiptoes into our minds
With the delicacy of Debussy
A whisper on the air
As magical as moonlight,
Leaving in the silence
Beyond the last word,
A quiet iridescence shimmering
#Poetry #PoetryandMusic #ShortPoems
THE UNCONTAINED
From fountainhead
the iridescence springs
no sooner born, beheld
than slipped the fragile snare
#Poetry #ShortPoems
A CATCH OF CHANGELINGS
What is poetry? My mother, a poet, attempted to define this genre her poem, “The Uncontained.” Poetry for her was the art of chasing that which is rarely caught.
In her poem there is an allusion to this in the words: “no sooner born, beheld than slipped the fragile snare.” Even when a poem succeeds, that which is present for the reader may be merely a flicker of the familiar which is vaguely–unexpectedly–alien.
She at one time wrote about a “catch of changelings”. The idea was that the writer begins writing to capture some idea or feeling and when the poem is complete, the poet discovers that what has been captured is something other than what inspired the writer, in other words a changeling**. This is the challenge of writing poetry.
In her chapbook, Glass Rain, Golden Rain, she also speaks about a “safari into soul country.” I prefer this description. When city dwellers go on safari, they expect to see both that which is familiar and what is alien to our native homes. They will encounter the familiar—plants—but such as would never grow in their own gardens. Animals will appear, but nothing like they might see in a city neighborhood. Everything is at once recognizable and strange enough to inspire awe.
That feeling of wonder is what the poet is always attempting to hold within the framework of words we call a poem. A poem succeeds when the reader feels that sense of awe after reading the words the poet has provided.
*(see Glass Rain feature this week)
**For those unfamiliar with the term “changeling”, it come from folklore. Wicked or mischievous fairies supposedly would sometimes steal a human child leaving one of their own kind in its place—the changeling.
#EnglishLanguage #Poetry #PoetryCommentary
Author’s Notes
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
The poem “The Uncontained“ in part inspired the title of Margaret Roxby’s first chapbook Glass Rain, Golden Rain published in 1990 and was the poem first published in The Swordsman Review, 1967. In a letter to Discovery/The Nation, she wrote, “these poems express for me the exhilaration and frustration of designing poetry. The design, for me arises from the happenstance of life and nature when the imagery provided by the unexplainable workings of the creative forces blends the emotional experience with some event or physical phenomenon. Confronted with the mysteries of the universe and the human condition, the poet becomes a kaleidoscope in which the patterns bring a small bit of order out of the seeming chaos of the indefinable…I have striven to…make ‘the sound seem an echo to the sense.’’
KALEIDOSCOPE—a series by Kathleen Roxby
“A CATCH OF CHANGELINGS” by Kathleen Roxby. The title of this piece comes from a poem by Margaret Roxby (appearing on this site later this month).
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“THE POET AND THE NIGHT” was first published in Voce Pena, 2000. The “D.S” was a fellow poet and friend of the author’s. After Kathleen shared the poem with this friend, she told Katheen that Debussy was her favorite composer, something unknown to the author before that moment.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
Splinters for April 2021
There was an old man with a beard
Who said, “It is just as I feared.
Two owls and a hen
A lark and a wren
Have all built a nest in my beard.
IN THE SILENCE
Tonight, as my dreams escape
the fragile net of words
My soul’s song is unheard
for I do not know the words
Yet it is a night for words
rich hummed with sound
It is a night for poetry—
but I have none
#Poetry #ShortPoem #Writer’sBlock
BREAD FROM THE HEART
A poet is born, not made.
Yet the poet must be made
once born
the leaven and slow rising
the kneading and shaping
and the baking
heat from the hot, hot oven
before the hunger ease
which is the sharing
the time of feasting
when piece by piece
bread from the heart is torn.
#Poetry #PoetryCommenatary