Poem 12 - An Erasure Poem

normality

women worked

         the work

and agriculture squatted

                           self-effacing

        woman

as she

    the watching

               experiences of person

all fully her

learned

                             imitating

watch

         gradually

maintaining

 who noticed

                  had developed

explain

             among the must

mysteries                          relationships

like say

      she

the moon

      

understanding time

                  

Sally Douglas

This was inspired by a poem by my friend Elly on her great poetry blog.  I chose a page at random from a book on my 'to be read'  pile, photocopied a page without looking at it, and struck through all but every sixth word. I then wrote out those unerased words in order, and tried to use space and typology to move them into a kind of meaning. I allowed myself to lose a few of the words that I felt detracted, but I kept the order the same as the original. It was a bit of fun, and it's the kind of exercise that helps free up one's brain from its sometimes crippling need to be in control!

I'm afraid it does rather have a feel of the early 1970s to it, but I shall leave it to the reader to move into the spaces and take charge of the meaning...

Oh, and I'm a couple of poems behind now with my NaPoWriMo target, but I'm aiming to be caught up by the end of the week... I hope.









 

Poem 11 - The Architecture of Circle

Photo: Sally Douglas

The Architecture of Circle

When things are made rounded –

like theatres and lighthouses

like bathyspheres
like brand-new schools 

where corridors lead you
in most gentle persuasion

like stadia
and Martello towers

like your hand
cupping what you want to keep –

what happens to the spaces that are left?

You and I, we live
in the warm incurvings.

Those peeled-off places

outside the wall
we do not know.

But can you feel them?
The nettles

the ground-down stubs

the choking air?

The space untessellated?

Sally Douglas

Day 10 - Three Swans and Inside Your Head

Photo: Sally Douglas

The Three Swans

Inside my head

there is a black-eyed swan

with bones of steel.

Its feathered palms

beat words

from the air.

Inside the steel-boned glass-eyed swan

there is a paper swan:

razor-edged,

made by a prisoner in a tower

from his very last page.

Folded inside

the paper swan’s sharp angles

are all the words

of all the birds

in all the world –

and a perfect tiny drawing

of a swan.

.

 Sally Douglas

Today's poem is a bit of a cheat, as it's not new. The real poem for Day 10 will have to now be Day 11's.

This poem is part of my as yet embryonic collection of poems for children. I started writing poems for children when I was running a poetry club for Years 3,4, and 5. I was creating all these exercises and workshops for them, and of course, giving them a test run first. This poem came from a workshop I called 'Inside Your Head'.

We started by reading Miroslav Holub's poem 'A Boy's Head', and then went onto an extract from Luke Kennard's 'Wolf on the Couch' (The Migraine Hotel, Salt, 2009). The children were amazed by the surreality of Kennard's description of what was in his speaker's head: an owl, which 'appears to be made up of a network of tiny cities'.

‘And all the people in these tiny cities,’ says the wolf, ‘do they run for buses when the owl is wet? The men with their black umbrellas, the women with their Nancy Mitford novels held over their coconut-scented heads, the light in the city like an old grey ice cream?’

‘You’d need a microscope to see that,’ I mutter.

 

The children then followed these guidelines to create their own poems: 

Now, think:

What are the things inside your head? Animals? Objects? Impossible things? Dreams? Wishes? Fears? Worlds?

Brainstorm on the board the types of things people might have inside their heads.

Now have two minutes writing your own list of things that might be in your head.

Choose the ones you want to write about – perhaps two or three, or perhaps all of them – and start writing your poem.

Possible starters:

Inside my head…

I looked inside my head…

I spy behind my eyes…

‘What is in your head?’ asked the …..

 

And I have to say, some of the poems they produced were very good!

Any educators out there are welcome to use or adapt this exercise for their own use.

Poem 9 - Shell

Photo: Sally Douglas

Shell

I have defended these stories for so long.

But now like the shells of long dead snails

they break between my fingertips.

With a whisper of old convolutions

they break under my touch

and are stolen by the wind.

Leaving nothing but a glaze that almost

remembers the ease of gliding.

Sally Douglas



Poem 8 - Find What You Need, What You Lost

Photo: Sally Douglas

Find What You Need, Who You Lost

Face direction of travel

Ring bell for attention

Do not walk under barrier

Check your records

Don’t turn away

Safeguard elderly persons

Hold young children firmly

Hold handrail and stand clear of edges

Put on your normal face

Swipe your bonus card

Hold upright

Pull out safety pin

Squeeze levers

Trust the plastic

Ensure children wear socks

Remove all valuables

Lock your vehicle

Wait for the raggedy man

Don’t blink

Use the help button or go to the operations office

Push door when buzzer sounds

Take extra care when wearing soft soled shoes

Remember the only water in the forest

Shop spring

Pick up a free copy

Help yourself to samples

Download the app

Wear a fez

Answer your phone

Reverse the polarity

Act like you’ve never

done that before

Sally Douglas

This poem is a found poem. My two nieces (aged 9 and 11) and I went hunting for signs with instructions on them and used them for this poem. Then we added a few lines from a different source. Can't tell you what - spoilers!

Thanks to Emily and Hannah for the help, and I hope you like the result.

Poem 7 - An Oulipo Effort

Photo: Sally Douglas

Leftist

You are not open to recreation the deadbeat.
The window-dresser wants to turn
the straitjacket on, but you are loaded
with the day’s dust-up,
so each flywheel dies.
You did not open to recreation the deadbeat,
but you are open anyway,
and on you lifespans
the brew of bonds,
the giggles of households, limps,
the curled hairpiece of woodcutters
and the shorn hairpiece of brags,
powdered bridgeheads and skirmish –
carried here to splay you flautist and helpless

the deadbeat so heavy on your faction.

Sally Douglas

There once was a poem which did not please the poet because it was too slick and inauthentic. So the poet fed it, title and all, into a machine, an N+7 machine. And the poet liked it a lot more after that.

The N+7 (or S+7 in the original French) is one of the methods used by the Oulipo movement. These writers used chance and constraints to trigger ideas. And when it works, the poetry of chance can be so satisfying!


Thanks to Jo Bell for the link to the machine, which saved me doing the job manually.

Poem 6 - Music Lesson

Photo:Sally Douglas

Music Lesson

The child is sitting on a chair

in a hall

in a sea of brown lino

She holds her brown bag

tight to her tight chest

as the clock ticks and ticks and never tocks

and the lodgers walk through the long hall

and up the stairs

and never come down.

She swings her legs tick tick

kick kick

so they stay awake

She swings her legs

one two one two

and one and two and three and four and

major scales crawl

under the door and

up the stairs

and down the stairs

and back under the door

and the small brass clock

under its small glass dome

which she cannot see

because it is

on top of the piano

on the other side of the door

counts on.

Sally Douglas

The poem about time (Poem 4 - Seven Glances at Time) reminded me of some notes I had made a while back about a childhood memory, so I dug them out. This is the poem.