Monday, September 14, 2009

Monday Poetry Stretch - Prefix Poetry

I was quite taken with the Friday post at How A Poem Happens. Poet Idra Novey shared her poem Trans and described its creation. In it she used the prefix trans- as the title of her poem and created sections that begin -late, -gress, -mogrify, -form, and -scend.

I love the idea of taking a prefix and using it to form a series of words, each their own piece of a whole. So, your challenge this week is to write a poem around a prefix. Leave me a note about your work and I'll post the results here later this week.

P.S. - If you need help generating a possible word list, try More Words. Enter your prefix or word of choice and click search for words. Scroll down the page (past the definitions) until you find the link for list all words starting with __. You'll find this a helpful tool. I'm thinking about the word down and the link generated a list of 114 words, including downhill, downcast, downpour, downtown, downtrodden, downwind, and more.

18 comments:

  1. hi, Tricia -Fun! I've got Pre of the Fixed" up over at The Drift Record Of course, I tweaked the stretch a bit - what's new?

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  2. OVER

    --lay

    When my beloved husband died,
    And after I cried
    For a thousand days,
    Making myself unhappier
    In a thousand ways
    I realized that the problem
    Was neither warmth nor sex,
    But that like that turtle
    “Twixt plated decks,”
    I have no one to lie over
    Or under me.
    That fact alone
    Practically sundered me.

    --mantle

    Looking into the mirror
    A year after his death,
    I saw an old woman
    with eyes like shallows:
    cold, inhospitable,
    covered with rime.
    I shall get to know her
    In time.


    --come

    We shall,
    I shall,
    Make a life,
    Not a better,
    Not a wife,
    But a new
    And fierce
    Alone.
    What was two
    Is now
    Quite
    One.

    c2009 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

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  3. Oh, Jane. Thank you for sharing yourself in these stretches. I am in awe.

    Julie--off to read your poem right now!

    Tricia--thanks for these stretches. I love this. Here's my poem, though I didn't actually follow your directions. And that website wouldn't give me a list because my prefix is too long. Always the troublemaker, that's me.

    circum-

    be
    circum-
    spect
    don’t dive in
    to that hole.
    is there a bottom?

    circum-
    navigate
    instead.
    black.
    endless.
    peer in,
    gasping.
    scrabble back from the edge.


    circum-
    locution
    may be the only
    way around the
    unanswerable
    question.
    drown it in words
    larger than the hole
    itself obliterating
    its unknowableness.

    study the
    circum-
    ference
    of the
    question.
    is it
    pi times
    the d(ying)
    all around you.
    the dying that
    you fear?

    circum-
    scribe
    your thoughts,
    defined
    within
    walls of words,
    borders of phrases,
    continents of
    poems.

    --Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

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  4. At last! I have been trying to get myself involved in these wonderful stretches forever and I finally just told myself to treat it like a warm-up exercise and I can play with over time. I chose the prefix "semi" and this turned out to be semi autobiographical. I also had fun linking the prefix word to the next word in the poem.


    SEMI

    ---sweet
    heart
    I am not
    very
    not often enough
    to be confused
    with the lady on the corner
    who gives homes
    to lost kittens and birds with broken wings
    bakes cookies for the homeless
    and knits tiny blankets for dying
    fetal alcohol babies who
    can't stop crying
    but I have my good days
    and everyone knows that
    too much sugar rots your teeth



    ---formal
    wear
    makes my skin itch
    truly
    panty hose is cruel
    putting on a skin
    two sizes too small
    is someone's idea of fun?
    give me bare feet
    painted pointed toes
    tank tops and worn jeans
    the perfect outfit
    for the dirt runway
    on the way to the garden ball

    ---wild
    flowers---
    sometimes won't sprout
    until after a time of great disturbance
    like fire
    they need the pain to force
    the beauty to the surface
    without the pain
    the beauty that might be
    remains hidden
    much like the pieces of me
    the rest of the world sees
    reflected
    in all I've overcome
    to find myself
    blooming
    when I least expect it

    - - - Susan Taylor Brown, all rights reserved

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  5. Susan and Laura and Julie--I am in awe.

    What a neat, semi-sweet, circumfortable. delicious,delectable, delightful feast of words.

    Jane

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  6. Jane, I sent your poem to my mother, who lost my father 4 years ago and is just beginning to breathe again. So thank you--it's stark yet lovely at the same time.

    I went a little sideways with this stretch after googling "prefix" and discovering the SI (metric) prefixes on Wikipedia. The numbers were just so big and the prefixes sounded like spells...


    The Sorcerer Chants

    Tera
    It twists like fire
    in my mouth: sands pour
    into glass and mass,
    demanding the spell-shape.

    Peta
    I aim the word
    like an arrow with eyes
    and magic hisses
    the name of every star.

    Exa
    Thought trembles down
    the bones of mountains.
    My incantation
    rises like a golem.

    Zetta
    I leave behind silences,
    as if I were dragging
    a thin, jagged tail
    through the dust.

    Yotta
    It isn't enough to tell
    the size of the darkness
    I have bloomed
    into being like a new flower.

    —Kate Coombs

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  7. P.S. Jane, I reviewed The Scarecrow's Dance on my book blog, Book Aunt, on Sunday. Don't think I said anything untoward, though (speaking of prefixes)(and poetry)!

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  8. Kate - I've never heard of that before - the "SI metric prefixes." Cool interpretation of them as spells! I'm going to try to come up with a poem using them, too (maybe not to share. I call the ones I don't share "pomes." )

    Nice work, everyone. Isn't stretching fabulous?

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  9. Already saw the review, and thanks, Kate. Am deep into a golem novel, so was interested in your line about golems. Synchronicities and all that. Fascinating poem.

    Jane

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  10. What a great bunch of poems so far...and it's only Tuesday!

    Susan, so glad you jumped in, and I love, love, love

    tank tops and worn jeans
    the perfect outfit
    for the dirt runway
    on the way to the garden ball

    And Kate--wowza. Here's my favorite part, which made me shudder a bit:

    as if I were dragging
    a thin, jagged tail
    through the dust.

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  11. Not quite sure I'm ready to post anything on the page yet, so I'll start here.

    Sub

    -divide
    Cleave attention
    halve time
    part ways
    our days are
    split and split and split

    -atomic
    It’s really all about
    the little things
    the tiny
    bits and pieces of
    our lives

    -ordinate
    I am
    so small
    so insignificant
    so meaningless
    in the grand scheme
    of things

    -sist
    still …
    I
    am
    here

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  12. Tricia, if that's your "not ready" work, I want to see the "ready" stuff! I like how you mix the meanings between stanzas with accuracy and symbolism.

    Jane, I had to search to spell "golem"; I found myself, of course, writing "gollum"!

    Julie, I have piles of pomes on my computer. It's a good kind of thing to hoard.

    And thanks, Laura--that bit made me shiver, too. The sorcerer turned out extra evil.

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  13. I'm attempting the poetry stretch--but don't think the poem I'm working on belongs in the company of the exceptional ones I've read in the comments.

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  14. Tricia,

    Here's my poem. Don't say I didn't warn you!


    OVER

    --weight

    post-menopausal maven
    dreaming of the past...
    of her cinch-tight waist,
    taut abdomen,
    the slender hourglass
    of her youthful flesh,
    the furtive looks of desire
    men cast in her direction.


    --abundant

    breasts
    concealed beneath a tent-size cotton shirt
    worn by a Dolly Parton pretender
    with grooved shoulders
    who's bound up
    in a maximum security brassiere.


    --whelmed

    by the thought
    of daily workouts,
    of toning limp muscles,
    of shedding the excess pounds
    time has awarded her--
    a sexagenarian--
    on her long, meandering journey
    from unknowing ingenue
    to aged sage.

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  15. Wow! These are wonderful! I've been grading papers all evening and finally had a chance to check out this week's Poetry Stretch. I'm so glad I did.

    I wanted to give this one a try, it's pretty rough, but here's what I have so far. (I couldn't get the italics to work in stanzas 1 and
    2.)



    Un
    able
    to hurt Mom again
    I lie
    My red swollen eyes—
    just allergies


    Un
    true
    all of it
    every promise
    every I love you—
    the devoted father
    I thought I knew.

    Un
    fair
    the way you left
    without a hug
    without good-bye
    without telling me—
    Why?

    Un
    likely
    to forget.
    Un
    willing
    to forgive.

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  16. Whosh, Linda. Thanks--and me just about to go out for a nice dinner.

    Jane

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  17. Thanks, Jane. It needs A LOT of work, but I just wanted to jump in and give it a try before I wimped out. I hope to work on it some more for Friday's post.

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  18. Oh all of these are just great. Why did it take me so long to jump into this fun?

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