Our challenge this month was to write a haiku sonnet. A haiku sonnet combines the syllable count and three-line stanzaic structure of the English haiku with the fourteen-line structure of the sonnet. You can learn more about the form at Writer's Digest and at Astra Poetica.
I used two different poems as mentor poems. The first was Birds Punctuate the Days by Joyce Clement. The second was Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens. My first thought was to marry the ideas in Joyce Clement's poem to those in May Swenson's Cardinal Ideograms. This was much harder than I thought it would be, largely because I didn't want my imagery to copy those created by Clement. I then pivoted to writing haiku that related to summer giving way to fall, using Stevens' poem as a guide for ways of seeing/observation.
In the end, I drafted two poems.
You can read the poems my Poetry Sisters have written at the links below.
Would you like to try the next challenge? Our prompt for September comes from Colby Sharp in THE CREATIVITY PROJECT (p.257): "It was all my fault." Write a poem that uses this idea or these words or anything that this sentence makes you think of. You’ve got a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering with the rest of us on September 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!
I hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Mona Voelkel. Happy Poetry Friday all!
Trisha, I admire your talent for finding punctuation among the birds and helping us to join in your vision. Lovely.
ReplyDeleteOh, those bird ideograms! What a fantastic mashup of birds and punctuation marks, and you tied them together so well. That great blue heron haiku--chef's kiss. I love these, Tricia.
ReplyDeleteAHHHHH! Both of these are brilliant, and I'm going to try August Four Ways someday. This is really lovely. My all-time favorite is
ReplyDeletedowny woodpecker
an exclamation on the bark
the tree keeps silent
I have a Nuttall not a Downy, but the tree gives a silent side-eye all the same.
Trisha, these are gorgeous. The Avian Ideograms, wow! You really stayed with the feel of haiku and its nature themes, but also captured the sonnet love. Brilliant mash-ups all around!
ReplyDeleteI love how you turned each of these sonnets toward nature and observation. The punctuation of birds! I want to frame these in my notebook.
ReplyDeleteOh, wow. I do love the bird one, especially that tiny apostrophe wren, but I adore the second one even more. It has such a heat-soaked slow unfolding, each image holding its own. Truly gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteWhat I love about both these sonnets is that the feel of the birds is punctuation and the feel of august is the tomatoes and pulsing of cicadas. The sensory experience of the natural world is on point! And, I love it.
ReplyDeleteTricia, your first poem is well thought out like the mentor text you found. The title is a vivid representation of what comes next. Creativity lets punctuation align with different birds in an unusual way. I agree with Tanita that the downy woodpecker is a favorite. Adding the tree keeping quiet provides a splendid image. I'll never forget the woodpecker's consistent knocking on the tree in my daughter's backyard.
ReplyDeleteWow. Just...wow. Both of them, each of them. The birds as punctuation will forever change the way I look at birds! And you captured August with such perfection. *wild applause*
ReplyDeleteLove both, no surprise, & we don't have the cicadas yet, so I wonder if it's from no moisture! I won't see a bird gliding in the sky again without remembering your "an airborne parenthesis", & then the August ending, how it is! Thanks, Tricia
ReplyDeleteWow, Tricia, I feel you knocked two homeruns on these haiku sonnets. My favorite is the punctuation marks of the birds. Perfect bird images of these marks. And that end of your August poem: "no day knows where it ends / or where the next begins" Wow!
ReplyDeleteOh I love the punctuation of the birds!
ReplyDeleteI don't want to appear overly demanding, but I need you to write a haiku like this for every bird that exists!!! These are brilliant -- and that final couplet, omg Tricia. Perfection.
ReplyDelete