I woke up at 5:30 in the morning recently with two phrases swirling around in my brain. One of them, “mourning for one’s self,” is from the poem “Melancholia” by C. Dale Young. The other, “slip this skin,” is from the Bruce Springsteen song, “Streets of Philadelphia.” Did you make the same connection I made — growth, change, fear? I wrote most of the poem right then, in my phone’s notes app. It still needs some polishing but I like the idea it represents. 

The last month has been busy. I’ve been submitting poems to a variety of poetry festivals and literary journals. In addition, I’m STILL editing the novel I finished. Plus, I just finished the first draft of a picture book. I’m absolutely in love with the main character so I’m going to put the story away for a couple weeks. I can’t edit my little guy until he’s no longer in my head. 

Like poetry, picture books rely on a small number of words to convey their message. Having grown up as a writer in the minimalist writing movement, I really appreciate the goal of requiring every word to matter, every word to carry a significant amount of the weight of the idea. Have you ever listened to an audiobook and been suddenly yanked out of the story by a word that is just wrong? When you’re writing 100,000 words, an untidy word here or there is pretty easy to miss and less impactful than in a story or poem that’s 100 words long. 

I’ve been working on sestinas lately. The form is really challenging: six stanzas of six lines each and a final tercet, which is a three-line stanza. 

That isn’t what makes it challenging. The six final words of the first stanza are the final words (in a changing order) of each stanza of the poem. For example: 

Apples red (A)
Sunshine yellow (B)
Leaves green (C)
Sky blue (D)
Clouds grey (E)
Puppy brown (F)

Earth brown (F)
Blood red (A)
Eyes grey (E)
Sunshine yellow (B)
Ocean blue (D)
Grass green (C)

Motion-sick green (C)
Chocolate brown (F)
Depression blue (D)
Flame red (A)
Butter yellow (B)
Stone grey (E)

Do you see the pattern for the next three stanzas? The ending tercet is usually AB, CD, EF, though it’s a little more flexible than the overall form. The challenge of a sestina is conveying the idea without becoming repetitious or overly rhythmic. My first try at this form was almost a chant and very frustrating. 

All poetry forms take a lot of practice honestly. I’ve said before that Jericho Brown’s Duplex form, which involves a word re-use somewhat similar to the sestina, is wrenching to work in. The Duplex form is two-line stanzas which, according to my son, is so fast-paced and immersive the reader can’t catch their breath. Jericho Brown deserved the Hell out of that Pulitzer.

One of the forms I find immensely frustrating is haiku, which I may have mentioned before. My  husband was particularly good at it and, worse, he made it look easy. Some people describe the form as “single breath poetry.” For example, here is a haiku I wrote recently:

Autumn leaves falling
To a migrating wing beat
Wintersong calling

I’m annoyed by the rhyme of the first and third stanzas but I like the staccato sound, which matches the rhythmic imagery of leaves falling and wings beating as birds fly south. 

Speaking of migration, we have a problem in our house: migrating critters. I’ve found four mice and a chipmunk on the first floor in the past month. I’m sorry to report that I was not alone in the finding. There were two pups (the third disdains hunting rodents) and three cats involved. No critters survived the event, unfortunately. 

Finding five leads me to a passionate interest in knowing how many small creatures have successfully moved in. We’ve not previously had unauthorized tenants. I have thus informed the pets that they are failing to cover the cost of their residency and that I expect better work from them. They have all responded with wags but I am not optimistic since they immediately went to sleep after our discussion. 

It’s time to get back to work. I’m writing a middle grade horror short. It’s a commissioned project that doesn’t pay particularly well but I am enjoying the exercise of writing horror. 

Have a delightfully spooky day and, please, wear your mask….

And, you know, VOTE.