THIRTY-SEVEN CENTS
Vol. 4, No.3      An Online Chapter of Missouri State Poetry Society     1 March 2005
 


OK, SO IT'S NOT A MONET, BUT IT IS ABOUT WATER LILIES

If we wrote perfect poems only, we would not write many.  Our problem is that we do not write perfect poems only, but still do not write as often as we should.  So instead of Monet's "Water-lilies," we produce few or no water lilies at all.  This guilt trip I am burdening you with is my plea [along with your muse's plea] that like Ulysses you tie yourself to the mast of your craft so that you won't be sidetracked by those sirens that tempt you stop and play when you need to be writing.  How do you like my mixed metaphors?  My favorite eighth-century B.C. Greek poet to the aid of my favorite nineteenth-century French painter?   If you read these editorials each month, you know by now that I will stoop lower than mixed metaphors to get a poem out of you.  And if the truth be known, your know by now that I like to prod you from all directions to get and keep you productive for obvious reasons--we have an e-zine here that gobbles your poems and mine voraciously, old poems that have almost lost their flavor and new ones with their spice still strong.  Still, with the publication of a new or an old  work, we are again pleased that we are poets, so pleased that we respond with still more poems.  Therefore, whatever it takes to keep us submitting work is worth it.  Remember this the next time I remind you another month is almost gone and your water lily--er, poem--is not yet opening its bloom to the admiration of our members.     
                                                                                                                    -- Tom Padgett

 CONTENTS:

<Past Issue Next>
       
  Poems by Members
         
  Workshop

 Missouri State Poetry Society

Summer Contest

Spare Mule Online

National Federation of State Poetry Societies
 
Strophes Online


ASSIGNMENT FOR APRIL: A GHAZAL (gah-ZAHL)

This form suggested for us to write by Pat Laster is an old Persian form (c.1000) that has changed greatly with time.  Originally it was a love poem or a drinking poem of five to twelve rhyming couplets all using the same rhyme.  Hundreds of Persian poets have written and sung this musical form.  Gradually the themes became more philosophical and mystical.  Each couplet can stand alone like a proverb.  There is no story, but each couplet adds a bit more to the main theme.  Originally the poet included his name in the last couplet.  In contemporary ghazals there is no rhyme and the poet's name is not included in the last couplet.  Write a ghazal, either the old or the contemporary form.  Usually a poet begins by looking around him/her and writes a truth he/she sees or feels.  Two lines, then a break, two more lines, another break, and so on, with each line a complete sense unit, but somehow related to other lines.  Visit this site to see examples: http://www.ghazalpage.net.

HAVE YOU VISITED THE WORKSHOP LATELY?

Click Workshop and do some of the lessons there. 

HAVE YOU READ YOUR ONLINE NEWSLETTERS?

Remember to read Spare Mule Online and Strophes Online. You can keep up with members who get newsletters by mail by remembering to read them on the Net. The January 1 issues of Spare Mule Online and Strophes Online are available to you. 

POET OF THE MONTH: SEAMUS HEANEY

Begin by visiting the Academy of American Poetry site for a bio and several poems:

http://poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C04040C

Additional criticism and poetry may be found at these sites:

http://www.poems.com/threehea.htm

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2342/is_1_33/ai_58055908

http://www.uvm.edu/~sgutman/Heaney.html

His Nobel Prize (1995) acceptance speech is here:

http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1995/heaney-lecture.html

Buy a book of Seamus Heaney's poetry at

http://www.booksense.com/index.jsp?affiliateId=AmerPoets

or http://www.powells.com/subsection/PoetryH.html

or http://www.amazon.com/
 


POEMS BY MEMBERS:

ONCE A PRIVATE PORCH
Velvet Fackeldey

The tree between our back yards
was thick and full and blocked our view:
when we sat on our porches
you couldn't see me and I couldn't see you.
Then one day your son got busy
and trimmed all the lower limbs away.
I'm sure he thought it a good deed
as now we visit almost every day.
The problem is I liked my isolation
and now my privacy's been stripped away.
 

PARADISE ROAD
Phyllis Moutray

Paradise Road
stars Glenn Close and Pauline Collins,
and chronicles WWII's Japanese occupation
of a women's camp in Sumatra,

"man's inhumanity to mankind,"
and creative women's coping,
indeed surviving in style,
through music, compassion, and community.

This movie is a classic testament,
recording the truth that
dignity, goodness, industry, hope, and love
exist regardless of the climate.

Thus, mankind survives and evolves,
despite the concurrent existence of evil.
This is the substance of life 
as we know it.


THUMBS UP
Harding Stedler

Often, they are drifters,
heading to parts unknown.
They know
neither why nor where they head,
but they are looking for a ride.

With all their worldly goods
in a knapsack on their back,
they have no place called "home."
Life has dealt,
for many of them,
a cruel hand.

Without job, without family,
and often without food,
they migrate with the seasons
to warmer climes or shelters
from winter's cold.

They are forever at the mercy
of a driver,
whose gift of twenty mile
is priceless
to a pauper.
 

SON
Todd Sukany

Despite Pilgrimian effort
Could muster no straight line
Yet
His motorhome travels
Would make Bunyan blush.

Once
We compared
The bullet exit
Of your cow sap
To Nolan’s heater

Announcing “self-weaned.”
 

ON VISITING HOPE CHURCH
VITEBSK, BELARUS, JANUARY 2005
Mark Tappmeyer

He looked a war-old Bolshevik
in every reddening bulge, Kruschev stout

and neckless, like a brown Siberian bear,
strutting round his podium

with revolutionary flare. He jabbed
his right paw, boxing air, then stroked down

as if beating plowshares into tanks. All the while
his left sleeve sank armless where once roared

a Fascist mine that tore his flesh
in the killing fields the Soviet called

the Great Patriotic War. He spattered loud
the peasant crowd in his sights, each word

plumed for flight like Brezhnev airborne brows.
Then twenty minutes out, the old warrior

pulled in his fist, eased his frown, closed Matthew 5
verse 30, and religiously sat down


 


 

LOOKING AT ART WITH SISTER WENDY
Tania Gray

One Thousand Masterpieces in a book.
From Lascaux caves to Robert Motherwell,
the artists are explained. This gentle nun
interprets allegories, mysteries,
the squiggles, blanks, the minimal. Her eye
does not shrink back from art bizarre or spare,
nor from the happy canvasses well-known.
She lets us in on secrets, symbols, gifts
of insight, hidden truths. Oh, Sister Wendy!
How can you, a sheltered soul, pierce through
the heart of artists gone, through time and space
bring back their voices, tell their visions with
such certainty? Your clarity and sense
illuminate their art. You have become
my saint of paint, your book the bible text.
I reverently turn from page to page
and soak in holy waves, aesthetic joy.
 

LEGACY OF THE IRISH
Pat Laster

“St. Patrick’s the password,” George Washington said
on March seventeen in ‘Seventy Six.
Those Irish could fight! And they hated the British,
remembering stories of bad politics:

Three-fourths of their lands were controlled by the King.
They couldn’t sell wool, couldn’t make woolen clothing,
nor trade with the Colonists. Here’s what they did:
They came to America, took out their loathing

in fighting the English, then made it their home.
Some St. Patrick’s sons signed the great Declaration,
and others rose high in the Colonist ranks—
all working for freedom with utmost elation.

McKinley and Rutledge and Clinton and Bryan
were four early governors—sons of the green.
In modern America, St. Pat’s descendants
are Murphys and Kellys, O’Briens, Muldeen.

Take pride in the shamrock and little green elves,
For likely as not, you’re Irish yourselves.


TROPHY
Nancy Powell

The big buck, head held high
walks cautiously into the meadow,
hungry at the end of winter.
The big buck, head held high,
horns polished from tree rubs,
is watched closely by a hunter.
The big buck, head held high
walks cautiously into the meadow.


NEVER EVER
Bev Conklin

Fuzzy, feisty ball of fur,
when you sit on my lap and purr,
I think you're the finest roommate,
Ever!

Then when I am least aware,
you claw and shred my favorite chair
and think you're being
Clever!

You could lose your happy home
if I threw you out to roam,
but we both know I would
Never!

Even when you're being bad,
I never, ever get so mad
that our relationship I'd
Sever!

So, cuddle up, my furry friend.
The furniture I'm sure will mend
with but minimal
Endeavor!
 


PROTECTIVE COLORATION
Tom Padgett

The telemarketer was quite direct:
Did anyone who lived at our address
have hearing problems that we could detect,
and would that person now admit distress?

Her company of hearing specialists
would visit patients privately at home
because some persons who can't actually hear
pretend they can, for reasons of their own.

I stopped her, "Wife and I live here alone
and won't be needing you. I know, my dear,
what she is mumbling--she knows why I'm grumbling--
and it's better for us both not to hear!"


VISIT WORKSHOP FOR AN ASSIGNMENT.

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