I, too, Turn and Twist (IFT)

[Scrow]

Hi BrianIsSmiling,

I read 'His Name' early this morning. It hurt to read - which, from my perspective means that it's good (although painful). Because this is the world we inhabit. But, at least there are poets provoking people to empathise. I hope you send it off for publication somewhere or read it or disseminate it in all the ways you probably already do. Poetry (again for me) is one of the ways where protest doesn't just become an 'opposing view' but has (when it's good) the capacity to make people understand, emotionally, worlds other to their own.

Sarah

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Thanks, Dunc. Your comments are well taken. As you noted, "His Name" is a big project, and could very well use some simmering.

---

JFN, thanks. I agree with you on the weaknesses in S3 of "What He Had Done". Ending a line in a syllabic on a preposition is something that I prefer not to do, if at all possible. I also prefer to minimize ending on conjunctions, although "and" and "or" in such a position can be useful for enjambment. But that is not the case here. I was thinking of doing an audio reading for the revised version, and posting it, to give an idea of the cadence I had in mind.

The limerick was unexpected and grew out of my fluff on Donner's American Sentence on the same topic.

"His Name" was a response to another poem I wrote and did not post, that was a kind of snarky take on the corona virus thing. The response came from the same motivation that made me write "By the By", and re-mix "Snare the Moon"--this idea that I was going down easy paths.

The poem to which "His Name" was a reaction has the opposite tone. It's jokey, filled with wordplay, with non-specific characters--not terrible--but nothing special either. Then I remembered reading about the possibility of kids going hungry if the schools closed in New York, which brought to mind the nameless boy of the title of "His Name", and the rest flowed from there (with multiple very quick rewrites and re-strategems). The other one I plan to post as an outtake.

---

Sorella, thanks. I'm glad you found "His Name" memorable. A certain kind of irony there.

---

Thanks, Sarah. It is not my intention to hurt, but sometimes that happens. There is a kind of catharsis in that, like the pain you have at the end of a long run (which I've been trying to keep up), and the relief when it is done, but the satisfaction also of having done it. I'll have to see what I can do with it. I'm totally naive when it comes to publication--I've always been more of a performing poet--but I've been researching possibilities. I have a big backlog if I start to go down that route.

---

BrianIs AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

I've never done a villanelle before, but a poet friend was sponsoring a villanelle contest, so I thought I'd give it a shot. On my first draft, I was not happy with the second repetend, so I changed it. Then I realized I had done the quatrain wrong, so it wasn't even a proper villanelle, and I had to rework that. Oy. We'll see if it's any good.
---
Her Heart's Unfettered Ways (a Villanelle)

To lift her spirit when the music plays,
she stays to watch the credits as they're rolling.
She celebrates her heart's unfettered ways

by walking with her love on rainy days--
a raucous raindrop concert as they're strolling--
to lift her spirit when the music plays.

Her love has heard her sing in solemn praise,
as carillons above her head were tolling.
She celebrates her heart's unfettered ways

on play dates with her niece on Saturdays--
she tips the DJ double when they're bowling
to lift her spirit when the music plays.

When someone in the darkest of their days
should come to her for comfort and consoling,
she celebrates her heart's unfettered ways.

Her love unwinds the thread through her heart's maze,
and finds her nature strong, yet uncontrolling.
To lift her spirit when the music plays,
she celebrates her heart's unfettered ways.

---

BrianIs AtYou

[Donner]

Hi, Brian,

To think I'm only now getting to this:

Breaking the Rules (Limerick--for Donner)

Don't floss till those final two weeks--
you dentally-mental old freaks!
Keep breaking the rules,
though it never fools
the dentist's hygienist's techniques!

Bravo! And, you're welcome. : )

And because it's been a week, I'll be back to give "His Name" a proper going over, which it deserves more than I have time now to give to it. However, one quick comment - the single last line summations of each section work very, very well.

"Her Heart's Unfettered Ways" - Being a fellow villanelle virgin (because it's a truly evil invention), I'm afraid I can't properly critique your effort, but (for what it's worth) I thought the subject you chose suits the form well and the repetitions fit flawlessly.

Now, go floss.

Donna

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Thanks, Donna. Writing the limerick was great fun, sparked by your American Sentences.

"His Name" (as I described above in my response to JFN) came to me as an idea wholly-formed, but went through several quick revisions once the idea was on paper (or screen, as the case may be). It probably could still do with some refinement, but I am happy with it, in general.

I'm mostly happy with the villanelle. In the course of my research I learned that Dylan Thomas's famous "Do not go gently..." is a villanelle, and generally considered the most famous villanelle.

Brianis AtYou (whilst flossing furiously)

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

I learned about the following on Reddit the other day. The quarantined people of Siena, Italy, are singing popular songs together out their windows to keep up their spirits and develop a sense of camaraderie. Even the dog joins in.
---
I wrote the following in honor of them, and in anticipation of the possibility of a local quarantine (with most of the lyrics relevant to local matters, but also applicable to things like the closing of factories in China, which has drastically lowered pollution levels in a short time.)
---
Corona Quarantine Blues

Will you sing with me
when the time comes?
Will you sing with me
when the time comes?

Will you sing with me
when the doors are locked
and all the streets are empty--
when the springtime blooms
have blossomed forth
and died with no one's breath
to breathe in deep
their fragrant scents
but the ever-faithful bee?
Will you sing with me?

Will you sing with me
when the time comes?
Will you sing with me
when the time comes?

Will you sing with me
when the schools are closed,
and all the shops shut down--
when there's no more folks
out on the town--
when blue sky air is free
to breathe in deep
free from the smoke
of the shuttered factory?
Will you sing with me?

Will you sing with me
when the time comes?
Will you sing with me
when the time comes?

Will you sing with me?

---

BrianIs AtYou

PS

Partial quarantine in place now in Pennsylvania
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...virus/2325564/

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

The Gen Z Plan (this was written before "His Name", and it was my reaction to this, as described above in my response to JFN, that led to "His Name" being written--so this is a kind of Sevens outtake)

Home sick, or homesick?
A quorum of teens in quarantine
from High School can no longer
get high at school, and they wonder

how to work at home, alone.
Is all schoolwork homework now?
Are all tests now take-home tests?
(The test before the quarantine wasn't.)

Is lunchtime time for takeout,
(or takeaway, as the Brits might say),
or is that breaking quarantine?
Can we have a quorum or two?

Let's eat in (or just sip at some tea),
using napkins for masks and TP--
wash our mouths out with soap--
or is that a "Nope"?
All of this shit should be free!

Anyway, their older siblings
(damn Millennials, now too old to be young)
bought some Corona on sale.
The Gen Z plan is to study and slam--
Corona is going viral in unexpected ways.

---

BrianIs AtYou

[Scrow]

Hi BrianIsSmiling,

Your villanelle reads well to me (although I'm not great at formal verse) - contemporary and portraying a picture of someone I feel I might know and relate to which brings the form back into contemporary real.

Corona Quarantine Blues - one of the few things that sing hope from this is (for me) the possible that the world might start talking to each other outside the world of capitalism and the way that pollution has been visibly lifted which shows that - change is possible - it can be done. But also, of course - in this situation - at what cost.

The Gen Z plan - I am not sure I understand this one too well. Eek! Sorry. I get bits of it but not all - and not the overall meanings. I (personally) find the grouping of individuals by generation thing quite difficult, which gets in the way of understanding.

It has been, however, amazing to write alongside you and read this month - thank-you (and I will, if it's okay, be dmming you my email so I can read your Hokusai works, if that's okay). Also, when it comes to publishing, have you looked at Duotrope? I use it at work to support artists. It is pay-for (sadly) but you can get a reasonable amount of steer without the pay-for, too.

Sarah

[Dunc]

Brian

Her Heart's Unfettered Ways - well formed and well rhymed, a gentle tone throughout as befits the lady, maybe a bit diffused by the variety of her adventures, but - nice work.

Corona Quarantine Blues - what an appealing idea to pick up and run with. Assuming they can open the windows, Beijing wil be a real city of song! Indeed, the world in unison but not in contact, as it were.

The Gen Z Plan - Suitably jingly, and schoolish, and teen. A well-placed comment or two can't go far amiss these days.

And that makes Seven Days.

I've enjoyed your company this March, as usual.

Regards / Dunc

[shaula]

His Name:
#1, This : his body pale and flaccid without flesh-- is hard to see.

I appreciate the journey through the lives of three young men who had no place in the system other than to serve in an experimental capacity. The children I know who were placed on drugs fell into a life of drugs and often suicide. For a long time the schools were receiving extra money for kids prescribed ritalin, like 6000 per year. There were two and a half lunch trays filled with pill cups when I dropped off my nephew's lunch one day. Yeah, he was on the drug. He is early 30's, just recently out of the hospital and then rehab again. He has a good job working for a weed dispensery, so they will take him back. One day, he will not leave the hospital.

Anyhow, I got pressure from my step son's guidance counsellor (20 years ago) to try the drug for him, which I refused. Since when does a guidance counsellor encourage getting onto drugs? And now we have a lot of thirty olds in flat-earth anti-vax zombie-apocolypse convulsions. And that really worries me. See, I'm concerned that one morning, I'm gonna step out to pick up my newspaper and a flock of millenials are going to stab me in the eye because I haven't put on my makeup. (and I never put on makeup) Do zombies wear dark glasses? I have a big pair, I better wear them just in case.

I am happy that you show empathy and care for the marginalized. It (the cull) starts early, doesn't it? You have a weird way of making me feel happy and sad at the same time. Thank you for the ride.

~s

[shaula]

Hi again! Didn't realize I was so far behind.

Her Heart's Unfettered Ways is just such a lovely song. I hope it is written for someone who is still with us, so that she can hear it.

Your Corona song needs to be more cheeky for me to enjoy. Better not to feed this particular virus, in my meager estimate.
Hey let me ask you a random question: Did you ever attend a school where they asked you to wash your hands before eating lunch?

Your second Corona song was more to my liking. What a silly old world.

~shaula

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hi Brian,

Sorry to take so long to get back to your thread.

Snare the moon, there's something very visually appealing about how poem appears between photos of the moon in the same way that the moon appears between the branches of the trees. Then reading through and scrolling down, this is all nicely undermined by the poem itself -- the theme of artifice and presentation -- and the final photo itself, of a petrol station. I think this is really well done, and a great use of images as part of the poem itself. This line stood out for me as having broader application than just instagram and social media: "learning quickly ways to hide / the mundane world outside the frame" -- I guess much of art in general, as well as our own fantasy lives and self-representation to others (and likely ourselves). I like the sentiment at the ends, and it's hint (to me) of an unreliable narrator in the close. This claim to embrace everything may well be another way of "hid(ing) the mundane world outside the frame". Another framing of reality for the consumption of others (and possible the ourselves too). Great poem, clever with great use visuals. Probably my favourite of yours this week. (I prefer the original to the remix though).

By the by: reminds me of some days doing Sevens or Napo: how many more poems can I write? What's left to say? I've nothing to say and but going to say it anyway. On days like those I reach for the cut-up machine.

Syria: Tightly rhymed and with very effective use of repetition. Reading it a few times, I'm not entirely sure what it's saying, but it says it well. "There's nothing to fear but fear itself" can be a trite truisms more easily said from a place of safety -- FDR probably wasn't facing starvation or homelessness personally during the depression. There's a hint that poem may be alluding to this. Or perhaps that we avoid the fear what we (our nations) afflict, by avoiding the truth, and that we do this out of fear. I'm not too concerned that I can't pin it down though, there's more to ponder that way.

Soap Opera, Doc? There's been an outbreak of Covid-19 poems this Sevens. I'm thinking there's a cultural reference I'm missing in this tanka, though. A TV series or soap I'm not familiar with?

What he had done? Aha, the N caught up in the complicated ethics of sexual interaction. The contortions of the last two stanzas & final line in particular made me smile. Cleverly done.

I'm pausing for now, so I'll post this, but I'll be back for the rest.

-Matt

[Sorella]

Good Lord, Brian -- so productive! And so varied: villanelle and more. All enjoyed, will have to come back and read more at leisure.
The Corona Song sounds like Siena -- they are very different, that is well-known!

You had an extraordinary Sevens!

Sorella

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Thanks, Sarah. It's been great reading and writing alongside you. Your comments on "The Gen Z Plan" illustrate why I relegated it to an outtake, but it serve as a value in triggering "His Name".
---
Dunc, thanks. Your comments are always thorough, gentle, and well considered. It's been a pleasure spending Sevens with you.
---
Shaula, thanks. Thanks for you comments, which are helpful in seeing where difficulties might present themselves. It's been an enjoyable week following you this Sevens.
---
Thanks, Matt. I'm glad you caught on to the structure of the whole, with the interleaving of photographs and poems, and the whole idea of artifice and framing, or, as you put it "the theme of artifice and presentation". It is interesting to say that you prefer the original as opposed to the remix. Having both available is part of the fun.

You said with "Soap Opera, Doc?' that "I'm thinking there's a cultural reference I'm missing in this tanka"--the reference is two-fold.

First, there is the catch-phrase of Warner Brother's cartoon character Bugs Bunny, who was fond of saying "What's up, Doc?" This was an uniquitious phrase through many cartoons in which he appeared, but there was also one cartoon (which won an Oscar) entitled "Whats Opera, Doc?", which likewise parodied the (by then) well known catch phrase. In this cartoon, the conflict between Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (his nemesis) is rethought as a Wagnerian Opera, with the cross-dressing Bugs appearing as love interest as well as foe.

Secondly, there is, parallel to this, the suggestion of a "Soap Opera", a term used for the cheap, daily TV melodramas produced for the benefit of housewives, and sponsored by soap manufacturers.

In the tanka, there is a similar suggestion of some kind of love conflict (as one sees in Soap Operas) "Her hand raised/in anger" and the suggestion of an alternative motivation. Soap, of course, has been suggested as a ways to stave off the COVID-19 virus, so is this a "soap opera" (cheap melodrama of love) or one merely of the battle against the virus, with the suggestion of deliberate parody along the lines of the cartoons of the wise-cracking Bugs Bunny.

I like that you appreciate the verbal contortions at the end of "What he had done" I had some fun with that.
---
Sorella, thanks again. You've been generous with your comments. Now chill with your Netflix!
---
All the others, Howard and Donner and JFN, thanks for participating along with everyone.

It's been an amazingly over-productive time, as February also was. Now, I get to chill at home with the rest of the folks. We are not under full quarantine, but schools, day cares and more are closed, including a request that all "non-essential" businesses remain closed. I went to the park yesterday, and put in about 5+ miles, keeping a good distance from any others, but still enjoying the lovely weather. I will see if I can enjoy more of the same this weekend.

BrianIs AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Lune 1

Spring begins to bud
as Luna
floats amid the clouds.



BrianIs AtYou