M Christine Delea's Blog, page 31

Learning a Foreign Language by Matt Muth

Learning a Foreign Language

by Matt Muth

published in RHINO, 2016

I needed to associate like with like, object

with suggestion. I needed to be trained. I taped

index cards to my possessions: the nightstand

said onanist, the toilet said equivocator; my desk

was narcissist, and the venetian blinds

were all cowards. I had some nouns, but soon

this was not enough learning: I needed adjectives,

verbs, I needed fluency. Each pair of boxer-briefs

got a false advertising patch stamped

on the codp...

A Sontina?: Prompt

Yes, a sontina. It is a form of poetry that I invented. As far as I know, the poem I posted on my blog today, Xarpo, is the only sontina in existence.

A sontina is a mix of a sonnet and a sestina!

Here are the rules so you can try a sontina (which spellcheck keeps changing to fontina). Write lots of them, send them out into the world, and let's get the sontina ball rolling!

Format: 14 lines in 3 stanzas (a sonnet's 14 lines and a sestina's use of stanzas)

End words: the first 2 stanzas follo...

Xarpo: A Sontina by Mary Christine Delea

Xarpo: A Sontina

by Mary Christine Delea

Xarpo was the Greek goddess of autumn and the harvest

Just one of the Horai, seasoned like Auxo

and Thallo, it is Xarpo who ripens

your bok choy, cabbage, parsnips, and apples.

Dull compared to others: Artemis, Nyx,

Hecate, et al, but without her we

starve during winter, and no pumpkin pie.

And what would autumn be without the pie?

Yes, spring and summer, Thallo and Auxo,

are needed, but until food is how we

can eat it, who cares? Eating food not...

Buddhist Barbie by Denise Duhamel

Buddhist Barbie

by Denise Duhamel

(published in her book, Kinky, Orchises Press, 1997)

In the 5th century B.C.

an Indian philosopher

Gautama teaches "All is emptiness"

and "There is no self."

In the 20th century A.D.

Barbie agrees, but wonders how a man

with such a belly could pose,

smiling, and without a shirt.

To Villanelle or Not to Villanelle?: Prompt

This week's prompt gives you a few choices, so it can be done by poets, prose writers, and visual artists of any kind!

You can write a traditional villanelle, and I have posted some incredible villanelles on this blog this month, including today's poem by Robin Becker.

You can write or create a piece of visual art based on the photograph below. It is a photo I took last November in Williams, Arizona. You can also write a villanelle inspired by this photo.

You can also break the traditional vi...

Villanelle for a Lesbian Mom by Robin Becker

Villanelle for a Lesbian Mom

by Robin Becker

published in Harvard Magazine by Harvard Press https://harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/html/1996/07/poetry.html

It wasn't love but chance and rather sweet- your newly weaned son asleep in his crib, your breasts too tender to be touched. And touch itself, too early, indiscreet. Who would have believed that over a drink and something to eat you'd lose your car, locked in overnight? Parking offender, it wasn't love but chance and rathe...

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

Mad Girl’s Love Song

by Sylvia Plath

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan's men:

I sh...

Conceited Much?: Writing Prompt

Taking a little break from the villanelle form in my blog this week, to bring you a short poem by Linda Pastan, and from which we will take out weekly prompt.

Pastan uses a conceit--an extended metaphor. This device has been used by poets since poets started poet-ing. Even prose writers use it! Done well, as Pastan does, it gives a deeper meaning to the original image/message, and provides another avenue for the piece's reader to understand the point of the poem.

Your prompt for this week is ...

A New Poet by Linda Pastan

A New Poet

by Linda Pastan

(published in Poetry 180, edited by Billy Collins, and here)

Finding a new poet

is like finding a new wildflower

out in the woods. You don’t see

its name in the flower books, and

nobody you tell believes

in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows

down the whole length of the page. In fact

the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea

on a foggy day—the odor of truth

and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,...

For Her Villain by Grace Bauer

For Her Villain

by Grace Bauer

(published in the anthology, Villanelles, edited by Annie Finch

and Marie-Elizabeth Mali, 2012)

The time that she wastes missing him is hell,

though no one banks a fire that has grown cold.

And so she thinks she'll write this villanelle.

Though forms are things she doesn't handle well

she thinks that forcing pain into a mold

of verse might help free her from the hell

of missing him. If only she could tell

the truth from all the lies that have been told

a...