Gwynn Scheltema
I never cease to be amazed at synchronicity in life.
In my county this week, The Art Gallery of Northumberland launched a collaborative project with three area libraries. They riffed off the idea of “little libraries” that has been around for some time—and which we covered in a previous post—only this time they are offering visual art rather than books on a take-one-leave-one basis. What fun!
And then what should I find, but a poem about this very same idea only with poetry. How’s that for synchronicity in action! It’s called “Poetry Caching in Spring” by Linda Varsell Smith and was posted on poetscollective.org
Poetry Caching in Spring
A realtor box
with free poems staked in yard
awaits visitors
Some walkers pick up
poems, thinking house for sale
crumble, toss poems
Rain seeps in the box
dribbles down smudging pages
Sun will curdle them
Walkers sit on wall
resting, reading poems, put
in backpacks or hands
Yanked up by the stake
to mow lawn, rests on trash cans
near camellias
Hail pelts plastic
casing, white as snow, soft ping
droned out by traffic
Stick-on, raised letters
offer poetry to all
who come to pass by
And, here’s where synchronicity really goes into overdrive: “Poetry Caching in Spring” it is a 21-line poem written in a 21-line poetry form called an Ethnographic Haiku—a perfect form for our Summer 21 Poetry Contest.
Ethnographic Haiku
An ethnographic haiku poem is made up of 7 haiku, in the usual 5-7-5 syllable line format, but the subject of the whole poem (in the case of “Poetry Caching in the Spring”, it is the box of poetry) should have a relationship with the environment.
Additionally, the poet is required to evoke at least three of the five senses and each haiku should represent one day in a full week in the life of the subject. The form is titled and punctuation is optional. That’s quite a tall order, but Linda Varsell Smith certainly pulls it off beautifully in her poem.
I cannot verify who came up with this form, but the details for writing one appear in Syllables of Velvet, a book of poetic forms collected by Linda Varsell Smith who writes in her intro:
“I found these forms in handbooks and on the Internet. I have worked on playing with forms in four previous books dealing with forms. Cinqueries: is a book filled with cinquos and lanternes. Fibs and Other Truths showed the many variations of fibs. Poems That Count is a collection of many syllabic, metric and word counting forms and examples. Poems That Count Too is a further collection of counting forms with examples. Syllables of Velvet incorporates all the forms in the previous books plus many discoveries beyond. I wrote at least one example for over 300 of them and directions how to do many other forms.”
Distorted Diablo
I was further surprised to find another 21-line poetic form, created by Pat Simpson, called a Distorted Diablo.
In addition, the sixain segments are both written with 6 syllables per line and the middle 9-line stanza has 9 syllables in each line. Rhyming is optional. My instinct if I were writing a Distorted Diablo would be to make my content devilish or distorted, but apparently subject matter is not prescribed.
Here is an example of a Distorted Diablo called “Ode to Volunteers.”
Summer 21 Poetry Contest
So that brings me to a reminder about our Writescape Summer 21 Poetry Contest. The two forms above may tickle your muse, but poems can be any form you like. Just remember that the poem must be 21 lines long and evoke some aspect of the number 21 such as age of majority, or blackjack or 21 ways to… etc. We gave you lots of examples in the contest announcement blog. The contest is free to enter. Deadline is June 30 and the winner will be announced on July 21.
Full submission details here. We look forward to seeing your poem.
