Tupelo Press 30/30 Poetry Marathon Commentary Days 11-15

By Thomas Page

For the month of January, I will be writing one poem in a “poetry marathon.” The poems will be posted here: https://tupelopress.org/the-3030-project

You may also find out more about the poets and their fundraising campaigns here: https://tupelopress.org/the-3030-poets

As part of the marathon, I will be providing commentary on each of the poems every five days.

General Context:

For Days 11-15, I will talk about how I choose forms for a specific idea. This set of days, I tried to use forms that I haven’t used during this marathon. Day 11 is a real haibun; Days 12 and 14 are a form of free verse with a hard 10 syllable limit; Day 13 is a series of limericks; and Day 15 is a more traditional free verse.

Each form (sometimes called genre) has a storied tradition based of what kinds of content is written for it. For example, the haibun I read about were for more serious day and limericks were always comedy poems. Good poets read a lot when they aren’t writing. This helps them familiarize them with the forms and functions associated with poetry as well as the traditions. This helps them choose an appropriate form based on what they’re trying to achieve in a poem.

Most of the time, I tend to write in a free verse with some sort of imposed rule on myself. Day 15 is more of what I write with line breaks being made at the end of phrases to emphasize certain content. Days 12 and 14 have a more rigid form because they’re supposed to be one continuous thought so the line never really “ends” (or tries to not end).

Day 11: Grief is a thing with barbs

The title is a play on the title “grief is the thing with feathers” by Max Porter which itself is a play on the phrase “‘hope’ is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson’s poem. In this game of literary telephone, the phrase has lost its definite article (the) for an indefinite one (a) which on the surface is a minor change. However, this changes the meaning of the kind of grief I’m writing about is one of many types of grief that exist. The poem itself is a hodgepodge of examples of grief I’ve seen and my assessment that it is not a gentle sort of ennui or malaise that you might read about. The form includes both a prose section and a haiku which is meant to be the thesis of the poem/

Day 12: Saganaki 

This is what I’m calling a memory poem about a specific person. I’ve noticed that a lot of the time that when people are discussing memories they tend to focus on events like a shared dinner. Our memories are heavily dependent on our senses which I’ve tried to include in the memory being described.

Saganaki is a dish found at Greek restaurants which is tableside flambéed cheese.

Day 13: Limericks for Lowly Caretakers 

This is what my stakeholders (family) have been asking for which is a “fart poem.” (Now you can stop asking, haha). Limericks were a natural choice for this form. The poem uses the structure similar to comedy songs like the “Assumption Song” which cuts off the offending word just before the final rhyme. It is a common problem that when you are helping a person with some difficulties moving that they will fart, burp, vomit, and etc on you. This is something that you found out quickly when you become a primary caretaker.

Day 14: Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum

This is the same form as Day 12 so the composition is effectively the same. For this one, I tried to focus more on the remembered person doing actions. I also tried to describe the locations in clearer detail.

Day 15: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Your Celebration of Life 

I’ve tried to write this about for about three years but now it felt appropriate to actually work on it now. The title is a reference to the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. This was also my attempt to incorporate more humor into Terminal. I tried to think of a clever way to say “flipped the bird” which became “pheasant under glass.”