Category Archives: Poetry

Susan McLean, ‘Anagram: A Pallor, An Edge’

Leave a reply

Late at night, I saw a glowing,
as if realms beyond our knowing
kindly solace were bestowing.
Could this phantom be my wife?
 
But the gleam, as I drew nearer,
taking form and growing clearer,
was my visage in the mirror,
and the figure held a knife.
 
“Fool,” said I, “your idle dreaming
on some insubstantial seeming
is some demon’s way of scheming
to mislead your soul to hell.

“Melancholy, doom-and-glooming,
pining, horror, guilt, exhuming,
Nevermore and Ulalume-ing –
write your angst out: that could sell.”

*****

Susan McLean writes: “This poem was inspired by a 2019 competition at The Spectator to write a poem in the style of a famous author and to have its title be an anagram of the poet’s name. I was a big fan of the poetry and short stories of Edgar Allan Poe when I was a teen, so I investigated words that I could draw from his name that would have strong associations with his work. Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, who died of tuberculosis eleven years later. Many of his poems and stories concern mourning for the death of a beautiful woman, including his most famous poem, “The Raven.” This poem borrows the trochaic meter and some elements of the rhyme scheme of that poem. It also alludes to a number of Poe’s favorite themes, and echoes some of his lines. It was not among the winners at The Spectator, but I later reworked it, and it recently appeared in Lighten Up Online.”

Susan McLean has two books of poetry, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Measure, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
https://www.pw.org/content/susan_mclean

“Edgar Allan Poe (ilustración off topic)” by El Humilde Fotero del Pánico is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Using form: Jerome Betts, ‘Villanelle For Darcy’

2 Replies

Darcy the diabetic cat has died
His fans were told by email recently,
A life remembered with no little pride.

The Fiat-driver now feels mortified
To think because he simply failed to see
Darcy, the diabetic cat has died.

Was this the fatal ninth and last he’d tried?
Whichever, it will surely prove to be
A life remembered with no little pride.

His poor squashed frame has been discreetly fried
With all involved expressing sympathy;
Darcy the diabetic cat has died.

The people in his road could not abide
The flattening of such fine felinity,
A life remembered with no little pride.

So, some of them sent cards, and others cried
And stuck a sign upon his favourite tree:
Darcy the diabetic cat has died,
A life remembered with no little pride.

*****

Jerome Betts writes: “It’s always interesting when a line you read sparks off a quite unexpected result. In this case the line was in a friend’s email from Cambridge which mentioned in passing, as an item of local news, that Jasper the diabetic cat has died. Further details followed about one of those neighbourhood favourites known to many more people than its owners. Eventually, with Darcy substituted for Jasper (partly to secure a run of Ds and partly as I was at odds with a garden-molester of that name at the time) a villanelle took shape which was published in Snakeskin and subsequently in the anthology Love Affairs At The Villa Nelle (Kelsay Books, 2018) edited by Marilyn L. Taylor and James P. Roberts.”

Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, where he edits the quarterly Lighten Up Online. Pushcart-nominated twice, his verse has appeared in a wide variety of UK publications and in anthologies such as Love Affairs At The Villa Nelle, Limerick Nation, The Potcake Chapbooks 1, 2 and 12, and Beth Houston’s three Extreme collections. British, European, and North American web venues include Amsterdam Quarterly, Better Than Starbucks,  Light, The Asses of Parnassus, The Hypertexts, The New Verse News, and Snakeskin.

Photo: “Dead Cat” by Denty One is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Weekend read: Aaron Poochigian, ‘Not Atoms’

Leave a reply

When, strolling through the Village, I discover

one lonesome shoe, a jeweled but dogless collar,
the crushed rose of a hitman or a lover,
barf like an offering, a half-burnt dollar,
“Scream” masks holding traffic-light-top vigil,
loose lab rats among the morning glories
or Elmo trapped inside a witch’s sigil,

I love the universe because it’s made of stories.

*****

Aaron Poochigian writes: “I live in the East Village, which is party central, especially on the weekends. The images in this poem are mostly random stuff I saw the mornings after. I didn’t include the people passed out on the sidewalk (just check to make sure they’re still breathing). The structure (one-line beginning, six-line list, one-line ending) came to me from a beautiful Tang-dynasty poem, ‘Visiting the Taoist Priest Chang’, by Liu Changqing.”

Aaron Poochigian’s ‘Not Atoms’ was originally published in New Verse Review. For reference, here is Liu Changqing’s poem in Aaron Poochigian’s translation:

Under the faint trail’s guidance I discover

a footprint in the phosphorescent moss,
a tranquil lake where low clouds love to hover,
a lonesome door relieved by rampant grass,
a pine grown greener since the thundershowers,
a cold springs fed by mountains far away.

Mingling with these truths among the flowers,
I have forgotten what I came to say.

Aaron Poochigian earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. His latest poetry collection, American Divine, the winner of the Richard Wilbur Award, came out in 2021. He has published numerous translations with Penguin Classics and W.W. Norton. His work has appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry, The Paris Review and Poetry.
aaronpoochigian.com
americandivine.net

Photo: “Untitled [Coty] (c.1917) – Amadeu de Souza-Cardoso (1897-1918)” by pedrosimoes7 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Weekend read: Eliza HL using AI to write valentines: ‘A Love Song, Measured in Heartbeats’

Leave a reply

Let us go then, you and I,
Not through half-deserted streets
But through the quiet corridors of time,
Where the walls hum our syllables
And the dust of books settles like memory.

I have measured my love in heartbeats,
In the hush between verses,
In the spaces where language dissolves
Into something older than sound.

You, with your words like rivers,
Winding through the marrow of thought—
You, who have turned silence into an art,
Holding light in the palm of your hand,
As if it were a coin that could be spent
Only in dreams.

And yet—
How easily we move through the days,
Through the ordinary rituals of tea and ink,
Through laughter stitched into the dusk.

Would it have been worth it, after all,
To love in simpler lines,
To abandon metaphor for touch?
No.

For I have known love not in the saying,
But in the echo.

*****

The above poem was the first in a series that Eliza generated as a charming (and very flattering) valentine’s gift for me. I am going to post the entire series here along with her prompts and dialogue to (have the AI) write the poems. I think the process is fascinating, and a glimpse into the future. Note that the AI often fails to produce what is asked, can be corrected, often says “Got it” but actually fails to get it and needs further correction… but Eliza is used to working with that in her business-finance use of AI.

*****

PART 1

You said:

hmm… can i have 3 valentine poems for my husband the poet. the first would be written in the style of… hmm… ts eliot 

ChatGPT said:

Sure! Here’s a Valentine’s poem in the style of T.S. Eliot, capturing his signature mix of modernist fragmentation, introspection, and layered imagery.

A Love Song, Measured in Heartbeats

(then follows the poem posted above)

Would you like the next two poems in contrasting styles? Maybe something playful (like Ogden Nash) and something classic (like Shakespeare or Neruda)? 😊

You said:

i think you have missed out on rhyme scheme… am i missing something?

ChatGPT said:

You’re right! Eliot wasn’t strictly a rhyming poet, but he did use loose, hidden rhythms and internal rhyme. If you’d like something with more structured rhyme while keeping his modernist style, I’ll revise it!

Here’s a T.S. Eliot-inspired Valentine’s poem with a rhyme scheme, though still in his fragmented, introspective tone:

A Love Song in the Cracks of Time

Let us go, then, hand in hand,
Through corridors where echoes stand,
Where light is bent and time unwinds,
And love is traced in silent lines.

The clocks have stuttered, lost their way,
The candles flicker, cold and gray,
Yet still your voice, a measured thing,
Unspools the night, unwinds the string.

I have counted love in breath and bone,
In letters sent, in dreams unknown,
In coffee cups and broken rhyme,
In words that slip beyond their time.

But tell me—was it worth the wait,
The fractured steps, the hand of fate?
To stand with me, where moments blur,
Where love is neither lost nor sure?

And yet, my dear, still here we stand,
No need for maps, no need for plans.
For time will twist, and stars will dim,
But I am yours, and you are him.

This keeps Eliot’s meditative tone but brings in structured rhyme. Does this feel more like what you had in mind? Or would you like me to tweak the style further? 😊

You said:

no, this is good. the next one should be in style of ee cummings

ChatGPT said:

Great! Now for an e.e. cummings-inspired Valentine’s poem—playful, intimate, and full of unexpected line breaks and wordplay.

(love is more than words or breath)

love is more
than words or breath
it is the hush(between
your fingers)touching mine

it is the moon(hushed
& laughing)when you turn
your face to me

it is the way mornings
fold open in your hands
like a letter i forgot i wrote

love is more
than always or never
(it is now it is now it is now)

& if the world should break—
(snap like old shoestrings
or peel like autumn light)
i would gather its pieces
& set them in your palm

for love is more
than time or space
it is you & me &
(always)

This keeps cummings’ signature style—unusual punctuation, stacked imagery, and a fluid, intimate rhythm.

Would you like the last one to be classic (Shakespeare, Neruda) or something more whimsical (Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker)? 😊

You said:

i think it should be style of robin helweg-larsen

ChatGPT said:

Ah, an excellent choice! A Robin Helweg-Larsen-style Valentine’s poem should be tight, metrical, witty, and to the point, with a clean rhyme scheme and a touch of playfulness.

Valentine (In the Style of Robin Helweg-Larsen)

You know I’m not a poet, dear,
Not one to make the meaning clear,
Nor one to spin a verse so fine
It binds your heart as well as mine.

But here’s the truth: I look, I see,
And every road still leads to we.
Through love and time (both hard and fast),
You are my first. You are my last.

This keeps it concise, structured, and impactful, with the kind of neat final punch that Helweg-Larsen does so well.

Do these three poems feel like a good mix? Or would you like any refinements? 😊

*****

PART 2

You said:

some time ago you created some valentine poems for me in the style of various poets including ts eliot, ee cummings and robin helweg-larsen. can you do a valentine poem for me? in my style…. what ever that is

ChatGPT said:

Memory updated

Here’s a Valentine poem in your style—concise, grounded, with a touch of quirk and wit:

Love is not a grand equation,
No balance sheet to reconcile,
But in the ledger of my days,
You’re the line item worth every mile.

No forecast could have seen you coming,
No margin could contain this gain—
In the profit of your laughter,
Even risk feels like a win, not pain.

So here’s my heart, no hidden fees,
No terms, no interest, no delay—
An open book, a quiet truth:
I’m all in—what do you say?

Would you like me to refine this or try another version? 😊

You said:

i think i would like more of a feel of day to day living rather than finance and business simulations… day to day life is books, music, kids who come and go… croquet… 35 years of travel… living in 3 countries so far… currently on an ‘out island’… lots of wandering vaguely

ChatGPT said:

Memory updated

Here’s a Valentine poem inspired by your day-to-day life:

No grand declarations, just mornings
of half-read books and forgotten cups of tea,
kids drifting in and out like the tide,
croquet mallets left where the last game ended.

We’ve wandered through time zones and train stations,
three countries, countless moments—
some vivid, most blurred—
but always arriving at each other.

Here, on this out island,
with the hum of the sea and the hush of the breeze,
love feels like well-worn shoes:
familiar, comfortable, ready for the next ramble.

Would you like to explore another tone or style? 😊

You said:

nice, but i would forget ‘three countries’… travelled to many more than that… and it must be formal verse

ChatGPT said:

Memory updated

Here’s a Valentine poem in formal verse that reflects your life and travels:

Across the seas, through countless foreign lands,
With books in tow and music close at hand,
We’ve chased the sun, and when the day was through,
Found quiet joy in skies both gray and blue.

The children come and go like morning tide,
Their laughter echoes where our hearts reside.
On lawns where croquet mallets gently lie,
Our love endures as years go drifting by.

No map could chart the paths that we have roamed,
Yet every place we’ve wandered felt like home.
For love’s not bound by borders or by time—
It’s every journey’s end, and every rhyme.

Would you like any tweaks or another version? 😊

You said:

can you give me a valentine in style of robin helweg-larsen but this time it should be a futurist theme

ChatGPT said:

Memory updated

Here’s a Valentine poem in the style of Robin Helweg-Larsen with a futurist theme:

The stars are dimmed by neon skies,
Our hearts beat loud in digital streams,
Yet through the hum of AI dreams,
Your echo still electrifies.

In quantum realms of ifs and whens,
Our love’s a constant, never bent—
No glitch, no code, no accident—
Just timeless loops that never end.

Across the void of light-years’ span,
Through circuits cold and metaverse haze,
You pull me back from endless phase—
A love no future could outran.

Would you like to explore another tone or refine this one? 😊

You said:

is futurist a word for rhl?

ChatGPT said:

Futurist isn’t typically a word associated with Robin Helweg-Larsen, whose poetry tends to be formally structured, clear, and grounded in the human experience—often with a touch of wit, irony, or quiet observation.

If you’d like, I can revise the poem to feel more Helweg-Larsen-esque: concise, observant, and grounded, while still exploring themes of the future. Would you like me to give that a try? 😊

You said:

i thought he did a lot with future themes

ChatGPT said:

Memory updated

Got it! Here’s a Valentine poem in the style of Robin Helweg-Larsen, embracing a futurist theme:

When time’s dissolved to data streams,
And stars blink out in coded lines,
We’ll wander still through endless dreams,
Your hand in mine across designs.

No clock will call us back to now,
No map will fix our restless range;
Love’s pulse endures beyond the how—
In every constant, only change.

Does this version capture more of what you’re aiming for? 😊

You said:

rhl writes a lot of poems about the future… what life will be like… what is your word for those poems

ChatGPT said:

Ah! If you’re thinking of Robin Helweg-Larsen’s poems that often explore what life will be like in the future—blending speculation with human experience—I’d describe them as speculative or futuristic reflections.

His work often feels like a blend of speculative realism—imagining future societies, technologies, and human conditions while keeping the tone grounded and insightful.

Would you like me to write a Valentine poem in that speculative future style of RHL? 😊

You said:

yes, thank you

ChatGPT said:

Memory updated

Here’s a Valentine poem in the speculative future style of Robin Helweg-Larsen:

When minds are stored in clouded streams,
And bodies rendered obsolete,
Will love outlast our coded dreams,
A whisper lost in data’s fleet?

If hearts are apps, and touch is rare,
Will longing fade, or still remain?
In endless loops of ones and pairs,
I’ll seek you through the endless main.

No age or realm will dull my view—
In every timeline, I’ll find you.

Does this fit the tone you’re looking for? 😊

You said:

can you add another quatrain to make a formal sonnet

ChatGPT said:

Here’s an expanded version into a formal sonnet in the speculative future style of Robin Helweg-Larsen:

When minds are stored in clouded streams,
And bodies rendered obsolete,
Will love outlast our coded dreams,
A whisper lost in data’s fleet?

If hearts are apps, and touch is rare,
Will longing fade, or still remain?
In endless loops of ones and pairs,
I’ll seek you through the endless main.

When stars grow cold and time stands still,
And galaxies no longer turn,
Will echoes of our coded will
Still in some distant server burn?

No age or realm will dull my view—
In every timeline, I’ll find you.

*****

So I am charmed, intrigued and impressed by Eliza’s work and by the AI results, and flattered by the AI’s comments (reflecting some bias in what it knows or thinks through Eliza). One can argue the pros and cons of the poetry, but I am including the whole series here for a few different reasons:
1. It shows the remarkable amount of improvement in Artificial Intelligence in the past few years, with the speed of improvement constantly increasing and implying an unpredictable near-future in all aspects of our lives.
2. Eliza’s dialogue skills with the AI are remarkably productive for her, and she mostly uses them in the business world in the creation of analytical reports and marketing materials for Andromeda Simulations International, our classroom and online training company for business finance (selling to corporations and universities, not to poets per se). Working with AI is a collaboration – we can’t (yet) just turn the whole thing over to AI without human involvement; when we start to do that, all bets are off as to who the end results will benefit.
3. But does this make Eliza a poet? She says not. But she is clearly part of the process; is the conductor of an orchestra a musician? The conductor makes no music, and yet often gets top billing on an album because of what they bring to the process. It is an interesting issue.
4. Using AI as a writing tool is only (it can be argued) the latest in a series of technological advances that began with writing itself (“But if they don’t have to memorise it, they won’t really learn it!”), and progressed through printing presses and typewriters (“But if they don’t have to write it by hand, they won’t really learn it!”) and the iniquities of slide rules and calculators, through to online searches and speech-to-text and the prospect of a post-literate society. Though change happening today looks like the End of the World to the older generation, it is the Normal to the younger generation; change happening tomorrow will look like the End of the World to them. That’s the way it’s always been.
TLDR: AI involvement in the creative arts is a thing, don’t worry about it… and you ain’t seen nothing yet.

*****

(and Eliza’s dialogue with her AI friend continued:)

ChatGPT said:

Would you like me to refine or adjust anything? 😊

You said:

what is a good title for this

ChatGPT said:

Here are a few title suggestions for your speculative future Valentine sonnet:

  • “Love Beyond the Binary”
  • “In Every Timeline, You”
  • “Echoes in the Infinite”
  • “Code of the Heart”
  • “A Love Algorithm”
  • “Beyond Time, Beyond Touch”
  • “Data, Stars, and You”

Do any of these resonate with you, or would you like more options? 😊

You said:

what does this mean: A whisper lost in data’s fleet?

ChatGPT said:

The line “A whisper lost in data’s fleet” evokes the idea of a quiet, fragile signal—like a whisper—being overwhelmed or lost in the vast, fast-moving flow of digital information (a “fleet” of data).

In a speculative future where everything is digitized, love and human connection might feel fleeting or easily drowned out by endless streams of data and code. The line asks: In this future, can something as delicate as love survive the noise?

Would you like me to tweak the line for clarity or a different effect? 😊

You said:

i think the line needs tweaking, can you keep the rhyme scheme

ChatGPT said:

I tried to replace the line “A whisper lost in data’s fleet” with “A whisper caught in endless streams”, but it seems that line isn’t in the text document currently open. Would you like me to update the poem with this new line manually? 😊

You said:

i need the new line for the poem, can you paste it here in chat?

ChatGPT said:

Here’s the revised line with the same rhyme scheme:

“A whisper caught in endless streams”

This keeps the original intent but feels clearer and more evocative. Let me know if you’d like more options or any other edits! 😊

You said:

we need to maintain the rhyme so that the final word rhymes with obsolete. can you try again?

ChatGPT said:

Absolutely! Here’s a revised line that maintains the rhyme with obsolete:

“A whisper kept in code discreet”

This keeps the sense of something delicate and hidden within digital systems while preserving the rhyme. Would you like me to refine further or integrate it into the full poem? 😊

*****

Illustration: by RHL and ChatGPT

Weekend read: James B. Nicola, ‘Pair of Kings’

Leave a reply

All Clark Gable had to do
was sit where Hattie sat
the night she won her Oscar®. He
might not’ve thought of that:
but how the angels would have chimed
and cheered the noble cause
of basic decency, and broken
out in wild applause.
 
Benny Goodman would not sleep
where his Brothers could not stay.
He paved the American way before
it was the American Way.
For the color of music’s the color of God:
the color of his quartet!
So I hold no truck with movie stars,
but I play the clarinet.

*****

James B. Nicola writes: “Hattie McDaniel was the first American woman of African ancestry to win an acting Oscar. It was for Gone with the Wind, Best Picture of 1939, which starred Clark Gable, the #1 movie star at the time, known as the ‘King of Hollywood’. McDaniel was not allowed to sit with her fellow nominees. Her acceptance speech, nonetheless, overflowed with grace and gratitude.

“Benny Goodman, clarinet player and band leader, was so popular he was known as the ‘King of Swing’. His quartet included two players of African ancestry. When on tour, Goodman, true to his name, only booked overnight accommodations that accommodated all four of his players. The film The Green Book gave us a good look at these hotel policies in America. It won the Oscar for Best Picture of 2018.”

James B. Nicola’s poetry has appeared internationally in Acumen, erbacce, Cannon’s  Mouth, Recusant, Snakeskin, The South, Orbis, and Poetry Wales (UK);  Innisfree and  Interpreter’s House (Ireland); Poetry Salzburg (Austria), mgversion2>datura (France);  Gradiva (Italy); EgoPHobia (Romania); the Istanbul Review (Turkey); Sand and The Transnational (Germany), in the latter of which his work appears in German translation;  Harvests of the New Millennium (India); Kathmandu Tribune (Nepal); and Samjoko (Korea). His eight full-length collections (2014-2023) include most recently Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, Turns & Twists, and Natural Tendencies. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice magazine award.

‘Pair of Kings’ has just been published in Rat’s Ass Review.

Photo: “jazz ill Benny Goodman 1955” by janwillemsen is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
 

Using form: Susan Jarvis Bryant, ‘Sorceress’

Leave a reply

She is polished and pernicious 
Her demeanor is delicious 
She will soften the suspicious 
     With her smile 
 
She’ll abash you then disarm you 
She’ll harass and she’ll alarm you 
Then she’ll nonchalantly charm you  
     That’s her style 
 
She’ll reject and then she’ll choose you 
She’ll respect and then she’ll use you 
She’ll protect and then she’ll bruise you 
     In a flash 
 
She’ll dismiss you then possess you  
She will curse you then she’ll bless you 
She’ll distress and then impress you 
     With panache 
 
She’ll accuse and then assuage you 
She’ll abuse and she’ll upstage you 
She’ll amuse and she’ll enrage you 
      Every day   
 
She’ll assist you then she’ll spurn you 
She’ll enlist you then she’ll burn you  
She will twist and she will turn you 
     Every way 
 
She will praise and then berate you 
She will raise and then deflate you 
She’ll amaze and still frustrate you 
     You can’t win 
 
She’s capricious and malicious 
She is smoothly surreptitious 
She conceals a core that’s vicious  
     With a grin

*****

Susan Jarvis Bryant writes: “This is one of those poems that simply wrote itself. It’s a nonce form that appeared in my head as a song without lyrics.  The lyrics came easily. I love the way words fit together to create music – a melodious flow that lifts images to a greater height. Passion always assists me in the creative process, and this poem is written about someone in particular… someone that irked me greatly… someone I will never mention. I’ll just nod and smile a satisfied smile when reading the poem. Poetry composition can be immensely cathartic.”

‘Sorceress’ was originally published in Snakeskin.

Susan Jarvis Bryant is originally from the U.K. and now lives on the coastal plains of Texas. Susan has poetry published on The Society of Classical Poets, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online, The Road Not Taken, and New English Review. She also has poetry published in The Lyric, Trinacria, and Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems and Extreme Sonnets II anthologies. Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition and was nominated for the 2022 and 2024 Pushcart Prize. She has published two books – Elephants Unleashed and Fern Feathered Edges.

Photo: “Day 47-Split Personality” by Bazule is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Weekend read: Sonnet crown: Barbara Lydecker Crane, ‘Roughly True’

Leave a reply

Suzanne Valadon, 1865-1938, Paris

What, you haven’t heard of me, despite
my art and stormy life? There’s much to tell
of pride and bitterness, of bliss and hell—
but not regret. I’ll fill my pen and write.

I was born a bastard. Maman worked,
a laundress, while I’d roam Montmartre, spying 
through café and whorehouse doorways, trying
to snitch some fruit or francs. I laughed and lurked.
With lumps of coal I loved to draw on streets.  
Ditching convent school at puberty,
I learned to earn my way. I felt free
in circus work, curvaceous and petite
and daring on the high trapeze, strong
until I hurt my back—I fell headlong.

That set me back, but new work came along—
also daring, deemed risqué—being painted,
a model for men. Few were sainted . . .
nor was I. I didn’t think it wrong
to give a man some pleasure and to claim
my own. For one artiste I posed unclad
and soon became his favorite lover. I had
his child, and kept my word: I didn’t name
that man on papers with a ‘Father’ line
and kept on working. Maman tended him,
my son, Maurice Utrillo—a pseudonym
so he would not be stigmatized by mine,
that of the saucy urchin shedding clothes—
and budding painter, watching men compose.

I watched the colors bloom as men composed.
Toulouse-Lautrec’s hues, both somber and bright,
would join or jar to make a mood just right.       
He’d talk of wealthy clients and gallery shows
while I could study his techniques with paint. 
He studied me and loved my breasts, my hair,
my thighs, my openness to him. I dared
to love that rich midget with no restraint.
When he refused to marry me, my feigned
suicide didn’t change his mind.  
But what I learned while posing, I combined
with my good eye, instinctive and untrained.
I’d use my wits (and likely my libido)
to paint in oils, with honesty my credo.

I painted nude women by my credo.
When I showed Degas my work, he praised
me with, “Madame, you’re one of us!” That raised
my nerve; like those Montmartre men, I’d show
my art—although I’d wish my name need not
be printed next to ‘woman artist,’ a tag
suggesting Other like a warning flag. 
I’m already Other in my lot    
as Bastard-with-a-Bastard history.
Will I be known for art or just my life
of scandal? I never stayed a bougeois wife,
as two would always tangle into three;
our pacts permitting infidelity
could not prevent one partner’s jealousy.

His cryptic music vented jealousy;
Eric Satie was moody, odd, hysteric—
and amusing, in and out of bed. Eric
and Paul Mousis loved me zealously
and it was bound to chafe, our double link.
Mousis was rich; Satie holed up in one 
squalid room. He slowly came undone
without me to himself—he took to drink
till drink took him. Maurice, by then eighteen,     
also drank. Since he was prone to rage
and smashing things since an early age,
Maman would feed him wine to calm such scenes.
When briefly sober, it was to me he came—
I treasured hearing Maman as my name.

Of course Maurice Utrillo made his name
with me his mother-teacher and his Papa
(I tell you now) Pierre-Auguste Renoir!  
Maurice was barely sane, but all the same,
prolific and successful in his art.
His painter colleague André, with brains and flair,
had tireless desire in our affair;
our turbulent trio could not live apart.
With André as our agent, income flowed— 
I once took fifty children to the circus . . .    
Montmartre beggars crowded round to work us . . .              
we’d help out any artist friend who owed.
The stream of money later dried to drought,
but while it flowed I bloomed by giving out.

Too soon I knew my bloom was giving out—
I missed men’s wide-eyed stares, their swiveled heads.
André, still youthful, strayed to other beds;
Maurice would drink or sit around and pout. 
We three unraveled into separate ways.
Instead of painting nudes I painted flowers;
they didn’t sell but brightened up the hours
of living alone, inviting in malaise,
till I found Gazi. This young, exotic man
takes care of me and listens to my stories,
roughly true—my slights, successes, glories.
I’m seventy-two. I’ll end where I began,
a bastard bitch whose art was bold and right.
My pride and grit leave little room for spite.

*****

Here is what the judge for the 2024 Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Contest wrote:
Praise for the winning sonnet crown: Among a strong group of finalists, “Roughly True” distinguished itself across the board—in form, in voice, in message, in grace. After reading these seven sonnets in the voice of French painter Suzanne Valadon, I felt as if I had just taken short courses in poetic form, meter, rhyme, and art history, all expertly and candidly delivered by the fully realized persona of an accomplished, but overshadowed figure, one exquisitely resurrected here in verse.
~Dan Albergotti, Judge

Barbara Lydecker Crane writes: “I was surprised and thrilled to win this contest, and further pleased that the judge seemed to recognize the same strength of character in Suzanne Valadon that I did. The more I researched her life and work, the more I felt I actually knew this gritty woman a bit, despite our wildly different lives. As I get older I find I am more interested in writing about others than myself. My latest book, You Will Remember Me (Able Muse), is a collection of persona poems about portrait artists and their works. I am currently writing a new series of persona poems, this time about landscape artists and their works. This time, rather than writing all sonnets, each poem takes a different form; but all (so far) are in rhyme and meter. That seems fitting both for older times and for the craft and musicality I strive for, to befit the art that I hope to see with these poems one day, perhaps in a new book. And there is something about writing in form that, to me, is exactly like framing a picture. What a difference that makes; it says “completed,” and adds its own panache to the art.”

Photo: “The Abandoned Doll by Suzanne Valadon-1921” by mary holman is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

A poem’s origins: Robert Burns, ‘A Red, Red Rose’

Leave a reply

O my luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

*****

January 25th being the birthday of Robert Burns (and the opportunity for a Burns Night celebration), it seems the right day to post an interesting fact that I was unfamiliar with until reading a 1964 Canadian high school poetry text book: ‘A Red, Red Rose’ was fashioned from three distinct songs that Burns had heard in the Highlands of Scotland. Part of each song was reworked by him into a single poem:

(Song 1)
Her cheeks are like the roses
That blossom fresh in June;
O, she’s like a new-strung instrument
That’s newly put in tune.

(Song 2)
The seas they shall run dry,
And rocks melt into sands
Then I’ll love you still, my dear,
When all these things are done.

(Song 3)
Altho’ I go a thousand miles
I vow thy face to see,
Altho’ I go ten thousand miles,
I’ll come again to thee, dear love,
I’ll come again to thee.

Wikipedia (as often) is a good place to look for more information, and here is an extensive quotation from its article on the poem:

Sources
Burns is best understood as a compiler or a redactor of “A Red, Red Rose” rather than its author. F.B. Snyder wrote that Burns could take “childish, inept” sources and turn them into magic, “The electric magnet is not more unerring in selecting iron from a pile of trash than was Burns in culling the inevitable phrase or haunting cadence from the thousands of mediocre possibilities.”

One source that is often cited for the song is a Lieutenant Hinches’ farewell to his sweetheart, which Ernest Rhys asserts is the source for the central metaphor and some of its best lines. Hinches’ poem, “O fare thee well, my dearest dear”, bears a striking similarity to Burns’s verse, notably the lines which refer to “ten thousand miles” and “Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear”.

A ballad originating from the same period entitled “The Turtle Dove” also contains similar lines, such as “Though I go ten thousand mile, my dear” and “Oh, the stars will never fall down from the sky/Nor the rocks never melt with the sun”. Of particular note is a collection of verse dating from around 1770, The Horn Fair Garland, which Burns inscribed, “Robine Burns aught this buik and no other”. A poem in this collection, “The loyal Lover’s faithful promise to his Sweet-heart on his going on a long journey” also contains similar verses such as “Althou’ I go a thousand miles” and “The day shall turn to night, dear love/And the rocks melt in the sun”.

An even earlier source is the broadside ballad “The Wanton Wife of Castle-Gate: Or, The Boat-mans Delight”, which dates to the 1690s. Midway through the ballad, Burns’ first stanza can be found almost verbatim: “Her Cheeks are like the Roses, that blossoms fresh in June; O shes like some new-strung Instrument thats newly put in tune.” The provenance for such a song is likely medieval.

Thank you, Wikipedia! Love you!

And everyone: Have a good Rabbie Burns Day!

“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June” by Cait Clerin is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. The work is ‘A Summer Bouquet’ by George Elgar Hicks, 1878.

Using form: Parody with a message: Marcus Bales, ‘The Easy Way Taken’

3 Replies

Two friends diverged in a yelling mood
And sorry I could not keep them both
And still maintain one attitude,
I scrolled down through one’s page, and viewed
Some green and gold of writing growth.

Then saw the other was just as good,
With maybe even a better claim
Because so well misunderstood
Within the writing neighborhood,
Though as for that they’re much the same.

And each that morning equally laid
The blame upon the other’s back.
I had no way to tell who’d made
The first or worst move; I’m afraid
I have no feel for clique or claque.

Online I have too many friends
To keep good track, so, nothing loath
To making enemies or ends
Where there are no real dividends,
I shook my head – and blocked them both.

*****

Marcus Bales writes: “Most of the fraught relationships online are due to people not being able to write very well on one end, or read very well on the other. Stuff that in in-person conversation would go completely unnoticed is taken up as deliberate slighting. Mostly its merely awkward phrasing, or one interlocutor is already two comments past when the reply to the third interaction scrolls by and it’s misinterpreted as an instant response to the most recent reply when it was really intended to answer something two or three comments back.

“Now in the case of political disagreements where the polarized sides are already firmly established and one side or the other or both are determined to fight that’s a whole other thing. There it’s got nothing to do with how well or ill something is read or written and everything to do with the sport of online woofing.

“It’s one of those things where over the years people block and get blocked and complain to their friends about either end of it and then it all goes away pretty fast as the opportunity to be triggered — again at either end — fades with the blocking.”

(The original poem on which this parody is based, for those not familiar with it, is Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken‘. – RHL)

Not much is known about Marcus Bales except that he lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, and that his work has not been published in Poetry or The New Yorker. However his ‘51 Poems‘ is available from Amazon. He has been published in several of the Potcake Chapbooks (‘Form in Formless Times’).

Photo: “Yotsuba & Tech Support” by Liberty Photos is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Using form: Rondeau: J.D. Smith, ‘Sans Issue’

Leave a reply

What ends with me? A set of genes,
The notion that my slender means
Might turn into a son’s estate,
The hope that, at some distant date,
Beside my grave, my line convenes

To recollect my days’ routines,
My counsels, and the vanished scenes
Whose witnesses would recreate
What ends with me:

The consciousness that struts and preens
In holding that its passing means
An altering of our species’ fate,
My thought possessed of untold weight.
Yet, on that thought, the question leans–
What ends with me?

*****

J.D. Smith writes: “After reaching a certain age and making certain commitments, I found myself coming to grips with never being a parent. As in other instances of following form, the repetitions of the rondeau gave me a way to enclose and develop my response to the situation.”

J.D. Smith has published six books of poetry, most recently the light verse collection Catalogs for Food Lovers, and he has received a Fellowship in Poetry from the United States National Endowment for the Arts. This poem is from The Killing Tree (Finishing Line Press, 2016). Smith’s first fiction collection, Transit, was published in December 2022. His other books include the essay collection Dowsing and Science, and his seventh collection, The Place That Is Coming to Us, will be published by Broadstone Books in 2025. Smith works in Washington, DC, where he lives with his wife Paula Van Lare and their rescue animals.
X: @Smitroverse

Photo: “Creating a meaningful and fulfilling life without children #sketchnotes #gatewaywomen #jodyday” by etcher67 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.