Once we were all one tribe, our branch that broke from those who now are bonobos and chimps; but wandered off when restlessness awoke, went poking into any land we’d glimpse, new seas, new clime. Now: family reunion time!
We’ve found each other, these last centuries, gone to each other’s homes for ill or good, marrying cousins from across those seas in worlds of travel, music, football, food: sing! ring! chant! chime! It’s family reunion time!
Aggressive individuals still fight, still work to drag their group into a brawl, but no one any longer has the might to be successful when confronting all. War’s now a crime. It’s family reunion time!
We merge by TV, plane and internet, we dye and body-mod against the flow of currents mixing us to one fixed set, and build a culture of both yes and no, crass and sublime. It’s family reunion time!
Once more we’re all a family; once more some will roam out across the galaxy, and we will grow apart, till on some shore of spiral arms we’ll meet, first disagree… shift paradigm… then… family reunion time!
*****
Ancient history and far-future science fiction are all part of the same story, the same continuum, of equal interest to me. This poem was published in Snakeskin 303, i.e. February 2023 – thanks, George Simmers! (And the good news is that the Snakeskin Archive – decades of good poetry – is now functioning again!)
Reading this do not expect An unconditional respect
This poem is an unsafe space You may be told things to your face
This poem may not feel the need To be polite about your creed
It may not think your origins Excuse your weaknesses or sins
It maybe will not lend its voice To validate your lifestyle choice
It may resist attempts to curb Its power to worry or disturb
It may not think its task to be To flatter your identity
Although its author’s male and white It may perhaps assert the right
To speak of gender and of race. This poem is an unsafe space
*****
George Simmers continues to be amazed and amused by the warnings that some University lecturers seem to think it essential to give their students. He writes: “Last week there was a warning that Jane Austen’s novels contain some outdated sexual attitudes. The week before that, students thinking of taking a course on tragedy needed to be told that it might contain references to violence and other disturbing themes. The week before that someone was worried that Peter Pan contained material that some students might find it hard to cope with. Why is this? Are the lecturers afraid of legal action from the helicopter parents who are the plague of some University departments today? Or do they really feel that their students are all delicate blossoms? Or do the warnings reflect their own discomfort with the canonical material they are obliged to teach? In the past people often did not think or behave the way that responsible modern people think they should have. It must be worrying.”
Editor’s comments: Poems written as a string of rhyming couplets can quickly start to feel mechanical and boring, but they are very effective when a straightforward list of ideas is being presented, as in this poem by Simmers. ‘The Latest Decalogue‘ by Arthur Hugh Clough is a classic of good usage (and also a classic of “unsafe space”).
George Simmers used to be a teacher; now he spends much of his time researching literature written during and after the First World War. He has edited Snakeskin since 1995. It is probably the oldest-established poetry zine on the Internet. His work appears in several Potcake Chapbooks. ‘Trigger Warning’ is from his ‘Old and Bookish‘ collection of poems. https://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/ http://www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk/
Old Leonard said it straight: ‘Let’s not pretend That death is anything except the end. You die, you’re done; you’re fed to flames or worms.’ He’d make his point in no uncertain terms, And Jess recalls the loud and booming laughter With which he greeted talk of the hereafter. ‘The here and now is all that we have got; It’s real; the vicar’s fairytales are not.’ She thinks of how he’d neatly phrase a joke; She clearly hears the forceful way he spoke, And that ‘Oh but surely…’, with a dying fall Which clinched an argument once and for all His words come back to her today as clear As if the ancient atheist was here. It’s just as though he’s with her in the room Though he’s spent years now mouldering in his tomb.
She smiles to think of him, and smiles again To think how he’s a fixture in her brain. She even caught herself the other day Clinching her point in just old Leonard’s way, With ‘Oh but surely…’ Should she then infer A trace of him is still alive in her? Well — a man of such large humour and such drive — Why be surprised if something should survive?
Now, ten years on, Jess too is dead and gone, But some things have a way of lingering on. That ‘Oh but surely…’ with that intonation Has somehow reached another generation. Jane, Jess’s daughter, last week floored the board Of the college with it, and so neatly scored Her point that they in unison agreed To fund her project. Phrasing’s what you need, And Jane knows that, but what she doesn’t know, Is that trick came from Leonard long ago, And Leonard learned it many years before From his Latin teacher. So, how many more Homes will this little trick of speaking find As it nips cleverly from mind to mind?
Though death is death, and funerals are for tears, Some things can oddly echo through the years.
*****
George Simmers has written many poems “about people dealing with what life has given them, for better or for worse.” Fifteen of them are collected in his book ‘Old, Old’. His other recent and more diverse collection is ‘Old and Bookish’.
George Simmers used to be a teacher; now he spends much of his time researching literature written during and after the First World War. He has edited Snakeskin since 1995. It is probably the oldest-established poetry zine on the Internet. His work appears in several Potcake Chapbooks. https://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/ http://www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk/
O it is a wide winter, windy with gales, Hard, harsh and horizonless, cold, And I can do nothing more this year But sharpen the swords, mend the gear, Mend cloth, patch sails, Listen to tales told by the old, Listen to horses stamp in stalls. Feel the blood in my veins going nowhere, Feel the river halt, the bay iced in, The sun brief and thin The food dried, smoked, salt And no fresh fruit, fresh meat, No fresh lands, fresh goods, No fresh deeds, fresh girls, No seas running and blood running And people running and tales running… For what is the good of inaction Save to prepare for fresh action; And what is the good of fresh action Save for fresh tales; And what is the good of fresh tales Save for the glory and the name And the fame that lives past the death rattle For the sword singer, Word winger, The Bard of Battle?
*****
I feel the same fascinated connection to my Viking ancestors that I feel to my even earlier chimp-like forbears and modern chimp and bonobo cousins. All have social networks, hierarchies, politics, violence and ways of overcoming violence, cherished families, a sense of fairness and ways of cheating. I suspect the Viking gods would be far easier for chimps and bonobos to accept than modern scientific understanding could ever be. I greatly enjoy Vikings, chimps and bonobos, recognise that a lot in me comes from them, and am thankful to have outgrown much of their limitations. (And to neo-Nazis who think they are Vikings, I say this: “You’re not; don’t be so stupid.”)
This rambling semi-formal poem was first published in Snakeskin; thanks, George Simmers!
It is only appropriate to end this chapbook on summoning poems with gratitude that anything at all is achieved. We generate thoughts and ideas so constantly and easily that we don’t even wonder how we do it – just as we don’t think how it is that our legs are able to carry us forward when we decide to walk, let alone how our stomachs know whether to digest or reject the things we swallow. Thoughts and ideas come from somewhere and something, an internal process that is being constantly fed from the outside… but quite what that process involves we rarely consider.
This work is an attempt at describing the various stages of writing a poem: being aware of a creative mood, telling your subconscious that you want more ideas by making an effort to record and use the ideas you get, focusing your creativity by reading within the genre you want to write, developing your technical skills in the craft that that genre offers, and building your piece from author to audience with all necessary components and as much elegance as possible… and then recognising that it won’t always be successful, but that it is all a miracle that anything is achieved at all, and you can (and should) be grateful for that.
The opinions and their expression are of course personal and idiosyncratic. YMMV.
This series of poems was written and strung together over a few months in late 2016. I sent it to George Simmers, hoping for comments on such matters as whether the pieces were too disparate in style, whether the rudest of them was too offensive and so on – but his only response was that he would publish it as an e-chapbook, and so it appeared in Snakeskin 236 in January 2017. I’ve toned down the first four lines of Poem 10: ‘Inspiration 1’ for these posts, and I’ve continued to tinker with issues such as English vs American spelling, and whether or not every line should begin with a capital letter. Hopefully the Snakeskin Archive will be restored, and the original chapbook will be available again.
Thank you for reading this far. I hope you found some value in it? I welcome any comments you have.
Of the various publication opportunities specifically for formal/traditional poets, three are taking submissions until July 15, and four other formal-friendly publications have submission deadlines of July 31. There is no submission fee for any of them. Here they are – the links are to the submission requirements:
Able Muse (magazine) Deadline, July 15. Submit one to five metrical poems (or one long poem), rhymed or unrhymed. (A poem of more than 40 lines is considered a “long” poem.) All types of formal poetry are welcome, from traditional to boundary-pushing. We want well-crafted poems that use meter skillfully and imaginatively (with rhyme or not), in a contemporary idiom that reads as naturally as free verse.
Able Muse Press (book-length manuscript) Deadline, July 15. At least 50 pages of poems – same preferences as for the magazine. There’s NO reading fee. “We respond within 9 months or so.”
Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest Deadline, July 15. Categories: 1 Traditional Sonnet – Shakespearean or Petrarchan 2 Modern Sonnet Open to All. Free. Enter only one poem in either Category #1 or #2, or one poem in each. Prizes for both categories: First Prize: $50. Second Prize: $30. Third Prize: $20.
Formal-friendly magazines, themed and with July 31 cut-offs:
Snakeskin (short poem issue, nothing over 10 lines). At the link, read the tabs on the left side for submission details. Submit earlier than the very end of July, as publication is scheduled for August 1st. Editor: George Simmers.
Allegro (theme: Freedom) Four poems max. Editor: Sally Long.
Amsterdam Quarterly (theme: City and/or Country) Two poems max. Editor: Bryan R. Monte.
Rat’s Ass Review (unthemed – the editor publishes whatever he damn well feels like publishing, as you might have guessed.) Five poems max. Editor: Roderick Bates.
In addition:
Rhizome Press (not to be confused with Rhizome Books) publishes anthologies of formal verse. Editor Beth Houston is taking submissions of up to 10 sonnets for Extreme Sonnets III, and up to 10 “extreme formal poems of at least twelve lines” for Extreme Formal Poems II. The submission deadlines are not given on the website, but will presumably follow on the publication of Extreme Sonnets II which is currently in the works.
UPDATE from Beth Houston, 11 July 2022: “At long last Extreme Sonnets II is published and available on Amazon! Will there be an Extreme Sonnets III? Likely, but not for awhile. In the meantime I’ll be putting together an anthology of love sonnets—extreme sonnets, of course. I’ll post submission details on the Rhizome Press website soon. All sonnets included in Extreme Sonnets, Extreme Sonnets II, and Extreme Formal Poems will automatically be considered. Stay tuned for more details.”
The men in suits, the men in African robes, The men in jeans and sports shirts, The local men in headdresses and thobes, None look out of place. The women in abayas, saris, or long skirts, The women in slacks and blouses (Some with, some without headscarves, depends on race) None look out of place. But the anonymous silent women faceless in veils, And the noisy drunk in-your-face blatant females In shorts that barely cover their barelys, They look alien even in a Gulf airport. The extremes have to be more extreme here to stand out– Either private as houses, Or provocative past any “careless”– But it can be done, with thought.
*****
I wish I had been able to find a photo showing the wonderful range of clothing styles that you encounter in the truly global airports of the Middle East, where travellers on the long-haul carriers change planes en route to Sydney, Tokyo, Mumbai, Johannesburg, Paris, Houston… Your clothing and behaviour has to be extremely extreme if it is to stand out.
This poem was written in Bahrain’s Manama Airport in 2015, published in Snakeskin a year later. It’s not really “formal” verse, is it? 😦
We had no destination ever, from birth, save into the ultimate ocean, or ultimate fire, or ultimate earth. Now we have not quite so ultimate ice. For now, it will have to suffice.
The chance of reanimation from cryonic suspension may be small, but still greater than the chance of reanimation after cremation or burial in land or at sea. And I guess we now have a fifth option – ending up off-planet, adrift in space. But in effect that will be a variant on “not-quite-so-ultimate ice”. In space you’d end up near Absolute Zero, as with cryonics – but whereas with cryonics there is the miniscule hope of eventual reanimation, in space your ultimate fate would be that of all space debris: drifting for millions of years until burning up into a star or planet, or getting sucked into a black hole.
Life, death, quite fascinating. Not many options for changing the outcome, though various billionaires are throwing some of their money at the search for immortality, as people have done since at least the time of the pharaohs and early Chinese emperors. And why not? think it’s “just science fiction”? For thousands of years we used to dream we could fly to the moon, and that happened eventually…
This poem was originally published in Snakeskin #274, July 2020. Thanks, George Simmers!
Religion starts as trying to explain, Progresses to high priests’ financial gain. I’ve tried religions, and seen through them all; Desire is the last domino to fall.
Explore the world – well, fifty lands’ enough; Novelty fades; folks are just folks; stuff’s stuff. I’ve seen both rich and poor round this blue ball; Desire is the last domino to fall.
And I’ve gone barefoot, and I’ve gone first class: The trinkets pall beside bare feet on grass. Markets go up and down and they too pall; Desire is the last domino to fall.
The fearful right, the overtrusting left: Politics, history, both of sense bereft. Reagan’s road leads to Trump and hits a wall; Desire is the last domino to fall.
My arts expression’s been in writing verse– The arse end, clearly, of the universe. There’s rarely silver in the nets I haul; Desire is the last domino to fall.
I’ve had my fill of sex – but when I see A vibrant youth, my thoughts are freshly free. I want, though why I want I mayn’t recall… Desire is the last domino to fall.
This poem, published by George Simmers in April’s Snakeskin, flowed straight out of a comment by Jackson Browne in a Guardian article on his latest album, ‘Downhill From Everywhere’. My thanks go to Mindy Watson, creator of poems in every form she hears of, for identifying this one as a kyrielle. I hadn’t set out to write within a specific form, I merely wrote a poem that used a repeating last line of the stanza. And this highlights one of the things about form: form follows function, in poetry as in architecture. Metre, rhyme scheme, line length, all these are chosen for their appropriateness for the mood and content of the poem. Ballads, sonnets, couplets, villanelles, each type finds its best use in a different situation, each evolved to provide a good expression of a different mood, each became popular as its expressive strength was demonstrated.
A kyrielle seems to me a natural poetic construct for an expression of prayer or despair or wherever all avenues of thought lead back obsessively to the same essential fact or wish. It was formalised in the time of the troubadours, and its name derives from the Late Latin phrase “kyrie eleison“, “Lord, have mercy”. Very appropriate.
Makaría, my girl, though you’ve heard Every word Of this myth I’ve recounted before, I implore You—indulge me again. For at last You’ve surpassed Fragile childhood’s constraints. Now hold fast And let fantasy shift into creed. You’re Persephone’s daughter; please heed Every word, I implore. You’ve surpassed
Expectations I set at your birth. From my dearth You drew bountiful joy; from disgrace You forged grace. And it’s clear that your eyes could induce Mighty Zeus To devise an elaborate ruse That would send you careening unseen Down to Hades, where I was once queen. From my dearth, you forged grace mighty Zeus—
Who, three decades ago sent me bound Underground As a chthonian bride—would aspire To acquire. Once, Demeter’s stray heart, all aglow For the beau She’d just met, allowed Zeus to sow woe. He pared back the earth’s crust, laying waste To her harvest and left me displaced Underground to acquire. For the beau
Who then claimed me, I burned seven years. Through her tears, Fair Demeter cursed Earth and repealed Springtime’s yield, Vowing Winter would linger ‘til I Bid goodbye To the underworld. Hades complied, For the innocent girl he’d once craved Was no more. As I rose, Mother waved Through her tears. Springtime’s yield bid goodbye
To its seven-year drought. But although Status quo Seemed to flourish again, when detained I’d retained Hades’ seed. It entrenched its black song For so long In my belly, no matter how wrong, The abyss still enthralled me. When eight More years passed, I spit out the innate Status quo I’d retained for so long,
And descended at twenty to reign Hell’s domain. Disavowing my schooling to seek Dark’s mystique, In the city, I stripped on a stage To assuage What convention had trapped in a cage. And I deemed each male patron a thrall On whose worship I’d draw to recall Hell’s domain—dark’s mystique. To assuage
The lacuna lost innocence spread In its stead, I sought lust, ‘til a man who’d paid much Dared to touch Me as Zeus had once touched. But his ploy To destroy My esteem served instead to deploy Comprehension. Mercurial youth Had to forfeit illusion that truth, In its stead, dared to touch—to destroy.
While these decades I’ve learned to delight In the light, I acknowledge I’ll always endure Dark’s allure. For the Hades against which I strain Lives to reign. Makaría, I’ll need not explain When, from underworld’s embers you rise And return to me, blinking your eyes In the light—dark’s allure lives to reign.
Originally appeared in Star*Line, Fall 2018
Mindy Watson writes: “‘(Under)worlds Collide,’ which originally appeared in Star*Line’s Fall 2018 issue, constitutes my most ambitious attempt at restructuring a prior creative nonfiction/memoir essay (the initial ‘Underworlds Apart: A Story for Ailie’ piece appeared in Adelaide Magazine’s online March 2017 edition) into poetic form—in this case, an 8-stanza string of linked ovillejos. While the poem follows the original memoir’s metaphorical trajectory and overarching narrative—that is, a mother leverages a well-known Greek myth’s parallels to her own coming of age story to relay a “moral” (of sorts) to her burgeoning young daughter—I wanted the compressed, verse form to read less like a dark bedtime story and more like a literary song… but without losing the original’s intensity. While in hindsight I concede that my chosen form’s line/length constraints hampered my ability to clearly align my real-world characters to their mythological counterparts (a far easier feat via prose), I believe the form’s stipulation that each terminal ovillejo line contain a convergence of previously distinct phrases conferred a sense of interconnectedness between one elapsed past and another possible future that no mere prose ever could. I applaud George Simmers for penning ‘Strip,’ which made me remember my prior manifesto, and Robin for posting it.”
Mindy Watson is a formal verse poet and federal writer who holds an MA in Nonfiction Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her poetry has appeared in venues including Snakeskin, Think Journal, the Poetry Porch, Orchards Poetry Journal, Better Than Starbucks, Eastern Structures, the Quarterday Review, and Star*Line. She’s also appeared in Sampson Low’s Potcake Poets: Form in Formless Times chapbook series and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s 2019 Dwarf Stars Anthology. You may read her work at: https://mindywatson.wixsite.com/poetryprosesite.
Form in Formless Times 