Hello from rainy Michigan, my little year-end sales! This week our source is Blizzard of One, a 1998 collection by Mark Strand. This book introduced me to the de Chirico form, which is just a pantoum using tercets instead of quatrains. They're difficult but can produce a very lovely poem.
Mark Strand was a former U.S. Poet Laureate. This collection won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Along with the de Chiricos, I particularly liked the long poem Delirium Waltz. Find more of his poetry and information about him HERE. It should open in a new window.
What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words from the List provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then waltz into 2025 secure in the knowledge that you have created something--that's rarer than you might imagine. Give yourself some kudos!
And now, your List!
crystals
dancing
deposits
disguise
empire
flakes
flowerless
goodbye
limit
masterpiece
moonlight
motels
panic
phrases
shines
silence
starfields
tremendous
unbearable
visitor
I like this list. Maybe the silent muse will like it too! ;)
ReplyDeleteI hope that it will!
DeleteNot managed a de Chirico this time just an offering of free verse...because, inflation. ;) Thanks for the assist, Shay.
DeleteI love former Poet Laureates who are “recognized as one of the premier American poets of his generation” who I have never heard of, not even once, LOL! This always makes me wonder how narrow my reading has been (or how particular), despite my best efforts. OK, Mark Strand it is!
ReplyDeleteThey hide, these laureates, in burrows way out in the woods or desert. They are extremely shy.
DeleteI had not encountered this form, so challenged myself to try it. Not ideal, but something came, in response to the cool list.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading yours, Sherry. Even an attempt is not easy!
DeleteThank you for another list and a happy and peaceful New Year to all - Jae
ReplyDeleteHNY Jae!
DeleteThought I would play with the words and see what would come. Smiles. On another note, I Finished Light, Coming back a few days ago. An excellent read...one of my favorites in a while. Such a well-written story with interesting characters!
ReplyDeleteI'm so pleased that you got and enjoyed the book, Mary!
DeleteThanks for the inspiration Shay.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure, Susie!
Delete"Weed word" is my own creation. I go off script on a lot of things. lol
DeleteAmazing (to us old folks maybe) how fast even the distinguished vanish from the melting horizon ... Strand was one of the Hunky Male Poets of the late 20th, along with Galway Kinnell and WS Merwin --studs in fields of swooning poppies. Only Merwin's verse has survived this far (and, I suspect, some while longer), which tells me that poetry doesn't want good-lookin' tuna, it wants tuna that tastes good ... Love of poetry's the drug, poets are just the crackpipes thereof. I took Strand's gaze from a distant poem and got to work with its hallows and harrows gazing into the satanic mill of my own.
ReplyDeletePoetry don' like the trendy or the gussied up. She wants to dig out the truth and hold up the beating heart of it.
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