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Naming the Unnamed

by Grant Clauser

Sometimes we write poems to put words and names to things there aren’t words for. Poems are often a way we describe feelings that can’t easily be expressed any other way. Think of those common social media posts that begin with: TFW (that feeling when), which are then followed by some description of circumstances, such as TFW you’re so desperate for milk in your coffee that you start eyeing up the sour cream. (I hope no one’s ever that desperate).

Thinking of poems as TFW posts can help get you over the hump of that first line, that first image.

In fact, there’s a whole website, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, devoted to naming feelings that didn’t previously have names. For example, wytai:  a feature of modern society that suddenly strikes you as absurd and grotesque—like zoos, milk-drinking or life insurance.

Here are two ways you can use the idea of unnamed feelings in poems.

First, try a poem based on the TFW (that feeling when) approach. Think of how you feel in a certain place, at a certain time, and write out the first line something like a Twitter post (you probably want to cut the line out of the draft later):

For example: TFW you reach a place in the woods where all traffic sounds disappear and all you hear are birds and your own footsteps.

Then describe it in the poem:

and it’s not so much the quiet you notice,

or the lack of trucks along the highway

heading out of state, but how loud the quiet

world is, how much the sparrows have to say

to the woodpeckers, what the chipmunks mean

when they shake their tails in dry leaves,

and when you close your eyes even the sun

scratching through the trees to finger your shoulder

seems to be saying something you needed to hear

today, of all days, especially.

Second (or first–there’s no wrong order to this), choose a word from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and try to write a poem based on the definition. Describe the scene where that feeling takes place, what it does to your body, how the world looks and smells while you’re experiencing it.

Or, you could invent a new word for that feeling. For the poem above I combined the Latin word for silent (tacet) with the German word for cacophony (kakophonie) and came up with Tacetokophonie, which I think is what I’ll call that poem if I ever finish it.

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Grant Clauser is the author of five books including Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven (winner of the Codhill Press Poetry Prize), Reckless Constellations, and The Magicians Handbook. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Cortland Review, Tar River Poetry, The Literary Review and others. He works as an editor and teaches at Rosemont College.

Poetry Prompt: Using Anaphora as Your Guide

by Grant Clauser

I was watching a movie that took place where snowfalls are measured in feet and the world goes dark for months at a time. The people in this movie still needed to get around their farm, so they built rope guides from the back door to the barn and from the barn to the feed shed, etc. This way each time they ventured outside into a blank canvas of snow and darkness they still had something to hold onto, a guide to keep them going in one direction.

Some poetry techniques are like that, a thing to grab onto and follow. One of my favorites is anaphora: the repetition of a word or phrase, usually at the beginning of a line or beginning of a sentence. For the writer, it’s a kind of handrail to get you started and keep you going in the same direction. Or think of it as steppingstones. Each repeat of the key word is another stone along the path of your poem. For the reader, it triggers our attraction to pattern recognition—we respond to things we’ve heard before and get caught up in the regularity of it.

One of the most famous practitioners of anaphora was Walt Whitman. See how he used the repeated phrase “Just as you” in this section of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.”

 

It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,

I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,

Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,

Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d,

Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried,

Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

 

There’s a chant-like feeling to the repetition, like an incantation or a prayer.

In the next example, Gregory Pardlo uses repetition of the phrase “I was born” to allow a sort-of story to unfold.

 

Written by Himself

By Gregory Pardlo

I was born in minutes in a roadside kitchen a skillet

whispering my name. I was born to rainwater and lye;

I was born across the river where I

was borrowed with clothespins, a harrow tooth,

broadsides sewn in my shoes. I returned, though

it please you, through no fault of my own,

pockets filled with coffee grounds and eggshells.

I was born still and superstitious; I bore an unexpected burden.

I gave birth, I gave blessing, I gave rise to suspicion.

I was born abandoned outdoors in the heat-shaped air,

air drifting like spirits and old windows.

I was born a fraction and a cipher and a ledger entry;

I was an index of first lines when I was born.

I was born waist-deep stubborn in the water crying

ain’t I a woman and a brother I was born

to this hall of mirrors, this horror story I was

born with a prologue of references, pursued

by mosquitoes and thieves, I was born passing

off the problem of the twentieth century: I was born.

I read minds before I could read fishes and loaves;

I walked a piece of the way alone before I was born

 

Notice how with each repeat of the phrase he reveals a little more, as if each use opens a new window onto the same person.

When I’m stuck in a writing rut I’ll turn to anaphora as my guide rope. Sometimes I’ll just randomly grab a key word or phrase out of the air, or sometimes I’ll use some tried and true simple ones—single starter words like “If,” Look,” or “Because” can work well. Or you can be more inventive and come up with a phrase like “In grandma’s yard…” or “After the flood.”

Try one of each, an anaphora poem beginning with a single word and one beginning with a repeated phrase. To make it extra interesting, try varying the phrase slightly halfway through the poem and see where that takes you.

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Grant Clauser is the author of five books including Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven (winner of the Codhill Press Poetry Prize), Reckless Constellations, and The Magicians Handbook. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Cortland Review, Tar River Poetry, The Literary Review and others. He works as an editor and teaches at Rosemont College.

Take This Transmission For Instance

by Rosa Sophia

POET_Rosa

 

I have no vehicle for this T18 four-speed transmission

Dana Model 300 transfer case.

 

This transmission

 

sat in my father’s shed after his four-wheeler crushed him

in the Pennsylvania woods, sat in the dark after a helicopter

carried my father off the mountain, waited in silence

as my father fell comatose, this transmission ignored

by my stepmother as she sold and gave away my father’s tools

couldn’t be bothered with when my family pulled the plug

couldn’t be reconciled the day I never flew to my father’s funeral.

It sat in this dark, dusty shed for eight years after my father’s death.

 

Now it doesn’t fit anywhere.

 

It couldn’t be lifted by my brother Mark in a rainstorm

in the mud two-handed, couldn’t be budged by thought,

ingenuity or reason, 240 pounds of cast iron needed a truck,

my cousin Barry behind the wheel with chains and a trailer.

 

Caked in grease it came to me with loosened bolts

dirt inside after my cousin inspected it closely, put it in neutral,

gave me advice I can’t remember on shifting gears, while together

we stabbed a perfect circle in my new car’s rear fender

with the spline of this transmission as it hung from a thick chain

like a locket, a reminder, a note as if to say, this doesn’t fit anywhere

 

before I drove it in the back of my new car 1200 miles

to Florida dragging gas mileage.

 

Now this dirty transmission hangs from a chain in my garage

where I twirl it after I dragged it from the trunk of my new car

crashed it into my knee and scraped my skin, slammed my wrist

the next day it’s swollen and gray, arm scraped, elbow bruised

dragged the hulking metal on the fender, added marks to my perfect circle

 

extra dings, a reminder, a note as if to say, take this transmission for instance

 

now it doesn’t fit anywhere.

Rosa Sophia grew up in Pa. and is working toward an MFA in Creative Writing at FIU in Miami. Her poem, “Take This Transmission for Instance,” won Runner-Up in the 2020 FIU Student Literary Awards. She holds a degree in Automotive Technology, and is also the managing editor of Mobile Electronics magazine.

Pentecostal

by Steve Burke

POET_pic

The middle-of-the-night ride through the fogged-in hills,

the way the road can’t help but follow.

Curves the truth headlights try to defy.

 

The way the filament of infection

is creeping up my daughter’s arm: the first illustration

in a monograph on spider toxins.

 

The way something seems to be speaking through you

even when you don’t want it to.

Steve Burke’s poems have been published in a number of journals & magazines; has had two chapbooks – After The Harvest & For Now – published by Moonstone Press. He worked for many years as an obstetric nurse; lives in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia.

Espresso

by Steve Burke

POET_pic

“This world is the other world too.”

– Tomas Tranströmer

 

Sometimes the first sip is enough: shadow

ribboning into the depths, the casting

of a spindly Giacometti striding-figure.

Skeleton of music, of imagination, out

on a lawn I would keep trimmed religiously,

a caretaker sunburnt and weathered

in the name of Stillness – a stillness

that makes a case for inherent grace, that

reminds us how we move through this world,

a non-stop exchange of touch.

 

Alberto, you’ve confirmed what I’ve long suspected:

the soul resembles bone. Hard but darker,

coarsely-surfaced enough to skin knuckles.

But which, if the ground begins to shake,

can be gripped as if embracing another ‘you’ –

the one you’re glad to see, the one who

runs next to your speeding train, taps your window,

then gives a little wave before peeling off, laughing,

toward the other world.

Steve Burke’s poems have been published in a number of journals & magazines; has had two chapbooks – After The Harvest & For Now – published by Moonstone Press. He worked for many years as an obstetric nurse; lives in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia.

Letting Go of God

by Claire Scott

POET_Clair

My mother thinks she’s a saint.

Her website promises spiritual guidance,

thinner thighs and a cure for infected cuticles.

 

She calls herself Worship Warrior,

offering prayer groups in our shabby living room

filled with plastic Jesuses and plates of Ritz Crackers.

 

I sit on the floor, my mitt on my lap

with its soft smell of leather and I dream about

home runs while the women drone on about redemption

 

And sad-eyed Jesuses stare down

from their crosses. Hours of boring prayers instead

of stealing bases, hours of hymns instead of pitching no hitters.

 

My first tooth fell out when I was five, I tucked

it under my pillow and the next day found a dollar

that looked like the torn dollar my mother had yesterday.

 

Each Christmas we left cookies and milk

for Santa, waited for hooves on the roof, until

I realized all the tags were in my mother’s handwriting.

 

I hear my mother guarantee everyone a seat next to God.

Dots connect. My heart crumples once more.

I grab my glove and head to the park.

Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and  Until I Couldn’t.

It can be dangerous

by Varsha Kukafka

Mom

It can be dangerous to wake up in the morning.

And go downstairs.

Or back upstairs.

It can be dangerous to read a poem.

Or answer the phone. Or care.

Or get on the highway. Or say goodbye.

Yes, it can be dangerous.

It can be dangerous to look at the sky. Or ask a question. Or cry.

Or open a letter. Or answer the door. Or buy a ticket.

Or feel forlorn. Or feel.

It can be dangerous to read a poem.

Or to go to the ocean. And love that smell. And feel that swell.

Or to think about telling a secret. Or tell.

It can be dangerous to keep old notebooks. Or throw them away.

Or to remember. Or forget. Or never say.

It can be dangerous to go somewhere new. Or never go looking.

Or to cook. Or not cook.

It can be dangerous to read a poem.

Or go for a swim. Or a walk.

Or talk to your sister or mother or daughter or son. Or not talk.

It can be dangerous to pet a strange dog.  Or to say yes or no.

Or look in the mirror. Or sneeze.

It can be dangerous to write a poem.

It can be. It will be. It may be.

Oh yes, it can be dangerous to breathe.

It can be. It will be. It may be.

It can be dangerous to stop.

Or to start over again.

It can be dangerous.

Be dangerous.

Varsha Kukafka is a Philadelphia native who began writing poems at age six. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Salamander, Painted Bride Quarterly, The American Journal of Poetry, and elsewhere, as well as in limited edition letter press broadsides with images from her visual art. She worked professionally as a tapestry weaver and served as an assistant district attorney for twenty years.

Love Letter to South Jersey

by Maya Georgi

POET_Maya

Your kiss is a prayer

to winding back roads,

one block farms,

and the river that connects us to Philly’s humble skyline.

 

Your hands are tuscany yellow,

Jersey summer sweet corn

and sudden sunflower fields

on the way to the shore.

 

Your jet black curls swing like oak leaves

in a wild canopy,

hiding oasis wonders

and springtime bonfires.

 

Your drawl is cicadas

humming at twilight

right before their wild envelop,

a song amidst suburbia’s lull.

 

Your grenadine smile is the receding sun

warming this sliver of the Pine Barrens,

a watercolor on the Delaware

holding us golden before it sleeps.

Maya Georgi is a Latinx writer and South Jersey native. She grew up on the many bridges between Mount Laurel, NJ and Philadelphia, vacillating between suburb and city. Maya is a recent graduate from Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. She has been previously published in The Carson Review.

On the Solitary Death of Uncle Mike

Editor’s Choice: 2020 Sandy Crimmins Poetry Contest

You better hope that you’re lucky
enough to die outside like a tick-ridden
raccoon, bloating and frozen in the first
week of March, lucky enough to be
casually murdered or mowed down
on a busy street by a hulking heap
of American steel, then they just might
tag and take you to the cold heart of the city
morgue where at least you could rest
like old plans for some benignly useful
city project in a tidy municipal drawer,
or you better hope your loved ones have
twenty-one-hundred bucks on them
when the ambulance arrives, futilely,
because if you happen to die inside
your family rowhome in the city
of brotherly fuck you and no one has
the cash on them to pay the undertaker
to come, they’ll leave you without
a second thought, lifeless and decaying
on your plaid couch, because after all
even when you are finally incapable
of doing anything, you better have
the money to grease the wheels of
America’s rust-bucket free-enterprise
shit-show of callousness, I got mine-
get yours, godblessamerica, too stupid
to get ourselves out of sad festering
state of pigheaded dysfunction or
you’re fucked for good. Capiche?

Sean Webb has received many honors for his work including fellowships from The Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Utah Arts Council. Most recently he was awarded the Passages North Neutrino prize, 1st place in the Gemini Magazine 2017 Poetry Open, and 2nd place in the 2017 Public Poetry contest. His chapbook, The Constant Parades, was selected by Afaa Weaver as a runner-up in the 2017 Moonstone Poetry chapbook competition. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and in 2005 he served as Poet Laureate of Montgomery County Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in dozens of publications including Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Nimrod, Mudfish, The Quarterly, The Seattle Review, Greensboro Review, and the anthology Frances and Clare in Poetry.