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Welcome to
But Does it Rhyme?
We're a small, but
hopefully growing, band of poets who like to
talk about our craft and share what we've
written. We'll highlight favorite poets, review
new books, and explore the process of writing
poetry from inspiration to conclusion. (We might
venture into essays and short fiction, too.) We
hope you'll like our blog — and contribute your
own thought and poems.
Sally Zakariya, Poetry Editor
Richer Resources Publications
Charan Sue Wollard
(LivermoreLit)
Kevin Taylor
(Poet-ch'i)
Sherry Weaver Smith
(SherrysKnowledgeQuest)
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| ARCHIVES |
Warm-Hearted Observation
Sometimes a simple event can change the way you
look at things, and that seems to be what
happened to Donna Marie Merritt. In her new
chapbook
We Walk Together, Merritt remembers an
encounter with a Jamaican man selling seashells
on the beach.
You indulged in this
once-in-a-lifetime splurge
for your honeymoon
as you start your life
she says of herself in the opening poem, “Come yah!” Then, in an effective echo of these words, she says of the man:
You are his
chance-in-a-lifetime survival
for his family
as his life nears its end
Her dismissive response is to smile a “dental-plan smile” and stir her drink. “What have I done? / What have I become?” she asks, an insight that informs these poems, each one a small tale of compassion and empathy.
Accessible, direct, clear—there’s no mistaking the message here. From the 12-year-old drug dealer seeking to deal with abandonment to the homeless man noticed more for his absence—“I like to think / He’s home with wife”—than his presence, the subjects of these poems are the people we all too often ignore. Pay attention, Merritt seems to be saying, these people are people too.
A former teacher, Merritt is the author of four previous books of poetry and numerous children’s books. Her warm-hearted observation of others—her fellow feeling for the disadvantaged and downtrodden—will repay the reader’s attention.
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Holiday Spirit
December at the Muslim’s House
Paper stars shine in the next-door window
red and green for Christmas, lacy white
snowflakes
At the table our neighbor and his wife ring in
the holidays, wrapping presents, cutting out
decorations
double-fold paper, snip out diamonds … fancy
shapes … scraps falling free, patterning
the floor
Their son practices his piano lessons
harking to herald angels, calling all
the faithful
No stars and carols in our house this month
no wreath or tree festooned with lights
but still
frost drew crystalline stars on our window
this morning, bringing icy sky down
to our room
bringing my Muslim man and me our own
winter nest for dreaming the oneness
of the world
Merry Christmas!
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Mapping the Poem
Poets are word people first and foremost, but visual images can spark a poem or even provide a kind of roadmap for its development. Of course we often write about what we see, but I hadn’t thought of using pictures to help shape the poem. North Carolina poet Jo Barbara Taylor has taken that concept to heart. Taylor, whose poem “Genevieve” and recipe for poppy seed cake were in
Joys of the Table, recently sent me this essay on poem mapping:Consider the Process
Not long ago, I signed up for a class in Mapping, Collage, and Writing. I write, and I've been experimenting in mixed media. I didn't know exactly what "mapping" was, but I was sure the class would be just what I was looking for. On the first day I toted the suggested art supplies in a margarita bucket. We didn't use them at all. Instead we wrote about why we wanted to be in the class and what we expected to learn. We discussed mapping, its purpose, and how to do it.
I toted my art supplies back home, but as with all happy accidents, the concept of mapping caught my attention. It turns out just about anything can be mapped if the cartographer is inventive. I chose to map the process of writing of a poem I had begun a couple of months before on a warm night under a supermoon. I remembered the steps that resulted in the poem and, through mapping, saw how one image led to another, how random things converged.
My map is a series of pictographs (stick people and dogs, a fairly round moon, the outline of a plane headed east) connected by a path of arrows. The charting process prompted me to really think about how a poem begins, the discovery that gets one started, how it pulls in other elements (images, sounds) that become their own catalysts. The visual display of how those elements emerged and fit together provided a few “aha" moments
For me, the value of mapping is seeing where I have been. It leads me to consider how I write—where poems begin, what the beginning conjures up, what words fit and what ones don't, the images, how I rearrange, how it all comes together. Understanding where I have been may show me where I might go.
Though I do not map every poem I write, I find that when I do, I make discoveries and am able to experience the poem on its different levels. Some of those discoveries send me in new directions. (Isn't all writing the result of going off on a tangent?) I hope that I'm unconsciously bringing awareness of process to everything I write even when I don't draw the arrows. Here’s a little poem describing the process:
MAPPING
how to get from here to there
then farther
paths to explore
points on the compass roes
the legend of the trek
places you will see and see
find treasure
or kiss goodbye
Jo Barbara Taylor lives near Raleigh, NC. Her poems and academic writing have appeared in journals, magazines, anthologies and online; she leads poetry writing workshops through Duke Continuing Education. Of four chapbooks, the most recent, High Ground, was published by Main Street Rag, 2013. A full length collection is forthcoming in spring 2016 from Chatter House Press.
The Wisdom of Laureates When some 20 current and former poet laureates got together recently in Manassas, Virginia, ideas and inspiration were on the agenda. The occasion was “In the Company of Laureates,” a symposium sponsored by the Poetry Society of Virginia and Write by the Rails, a Chapter of the Virginia Writers Club. My friend poet Jacqueine Jules sat in and noted these words of wisdom:
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· Heightened language that distils emotional truth—that’s poetry.
·
Poetry should suggest but
not be ambiguous.
·
Write what you are in the
midst of. Words rub against each other in a new
alchemy.
·
Every poem is an
experiment. You should always be figuring out
something new, a new discovery.
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What Are You Writing?
Why should we get all the bylines? Submit your
latest poem—just one for now—and we’ll publish
the poems we like best in an upcoming blog post.
Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please
let us know if the poem is accepted or published
elsewhere. Send your poem, plus a few lines
about yourself, in the body of an e-mail message
to:
poetryeditor@RicherResourcesPublications.com