The way I see sunrays sweetly sing, and songbirds softly shine, I think it must be… mistYmuse week…
Through Trees Horizon, Inspirational Words Arising
winter sun
gentle one
subtle fun
no sunburn
year’s done
timeless pun
mistYmuse return, yet again
without pain
no disdain
still unsane*
freedom’s fane*
perhaps inane*
Y-tying m-twain*
*unsane – intentional non-word, describing state neither sane or insane.
*fane – temple. Found while looking for ‘feign’ originally!
* inane – recognition that this is ‘just’ art.
*mistYmuse – Y joining two m-words.
Bottom half changed course from:
words play
four day
Morgana Fey
greenYgrey say
The first T-20 Y-day eve is upon us. It was quite some weather day too, with the mist turning up on the last day of its two-months part of mistYmuse, and then evaporating as the sun strengthened in the afternoon, as it’s supposed to do in Mist Evaporation Week (MEW) before a pinky POP (PinkyOrangePurple) sunset (as written in yesterday’s blog post, although the sun doesn’t really rise and fall as it looks to us, it does rise and set to us; they are all human concepts, along with solstices and equinoxes etc).
I didn’t know how I was going to celebrate it, and then thought of writing a poem containing twenty Ts! It only reached seven! So I wrote another one, which had twenty-two!! So, thinking of marketing, that’s nine bonus Ts, coloured in tawny, making it quite some T20 party… sure is where I wanna be x 3!!!
all was quiet
on Y-day eve morning thick mist reminded one
of green(y-Y)grey dawning
not if ‘you’re’travelling, my ‘self-ish’ thoughts unravelling
sun shone through
the sky turned blue
as if remembering Y-rise
a nice surprise
———————————————————
Yesterday itdawned on me todayiTy fits into philosotea
part of my philosophy time after coffilosophy
written in prose poetry
trouble with my psyche is, there’s no words for this
I remember Cyndi Lauper time after time
but there’s no music
for something so lethargic
sky pinks I remember magic
The song doesn’t have any message for or from me, and was just the music that came into my head as I wrote ‘time after’, mixed with Eminem, who I’ve cited before. Just watched the video, and amazed she does a T at the end. A fitting finale for the T20 party!!
Exciting news for the Folding Mirror form. It is the form of the week on Lewis Turco’s Odd and Invented Forms website, following its inclusion in the new version of the definitive Book of Forms. Thanks again to Lewis for using and publicising the form.
Also, thanks again to Caroline Gill, who alerted me to the above, and has been instrumental in clarifying and maintaining the form, and who features a new post about it on her Brekekekex Koax Koax blog.
English: Mirror, Mirror, on the Ground The puddle, on this stretch of Wolvens Lane, forms an effective mirror. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
To celebrate, Marc Latham has written a new Folding Mirror poem covering the warm six months of the northern hemisphere’s 2012, when the book was finished and published.
In the poem, Marc keeps to the classic Folding Mirror form that has been maintained since 242, with not only the words in each half of the poem mirroring, but also the two halves of words in the middle line. The four seasons, and eight months of warmth, are also included, and more or less mirror. Here’s the poem:
Greeting Sunshine, Saying Goodbye
summer smiled in the springtime
June jumped the queue sublime
swapped places with March
without seeming to ask.
solar power was felt
enough for ice to melt
at times in April and May
whispering warmth was here to stay.
midsummer dawn, dusky latesummer
daylight decreased let sleeping dogs lie
Olympic spirit of August and July
rekindled fires of flaming idols
halcyon heats and finals.
eight months of calendar
crossed off means September
October fright light’s last flight
winter chills autumn at night.
As previously mentioned on this site, the Folding Mirror poetry form was included in the new Book of Forms, edited by Lewis Turco. One of the examples of an FM poem included in the book was by Caroline Gill, who has also provided a lot of expert advice and support for the establishment of the form and this site. Caroline recently blogged about the book on her Caroline at Coastcard site, and an extract is copied below with her permission.
Caroline Gill
Publication Pointer (2): The Book of Forms (4th edition) by Lewis Putnam Turco
Professor Lewis Turco’s work, The Book of Forms, is now available in its 4th Edition, published by the University Press of New England. This new ‘revised and expanded edition’ has as its subtitle, A Handbook of Poetics Including Odd and Invented Forms.
A copy of the third edition (published in 2000) has long been my constant poetry companion. I have learned so much about what Professor Turco calls ‘the elements of poetry’, comprising ‘levels of language usage’. I have been fascinated by the plethora of covered forms, from one lineadonics to 210 lined sonnets redoubled.
The latest edition contains all these features plus added extras in the guise of ‘odd and invented forms’. If I home in on British contributions for a moment, you will find a description of Dr Marc Latham’s Folding Mirror Poetry, with an example by Claire Knight and a second one by yours truly.
Lewis Putnam Turco is an emeritus professor of English. He was the founding director of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center and of the Department of Creative Writing at the State University of New York College at Oswega. The new edition, with sample poems by established names like Robert Frost and newer names like Greg Pincus, can be purchased from UPNE: the details can be found here. You can read the reviews on Amazon here.
In drawing these thoughts to a close, I would also wish to express my thanks to those who create these new forms for us to enjoy. For after all …
“It can be argued that to invent a verse-form which becomes immortal, living on in the works of future poets and in other languages, is one of the greatest achievements possible for a poet …”
FMPoetry is proud to see two poets who have created Folding Mirror poems alongside many famous poets in an image on Lewis Turco’s Odd and Invented Forms blog. Caroline Gill and Claire Knight had Folding Mirror poems accepted for the new book of Odd and Invented Forms as examples of the Folding Mirror form.
Both poems were first featured on this site. Caroline Gill’s accepted poem was Thalatta, Thalatta; Claire Knight’s was Hourglass of Time. Thanks again to Lewis, Caroline and Claire for their creativity and time.
Here’s the image that appears on the Odd and Invented forms blog. Viewing it as a clock face, Caroline Gill is at about 5 o’ clock and Claire Knight is at about 9 o’ clock:
Hi, I just updated the poems on this site list, and it now stands at 195.
New Book by KJP Garcia
Several of the new entries were by KJP Garcia, who has now released a book of poetry. More details at the kjpgarcia site.
New Book by Lewis Turco
Lewis Turco has also had a new book of poetry forms published, and includes the Folding Mirror form in it. More details at the Lewis Turco poetry site.
Happy Holidays
Thanks to everybody who has supported this site through contributing or reading in 2011 and I hope you have a great holiday season.
Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem is another jolly affair (joke). It is also quite topical, with work sparse in the UK and many middle-age jobless people said to be finding it hard to find work.
Marc Latham is himself middle-aged and not doing very well financially, so hopefully the poem won’t incur the wrath of his fellow poor middle-aged.
The structure provides something new in that it is to be read from the bottom up, in line with its title and content being about climbing over the hill, with ‘over the hill’ a common phrase to describe people being past it in the UK.
This poem by Marc Latham is quite an old one. Marc held back on it as he thought it might be interpreted incorrectly, with readers thinking it made him sound all high and mighty.
It is in fact about the highs and lows of the bipolarity Marc thinks he’s had for a long time. While the highs, or mania, can make you think you are in touch with special thoughts, the lows can make you think that life is completely futile and not worth bothering with. Understanding what it is helps to weather the time spent on the fringes, and harness the creative thoughts the condition provides.
So while Marc guesses that most normal people, as only a small minority are supposed to be bipolar, have a much more rational or middle thought process, bipolar people spend more time on the edges of thought, where the rational gives way to the creative.
That’s probably why a lot of bipolar people seek release in creativity, while those with normal brain processes are happy in regular jobs.
Marc doesn’t think one is superior over the other, it is just a matter of different brains working differently, which also occurs in animals.
Grammatically, the poem is a little different to previous ones in that it has similar words ending and starting the lines in the two halves.
Anyway, here it is:
Mine Bipolar Mind
high, high, high, look at my
mine mind as it fly
flies soaring at its peak
peaks and glides, you wouldn’t speak
speaks to me, shouts to you
yours wouldn’t reach, my higher view
All is calm on the equator of the mind
You’ve got me, I’m feeling blue
blued by me, felled by you
your nightmare depths, I pass below
beneath normal limits of sorrow
sorrows and woes attacking mood
moody, moody, moody, backwards I stood
Marc Latham’s newest Folding Mirror poem was inspired by a run along the Leeds-Liverpool canal on a gloriously Brontesque greenygrey morning, as new green plants on the ground were complimented by swirling ominous rain clouds in the sky.
Taupe, arsenic, slate and charcoal are all types of grey, while lime and pear are types of green: Wikipedia list of colours.
Greenygrey Sandwich
Between granite rocks taupe
and overcast arsenic sky
lime sunny hills provide sweet filling pie.
Pear shade fields are ideal for engineers
to separate slate canal
and raging river charcoal.
mistYmuse 