Is happiness a neglect of duty? It seems that avoiding bad news is the best way to be happy if you’re single, unattached and comfortable financially. Travel can give you that freedom to be happy, as you’re away from the usual concerns you have at home.
Mirror Poem Reflection
English: Rydal Mount, Gardens landscaped by William Wordsworth. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hi, it’s William Wolfsworth, poetry correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by legendary Romantic poetWilliam Wordsworth and wolves.
At home you feel like you can and should try and make a difference, even if the political system ultimately seems to do what it wants anyway.
However, when travelling or on holiday you can have other problems, such as feeling isolated or hassled.
26_sleeping soldiers. Very little was spoken between us (Photo credit: Jim Surkamp)
Even if you escape humanity you can be left wondering why the world is the way it is, and if there’s any point to existence.
Of course there are good times too; and times when the world seems all wonderful and perfect.
I think that’s what Marc Latham was trying to say in his Mine Bipolar Mindpoem available from the above link on fmpoetry.wordpress.com and included in his 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections book along with Reflection 13, which premieres online below:
Reflection 13
You cannot escape –
thinking you’re free
one side of the mind
on the same body.
Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem was inspired by a few ideas and short poems that came to him while he was editing an article. Those ideas and short poems are published today on the Greenygrey blog. This poem has now been finished before the article, which is still undergoing detailed editing! Here’s the Folding Mirror poem:
English: Morning mist on Lake Mapourika, New Zealand. Français : Brume du matin sur le lac Mapourika, en Nouvelle-Zélande. Deutsch: Nebel bei Lake Mapourika in Neuseeland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Poems of the Prose
page of prose
literature’s lake rose
creating, reviewing, editing
sentences, paragraphs, chapters
minutes pass
hours elapse
concentration lapses
mental absences
deficit reigns, attention drains
streams flow
imagination grows
words gush
rhymes rush
lines, pentameters, cinquains
bubbling, demanding, bursting
language’s river honey
piece of poetry
English: Conemaugh River Lake Dam near Saltsburg, Pennsylvania, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Marc Latham has an interview on Front Row Lit, where he talks about his poetry and writing influences and inspirations, and plans for a new Folding Mirrors poetry book. And he followed it up on the Greenygrey website with the following update:
‘… shaping up with my next project: 242 Folding Mirror Poems and Reflections.
I thought I had 122 (one spare) unpublished Folding Mirror poems until recently, but then noticed I’d included one of somebody else’s poems, and one of mine twice! So, I’ve got one more to create, but have a couple of ideas, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
After copying all the poems into a word document I mirrored them with reflections, which are a mixture of old and new thoughts and poems. I am now sorting them into chapter categories such as psychological, social, cultural, travel, nature, folklore and fiction, literary and space. It’s quite boring and tedious work, but necessary. It also makes me absorb the poems, which should be helpful in understanding what topics I’ve focused on, as I haven’t really read them since their creation. Hopefully it won’t take too long to complete the book.’
The posts on this site list has just been updated, and there are now 211 poems on this site. Thanks to everybody who has written and read the poems.
Marc Latham is hoping to publish 121 Folding Mirror poems on Amazon Kindle soon. The poems are those written after Marc Latham’s first poetry collection was published by Chipmunka.
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.
Happy National Poetry Day in the UK! Here’s some news and a poem to celebrate the day.
Firstly, Marc Latham’s Autumn Air Spins Summer Samaras to Equinox Earth has been published in the latest etips, which is a free monthly poetry e-magazine if you sign up at Wendy Webb’s etips blog. Thanks to Wendy for publishing it amongst lots of quality poems and poetry discussion.
Secondly, here’s another thoughtful FM poem full of poignant imagery
by KJP Garcia:
Today we have another powerful Folding Mirror poem by KJP Garcia, and thanks again to KJP for creating and sharing them on the above blog and here. This was first published in the Straight to Screen section of the above blog.
by KJP Garcia:
the news told new
stories of future alien
civilizations’
secrets
the grandchildren denied the beginning of the settlements
Marc Latham returns today to lower the tone and standards after some wonderful recent poetry on this site.
It’s a typically introspective and self-reflective ditty from Marc, which will hopefully tie your mind up in knots, and give you something to ponder over the weekend…but don’t be getting paranoid…like Marc…but is Marc paranoid…or just a realist…
Atypically, it has a very long headline, with Marc obviously not able to turn the poetry tap off this morning!
And without further ado, here it is: enjoy.
I Am What You See
But You Are Not Me
Six Billion + of You
Myself – Only a Few
thought I’d say
pack your bags
that’s how three
simple words leave
sent off travelling
on merry go
round and round
my words, your words
same letters return
but different so
why is meaning
changed through travel
three words add
two and two
together for five.
Today we have the erudite Caroline Gill on the Folding Mirror form’s place within palindrome poetry.
Thanks to Caroline for giving her time to set out a great case for the survival and continuation of the form.
The PalindromePoem and Folding Mirror Poetry ~ some introductory thoughts from Caroline Gill
Robert Lee Brewer posted a fascinating feature about Palindrome Poetry on his Poetic Asides blog (18 Nov. 2010). It seems, therefore, a good time to begin to define the difference between the Palindrome Poem (a type that has been around for a long time, although it took a while for this poetry to be labelled as palindromic, in any definitive sense of the word) and its newer cousin, Folding Mirror Poetry (FMP), devised by Dr Marc Latham. It is worth pointing out before we proceed that there have been various forms created, based around the palindromic idea. A favourite recent one is the Palindromedary Sonnet, developed by Wendy Webb, which has two halves but no central folding line.
There are essential differences between Palindrome poems and FMP, but there are also overlapping elements. I suspect that Dr Marc Latham is moving towards his own definitive explanation; but meanwhile, I offer a few thoughts of my own:
The Folding Mirror form has, as I understand, a central ‘folding’ line as its key feature. This sometimes equates with the horizon (in both an actual and metaphorical sense in some poems); and unlike the Palindrome poem as defined by Brewer, the FM poem is not restricted to a single ‘bridge’ word at the hinge point.
The words above and below the central folding line in FM poems will often mirror their counterparts to one degree or another. I find it helpful to speak in picture-language, and to consider a pool, when I think about this poetic concept. Sometimes, when the water is perfectly still, the image and its reflection are (to all intents and purposes) a perfect mirror image. Sometimes, when the water is very disturbed, the image and its reflection bear little resemblance to one another. Sometimes, when there is a slight ripple, there is a definite, though incomplete, resemblance between the image and its reflection. There are also times when the surface of a pool is so dense (perhaps due to ice, oil pollution or algae etc.) that although there is some kind of matter – or void – below the surface, it may appear to bear no resemblance to what lies above.
Therefore in FMP, the words below and above the line will not always mirror their counterparts specifically, because some reflections are more subtle than others. There are also occasions when the poem concerns a subject with two halves, but with totally different halves e.g. a horizon middle line could be used to separate a top half about an empty sky and a lower half about e.g. lions in the jungle below. A FM poem about a tooth and its root would be about the tooth that was visible and the (unidentical) root that was not, but was ever present all the same. Ditto the seen and unseen halves of an iceberg.
Sometimes a FM poem involves diagonal opposites.
Sometimes words repeat themselves exactly in FMP – like images in a clear pool. Please note that the type face in FMP is usually – but not always – the same way up on both sides of the central folding line, due to practicalities of presentation and ease of reading.
Sometimes words in one half of FMP are mirrored by their opposites, producing e.g. a Dalmatian effect on one side – black on white – and an inverted or domino effect – white on black – on the other.
Sometimes the central folding line (which may not always be horizontal) will separate (for example) the part of the FM poem about sheep from the part about goats, in a poem in which these creatures are linked through symbolic meaning. Sometimes, however, the central folding line will separate (for example) the part of the FM poem about sheep from the part about cows, for the simple reason that (in this instance) the two species graze in adjacent fields, divided by a hedge or wall.
There are many variations of FMP, as I understand, and as I hope I am beginning to demonstrate.
Palindrome poetry features ‘the same words … in each half of the poem’ (Robert Lee Brewer – link below). FMP does not necessarily do this, as has been demonstrated from the points above. FMP is based on a broader structural concept; and while a FM poem may include the same words on both sides of the line, it equally may not, relying instead (or in addition) on some of the scenarios I mention above.
Sometimes FMP is more about the mirroring of concepts or ideas or about the presentation of opposites than about the mirroring of actual words, but a strong central folding line is always essential to the structural success of FMP.
Further reading:
For more on Palindromic Poetry, please follow the link to Robert Lee Brewer’s site.
mistYmuse 