week 74 ~ I’ve got a blank book

I’ve got a blank book
and a new story
I’m not scared to look

now that love’s sly crook
has cleared it for me
I’ve got a blank book
unless I mistook
the allegory
I’m not scared to look
at lost words that shook
my faith profoundly
I’ve got a blank book

it’s time that I took
an inventory
I’m not scared to look
or even unhook
my identity
I’ve got a blank book
I’m not scared to look

Written by mairmusic

March 18, 2010 at 9:46 am

Posted in March, villanelle

Tagged with blank, book, new, poetry, story

14 Responses

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Thursday Poets’ Rally Week 10 (March 18-March 24, 2010) « Jingle

March 18, 2010 at 1:04 pm

Reply
Hello,
this is jingle!
welcome to my Rally,
since you are new, please visit 12 participants in my blog Rally post lists,
that way, you get more feedback for your poem!
Happy Thursday!

Ji

March 18, 2010 at 2:27 pm

Reply
- Thanks for this! I am in the process of reading and commenting & appreciate the comments I got. I will be with y’all next week too.
  
  mairmusic
  
  March 19, 2010 at 10:43 am
  
  Reply
beautiful poem,
I love your perspective,
it has infinite possibility when you have a blank book!

Ji

March 18, 2010 at 2:28 pm

Reply
i love the possibilities of a blank book…nicely done. dropping by on the poets rally…

brian

March 18, 2010 at 3:20 pm

Reply
Every time life shifts, so we have a new story to tell. Beautiful poem.

taramillerwrites

March 18, 2010 at 5:11 pm

Reply
I liked the metaphor of a blank page as change.
The rhythm put me off a bit, but I still liked it :)

jmblackstock

March 18, 2010 at 9:35 pm

Reply
Hope you find a new story .Wonderfull poem .

pikkiestoolbox

March 19, 2010 at 6:47 am

Reply
http://jingleyanqiu.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/thursday-poets-rally-participants-of-week-10-an-award-for-you/

an award for you,
please feel free to take one,
share it with your friends…
Happy Friday!

Ji

March 19, 2010 at 2:49 pm

Reply
[…] https://mairmusic.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/week-74-now-i%E2%80%99ve-got-a-blank-book/ […]

Thursday Poets’ Rally Week 11 (March 24-30, 2010) « Jingle

March 23, 2010 at 10:48 pm

Reply
- thanks for this.
  
  “I’m not scared to look
  at lost words that shook
  my faith profoundly”
  
  what lost words, I wonder, and how could something lost shake faith? Curious.
  
  BFG
  
  March 26, 2010 at 12:25 pm
  
  Reply
  - Hmmm… always dangerous to “explain” poetry, but generally I meant promises not kept, vows broken, false avowals of love and friendship, angry accusations without basis– these words are “lost,” to my way of thinking, since 1) they no longer hold their original meaning, because the speaker lied; or 2) they never had meaning, because the speaker was attempting to be hurtful without basis. These false lost words can be so damaging, but must be faced and dismissed before one can move on. Erased from the book, as it were, so it will be blank and ready for a new story.
    
    mairmusic
    
    March 26, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Nice! Hey wanted to ask you –

there are few who appreciate what we did with the homonymic refrain villanelle… most people haven’t even heard of a villanelle. I wonder how it would be possible to keep the words of the refrains exactly the same but change the meaning… on all two sets of four?! I suppose it would technically be possible but far harder even than what we have done here. Have you done this? If so please give me a link! Cheers

Luke

Luke Prater

July 16, 2010 at 12:33 pm

Reply
- no, I mostly just change the context. You can see all my villanelles now by clicking the villanelle link in the right hand column.
  
  mairmusic
  
  July 16, 2010 at 9:38 pm
  
  Reply

Who am I?

A mandolinist, a bandolimist, a writer, a photographer, a wannabe Brasileira. Check my webpage for information on my music and my sometimes life in Rio.

What is this?

I made a plan, beginning on my birthday- October 16, 2008 - to keep creativity in focus in my daily life, spontaneously, reflectively, and with intention, by setting in motion several series of small events. Every day I take a photo and record a thought. Every week I write a poem and post a photograph of myself in the context of my life. i don't post every day, but I maintain the schedule of each series and post as often as I can. Before I began I wrote, "I think this will be fun, may be interesting, and will result in a considered year of small moments stolen from a busy life and strung together to make... who knows? At this point it's just a plan. Wish me luck~ here goes!"

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“Years 2 – 6” — so what’s changed?

I decided to continue on after a year, because this document had become a treasured reflective spot in my life. There are some changes in "Year 2," expanding options for my weekly poem beyond sonnet to add some other forms-- rondeau or triolet, villanelle. I added the decima in late January 2010, and the pantoum in August. Definitions of each form appear below. I continue to post a photo daily, but may post several pictures taken on one day over the course of a week if I have an interesting series. I may even post an old photo if I'm writing about something I'm thinking back to. I'll continue to have fun with this project; I hope you will too. For Year 3 I tried including other people in the self-portraits that accompany my poems, adding "Musical Sundays" to post mp3s of my music, but these petered out in a few months. This is simply a place for my daily thoughts & photos, and weekly poems in the forms I love. Onward...!

The material on these pages belongs to me

Everything published here was created especially for this project and is owned and copyright by me. When the project is complete I may do something concrete with some of it. So enjoy, but please, if you want to share more than a quote or two send people here, don't displace my work from its context or authorship.

What’s a sonnet?

A sonnet is a 14-line iambic pentameter poem with a unique and characteristic rhyme scheme. They have been written in Europe and England for centuries, and usually combine viewpoint and reflection in a personal yet universal way. I call mine blank-verse sonnets and try for a simple casual scan that observes yet obscures the form. Inspirations are the American sonnets of e. e. cummings and Edna "Vince" Millay.

What’s a villanelle?

A villanelle is an early French form with 19 lines using only 2 rhymes, traditionally broken into 6 verses. It's kind of obsessive, with lines 1 & 3 repeating alternately, the 4th time as lines 18 & 19. The lines can be any length, but don't seem to vary within a poem, and subjects include love, loss and challenge. Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath all wrote them, and from the minute I typed villanelle in "Year 2 begins" I was itching to try it out because I've never written one. My first appear in Weeks 53 & 56. I've run some verses together, as many modern writers have done, for continuity and a cleaner line.

What’s a rondeau?

A rondeau is a form of medieval poetry that pre-dates the villanelle and also uses only 2 rhymes. The earliest come from an 8-line song form with 2 lines of music that repeat-- line 1 as 4 & 7, and line 2 as 8, rhyming the rest in a characteristic pattern. The result is a sturdy little poem that makes its point thoughtfully, and less obsessively than the villanelle, perhaps because the generating couplet is unrhymed, and the lines don't need to be the same length, just able to be sung or spoken in the same amount of time. The first ones appear in weeks 55 & 57. Sometimes the poetic form, sans music, is called a triolet.

What’s a decima?

A decima is an early 10-line Spanish poetic form, with a distinct break after the first 4. It uses an 8-syllable line and has an unusual but characteristic rhyme scheme. It's also a 19th-century form of improvised Cuban song so I thought it would work well in this blog format. My first appear in weeks 66 & 69.

What’s a pantoum?

A Malaysian form from the 15th century-- how exotic! It's a series of quatrains, w/ lines 2 & 4 repeating as lines 1 & 3 in the next. The last quatrain also uses lines 1 & 3 from the first quatrain, with the first line ending the poem. So every line is used twice. My first one is week 95.

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