The Violence of Poetry

In the Q&A with Natalie Diaz called “Energy” by Jacqueline Woodson in the March/April 2020 Poets&Writers Magazine, Natalie Diaz said, “I have lived many lives. I have tried and failed at many things. I have won and lost much. I don’t know much, but I believe language lasts. In all its violence and tenderness, it lasts and lasts.”

She continues, “You and I are here because of how it lasts—because of story. Story was the technology that let our ancestors survive and that they gave to us, in songs, in codes, in maps, in dreams, so that we might do more than survive. Poetry, like story, is meant to be long, to be through us but beyond us.”

Is story (and poetry) the answer to Camonghne Felix’s question from Monday’s post, “What does it look like to depart from a journey of survival and enter a journey of thriving?”

In story there has to be conflict. In poetry there is the volta, or turn. This violence of language challenges the reader to think, to learn, to change perspective.

The Prompts

dVerse Poets Pub OLN : It’s open link night, so you can link up one of your poems. Though I did not write to the mini-prompt which is the painting “The False Mirror” by Rene Magritte, 1928, it did help me choose which of the Proust Questionnaire questions I wanted to focus on.

NaPoWriMo : write a poem based on the “Proust Questionnaire”

PAD Challenge : write a homonym poem. A homonym is either (or both) a homograph (word spelled the same with different meanings and possibly different pronunciations) or a homophone (word that is pronounced the same but has different spellings).

Here are some examples of homophones and homographs to get you started:

• 20 Homophones Examples for Writers.
• 30 Homographs Examples for Writers.

Today’s Poem

What is your current state of mind?

With swift and intense force the real
makes you reel, and steel
against the steal of the imagined.
You had rolled along in your
role, content with its
content, but the tear brought
tears. The whole has a hole,
and that wound has you
wound up tight.

The real came with rough vehemence
like a bolder boulder thrown so close
you had to close your eyes and wish
that it would miss or you weren’t there
where you’re wearing
your worry like you’re bare
to a bear. But out of sight
of that site you could incite
some insight and imagine a reel
of the real with content
that makes you content.

See you tomorrow!