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poetreeIntroduction
Poetry is, to many, a medium of love. What springs to mind are Shakespearean sonnets and awkward limericks in Valentine's day cards and how to impress your 7th-grade crush. Many famous poems are love poems; ask your most lyrically illiterate friend, and they probably at least recognize the line, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Love poetry has been around so long it is literally written in stone - check out this Ancient Babylonian tablet bearing 8th Century BC romantic verse. Even Poe, master of the macabre, wrote A Valentine.
Generally, romantic love is what we see featured in poetry. After all, it is arguably easier to craft an artistic metaphor for the color of his eyes or the fullness of her lips than, it's cool, how we both like 80's horror movies. Let that not diminish the importance of friendship, however. Anyone with a dear friend can tell you that friendship is a powerful thing - perhaps a thing we should be writing more about.
Friendship as Intimacy
Romantic love may be passionate and exciting and able to sweep you off your feet... but friendship will always be there to buy you ice cream and say, you were too good for him/her, anyway - and it won't say, I told you so even though it probably did. Friendship likes to nerd out with you watching goofy cartoons that he rolls his eyes about. Friendship will go mountain biking with you when she says it's "too dangerous." Friendship will go out to dinner with you and won't expect you to take off your pants when you're self-conscious about your food-gut - but it won't mind if you choose to let it all hang out, either.
Friendship is about the kind of intimacy that won't kiss your neck but will let you know if your breath stinks before the big interview. Friendship is the kind of intimacy where you can cry on a caring shoulder about your latest romantic flop, or ask a question about that weird thing happening with your bowel movements. Friendship lacks sexual expectations, lacks jealous complications, doesn't require grand gestures, and will never leave you if it doesn't get a ring after five years together. Friendship thinks it's cool just to be in your company. If that isn't intimate, I don't know what is.
Featured Poem: An Origin Story
Project V.O.I.C.E. founders Phil Kaye & Sarah Kay are two friends who found each other through a mutual gift for poetry, storytelling, and the spoken word. Because one is male and one is female, as if that matters in the game of love, many have speculated that they are a couple. The duo clears the air on the matter with their absolutely charming friendship poem, An Origin Story. You can listen/view below, and can read the lyrics here; I suggest doing both if you are able.
Some things to pay attention to:
- Notice how the two play off of each other, when they speak individually and when they speak in unison, and how this is used to emphasize the friendship theme.
- Consider their choice of going from their personal story, to the bigger story of well-known friendships throughout the ages, to pull the audience in closer.
- What effect did the shift in tone from light-hearted and goofy to serious and heartfelt have for you as a reader?
In the comments, please feel free to discuss your reaction to the poem, lines that resonated with you, and anything else this poem made you think of.
Optional Challenge
Is there a special friend in your life who you feel you need to say something to or about after reading/listening? Take this opportunity to write a poem of any format for or about them and share it in the comments. I'll share a silly little Haiku below, and will post a longer poem in the comments to get the ball rolling.
Fall Is My Favorite, And So Are You
Shall I compare thee
to a summer's day? - Hell no!
Sweat and mosquitos
sun burn and fruit flies
blown-out AC units and
dogs too hot to play.
You're more like reading
my favorite book, drinking
lemonade in shade.
Night-time frog chorus,
my feet in the river and
knowing fall will come.
Additional Reading
The Vinegar Club by Andrea Gibson
Love and Friendship by Emily Brontë
Helen Steiner Rice also wrote a number of poems about friendship, which you can find together in a collection here.
Poetry is, to many, a medium of love. What springs to mind are Shakespearean sonnets and awkward limericks in Valentine's day cards and how to impress your 7th-grade crush. Many famous poems are love poems; ask your most lyrically illiterate friend, and they probably at least recognize the line, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Love poetry has been around so long it is literally written in stone - check out this Ancient Babylonian tablet bearing 8th Century BC romantic verse. Even Poe, master of the macabre, wrote A Valentine.
Generally, romantic love is what we see featured in poetry. After all, it is arguably easier to craft an artistic metaphor for the color of his eyes or the fullness of her lips than, it's cool, how we both like 80's horror movies. Let that not diminish the importance of friendship, however. Anyone with a dear friend can tell you that friendship is a powerful thing - perhaps a thing we should be writing more about.
Friendship as Intimacy
Romantic love may be passionate and exciting and able to sweep you off your feet... but friendship will always be there to buy you ice cream and say, you were too good for him/her, anyway - and it won't say, I told you so even though it probably did. Friendship likes to nerd out with you watching goofy cartoons that he rolls his eyes about. Friendship will go mountain biking with you when she says it's "too dangerous." Friendship will go out to dinner with you and won't expect you to take off your pants when you're self-conscious about your food-gut - but it won't mind if you choose to let it all hang out, either.
Friendship is about the kind of intimacy that won't kiss your neck but will let you know if your breath stinks before the big interview. Friendship is the kind of intimacy where you can cry on a caring shoulder about your latest romantic flop, or ask a question about that weird thing happening with your bowel movements. Friendship lacks sexual expectations, lacks jealous complications, doesn't require grand gestures, and will never leave you if it doesn't get a ring after five years together. Friendship thinks it's cool just to be in your company. If that isn't intimate, I don't know what is.
Featured Poem: An Origin Story
Project V.O.I.C.E. founders Phil Kaye & Sarah Kay are two friends who found each other through a mutual gift for poetry, storytelling, and the spoken word. Because one is male and one is female, as if that matters in the game of love, many have speculated that they are a couple. The duo clears the air on the matter with their absolutely charming friendship poem, An Origin Story. You can listen/view below, and can read the lyrics here; I suggest doing both if you are able.
Some things to pay attention to:
- Notice how the two play off of each other, when they speak individually and when they speak in unison, and how this is used to emphasize the friendship theme.
- Consider their choice of going from their personal story, to the bigger story of well-known friendships throughout the ages, to pull the audience in closer.
- What effect did the shift in tone from light-hearted and goofy to serious and heartfelt have for you as a reader?
In the comments, please feel free to discuss your reaction to the poem, lines that resonated with you, and anything else this poem made you think of.
Optional Challenge
Is there a special friend in your life who you feel you need to say something to or about after reading/listening? Take this opportunity to write a poem of any format for or about them and share it in the comments. I'll share a silly little Haiku below, and will post a longer poem in the comments to get the ball rolling.
Fall Is My Favorite, And So Are You
Shall I compare thee
to a summer's day? - Hell no!
Sweat and mosquitos
sun burn and fruit flies
blown-out AC units and
dogs too hot to play.
You're more like reading
my favorite book, drinking
lemonade in shade.
Night-time frog chorus,
my feet in the river and
knowing fall will come.
Additional Reading
The Vinegar Club by Andrea Gibson
Love and Friendship by Emily Brontë
Helen Steiner Rice also wrote a number of poems about friendship, which you can find together in a collection here.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-20 07:06 pm (UTC)i would wrap up the earth like a poem
and present it to you.
sonnets make up cities
and waterfalls are villanelles.
spondees and dactyls circumscribe landscapes
and springs and verdant sprigs of song burst forth.
i would cradle the glaciers and seas in verse--
here lies one whose name was writ in water--
and fill lakes with lists of all the ways they are blue.
i would describe the mountains in every language
we have ever spoken, or written, or thought
peaks rising from the tangles.
if I could present you a poem
i would wrap it up in earth
and we would wake the rest of our days
with clay in our mouths, sand in our eyes
and the glorious weight of the world in our hearts.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-21 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-22 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-22 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-18 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-20 02:20 pm (UTC)the very first time i
am reading this?
it feels like pillars, like stalagmites
rising up to make tangible the stuff that leaks
from words we use for ceilings
internal and otherwise
the 'glorious weight' indeed
i think of the black earth you taught me to see
so rich and so fertile
the way you get volcano
to the heart of things pushing to come out