POETREE

Posted on behalf of David C. Kopaska-Merkel

We all need to exercise. I am disabled and my muscles stiffen up quickly if I don't exercise so it is particularly incumbent upon me to exercise every single day. By the same token mental exercise is necessary. For the writer I would say it is more necessary than for many people. One could argue about that point, but I don't plan to do that just now.

A long time ago, so long ago that I really don't remember when, I started writing a poem every day. I do it as a deliberate habit, and the idea was to maintain or enhance creativity. Also, I wanted to make sure I'd have something for my blog every day. I knew I would rarely have time for a substantive post.

The daily poem is what I write when I don't have time for anything else, so I have to do it quickly. Typically, the poem takes less than a minute, and most of them are haiku or related forms. I look around, or think about the coming day or the night before, and pick something. For instance, the Jerusalem Artichokes blooming outside my window. The dust bunnies that need to be vacuumed up from the edge of the bookcase. Something immediate and visible. These are my usual targets.

I am no haiku expert, but I know some of the basics. Typically the total number of syllables should be 17 or less. Three lines are normally used, although certain kinds of haiku derivatives are two-line poems or even one-line poems. One of the most important characteristics of a haiku is that it has a break between one line and the other two, or between the two lines in a 2-line poem, or within the single line of a 1-line poem. A haiku should not be a sentence or a single phrase.

The purpose of the exercise is not to write a brilliant haiku. Of course one is delighted to produce one. The purpose is simply to write a haiku.Go!

yellow hands wave
at the west wind
blowing kisses

Normally, I don't say anything about the inspiration, but in this context you might want to know. It's breezy and there are Jerusalem Artichokes, yellow and bright, in the garden outside my window.

Good, bad, or indifferent, but there it is after (I promise you) less than 60 seconds. Anybody can do that. After you write it, perhaps the next day or in the evening, read it again and see if you think it's good. But even if you decide it isn't, the exercise makes it easier to write the next poem. After a couple of years of doing this I know this is true.

Posted on behalf of David Kopaska-Merkel

Full Unit Hook-Up, 2005

Segmented Worm Defense League

So many enemies;
bird, vole, salamander,
angler, captain of industry,
cruelly misnamed worm snake,
and the burrowers from within:
bacterium, protist, fungus;
they need protectin’!

They meet regularly,
dream of dominion,
pass resolutions,
raid fishing holes,
picket garden fences,
swap genetic material.

Maybe the league itself
is in segments.
(one for grass raising,
one for nematode relations,
one predator, one prey,
bylaws and soil amendments,
and so on)
and has no prejudice
against the worms that are
undivided wholes.

_

Posted by jjhunter on David's behalf

I started writing poetry shortly before my oldest daughter was born. I figured, correctly as it turned out, that it would be much harder to find time to write fiction once I became a parent. At first my poems were truly awful. You won't see any of those this week. You will see 3 poems and an essay about poetry. I won't talk here about the poems, because I hope to find time to comment after they're posted. I will certainly be very interested in your comments about them.

I write because I want to. I am not driven by some kind of demon, as some writers are. I enjoy organizing my thoughts and putting them on paper in the same way someone else might enjoy doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. This is not to say I'm not trying to make a point with any of my poems, but most often the point of my poetry is not to make a point but to tell a story. Many are narrative poems, most often telling stories of things that have never happened. Events or situations that I imagine after contemplating an extrapolation of something I see or read about. In other words, they are science-fiction poems. In addition to writing a lot of science fiction poetry, I use my blog to post daily poems, which are the subject of the essay you'll read later in the week. Most of these are haiku, and they don't have a science-fiction element. They conform to at least some of the rules of classical haiku. They concern a moment in the natural world, they are very short (no more than 17 syllables), and there is a conceptual break between one line and the other two. Please note that I am in no way an expert on haiku!

I should say a couple of things about myself. I am a scientist, but I don't write very much science poetry. I do write some science-fiction poetry based on geological observations, because that is something I know about and think about. I've been in a wheelchair for about eight years, the result of a serious car accident, but I don't write much poetry about being disabled either. One cannot avoid being aware of one's limitations, but that has never been something I am interested in putting into words. I'm going to end with a couple of links that will lead you to more information about me.

The website about my poetry magazine: Dreams and Nightmares magazine

My blog