Poem: "Miterwort"
Feb. 17th, 2012 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dave_bonta posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
poetreeMiterwort
After pollination, the flower cup
turns into a blunderbuss,
expelling its tiny seeds
when a raindrop strikes.
Was it this, or the flower's
fringe of white feathers,
that made the Iroquois think
they could drink a decoction
& rid the body of bad luck,
expel it in their vomit?
Sometimes, too, they'd use it
to bathe a gun that didn't
bring down game
or ease one drop
into a sore eye,
surgical as the tongue
of a halictid bee reaching
between the lashes.
*
This is one of 28 photo-and-poem pairs from a collection called How to Know the Wildflowers, the result of an online collaboration between me and naturalist-blogger Jennifer Schlick last winter -- see the complete series at Via Negativa. What was different about this series of poems was that I had a deadline -- Jennifer needed the poems in time to make placards for a gallery exhibition of her photos in early May -- and unlike with the Bestiary, I was intimately familiar with most of the species I was writing about. I had no choice about which flowers to write about, but to make it even more challenging, and therefore fun, for myself, I wrote the poems in the order in which they happened to appear in her series on Flickr.
The research involved both web searching and consulting a few books, especially one on wildflower folklore that came in handy for poems like "Miterwort." In some poems, I exploited technical botanical language for auditory effect, while others were glorified catalogues of common names. Both Jennifer and I have since had opportunities to try these poems out on nature-oriented audiences, and found they played well with that crowd. The question though is whether they are too nature-nerdy to appeal to ordinary readers of poetry (if there is such a thing). I've been persuaded that I'd better pull together a glossary and/or detailed notes for the eventual book. I'm pleased to report that I do have a micropress interested in bringing out the collection in full color, as it deserves -- we haven't signed a contract quite yet, but it seems imminent. The publisher is excited both by the design challenge and by the possibility of reaching a broader audience with a book of poetry.
Mitella diphylla
After pollination, the flower cup
turns into a blunderbuss,
expelling its tiny seeds
when a raindrop strikes.
Was it this, or the flower's
fringe of white feathers,
that made the Iroquois think
they could drink a decoction
& rid the body of bad luck,
expel it in their vomit?
Sometimes, too, they'd use it
to bathe a gun that didn't
bring down game
or ease one drop
into a sore eye,
surgical as the tongue
of a halictid bee reaching
between the lashes.
*
This is one of 28 photo-and-poem pairs from a collection called How to Know the Wildflowers, the result of an online collaboration between me and naturalist-blogger Jennifer Schlick last winter -- see the complete series at Via Negativa. What was different about this series of poems was that I had a deadline -- Jennifer needed the poems in time to make placards for a gallery exhibition of her photos in early May -- and unlike with the Bestiary, I was intimately familiar with most of the species I was writing about. I had no choice about which flowers to write about, but to make it even more challenging, and therefore fun, for myself, I wrote the poems in the order in which they happened to appear in her series on Flickr.
The research involved both web searching and consulting a few books, especially one on wildflower folklore that came in handy for poems like "Miterwort." In some poems, I exploited technical botanical language for auditory effect, while others were glorified catalogues of common names. Both Jennifer and I have since had opportunities to try these poems out on nature-oriented audiences, and found they played well with that crowd. The question though is whether they are too nature-nerdy to appeal to ordinary readers of poetry (if there is such a thing). I've been persuaded that I'd better pull together a glossary and/or detailed notes for the eventual book. I'm pleased to report that I do have a micropress interested in bringing out the collection in full color, as it deserves -- we haven't signed a contract quite yet, but it seems imminent. The publisher is excited both by the design challenge and by the possibility of reaching a broader audience with a book of poetry.
Yay!
Date: 2012-02-18 08:39 am (UTC)I used the phrase "elastically dehiscent" in a poem once.
Re: Yay!
Date: 2012-02-18 04:11 pm (UTC)