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Root, Trunk, Bark, Bough

I used to climb them, but that was long ago. Now I write about them, and sometimes I’m lucky enough to have my tree poems published. One of them, “Paperbark Maple,” is in a beautiful new book called These Trees. Photographer Ruthie Rosauer has gathered more than 130 of her photographs and paired them with poems. The collection, handsomely designed and printed, would make a great gift for anyone who loves trees.

Paperbark Maple

Wind animates the three-lobed leaves
curled to cup the summer air

A folio of bark peels off in shaggy sheets
scribbled with imagined verses

These paperbarks are artist trees
self-portraits en plein air

They tell their stories leaf
by silent leaf for us to read their changes

Fall brings a fiery palette, then winter
twigs write letters on the sky

In spring winged double seeds hang-
glide on wind in artful acrobatics

Where they take hold another year
will bring its own new poetry 

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Getting Published

It should go without saying, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded: When you’re trying to get your stories and poems and creative nonfiction published, be professional.

“Take the time to visit the individual sites of lit mags that you are interested in,” says Becky Tuch, founding editor of The Review Review, a useful newsletter of views on publishing. “Read their guidelines,” she continues. “For some reason, people often consider themselves exempt from rules. You're not. You must play by the rules like everyone else. It doesn't make you boring. It makes your writing accessible.”

This is just one of Tuch’s tips for getting published in literary journals. Read seven more in From Pen to Print. My favorite? “Approach your writing with fierce determination.”

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Renga Round the Rosie

A couple of months ago, I included a haiku I wrote for a class studying Buddhist influences in the work of Jane Hirshfield and Billy Collins. At the close of the class, we ventured beyond haiku to renga, a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry. Poets work in pairs or small groups, taking turns to compose alternating three-line and two-line stanzas. The first stanza, called the hokku, became the basis for the haiku, with its 5, 7, 5 syllables; the second stanza consists of two lines of 7 syllables each. Together, the two stanzas constitute a tanka.

Traditionally, I understand, the work of composing was amply fortified with sake, and the resulting renga could be hundreds of lines long. We had to do without the sake in class, but we soldiered on, paired off and writing from prompts. My partner, Rachel Gur-Arie, and I collaborated on four rengas. For example, given the prompt “heartsick in November,” I wrote the haiku and Rachel wrote the second stanza:

Now the year winds down /> but you are never here.
  Heartsick in the fall.

Winter comes. Can spring be far?
Oh yes it can, I know it.

From the prompt “leaving home,” Rachel wrote the haiku and I wrote the rest:

The boat left the shore.
Far home on the horizon
  is getting smaller.

Good bye my childhood dreaming.
The future comes into view.

My summer goal is to write a haiku a day (or, more realistically, every few days).

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Letter from Mexico

Life in the village of Ajijic, Mexico, is more tranquil and less costly than in the U.S., says poet Mel Goldberg, who settled south of the border after a life of teaching and writing in this country and England. (Mel, you might recall, wrote the moving poem “The Chocolate Cake,” which appeared in Joys of the Table, our anthology of culinary verse.) He recently sent this poem, which suggests his tranquil life is punctuated by excitement:

Climbing Mt. Lassen

In Northern California
Mt. Lassen rises ready to explode
like a sleeping giant
angry and waiting his time.
His shoulders are snowcapped,
but his muscled trails
dared me to climb
in a buzz like pulsing electricity
as I rested at night in my tent.
Unprepared, I accepted his challenge,
listened to the scream of broken stones
and held my breath in the cold,
keeping my fear deep within me
afraid if I faltered
they would crush me.

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Beyond 140 Characters

Writing recently in the Los Angeles Times, Lori Anne Ferrell took advantage of National Poetry Month to make a brief but powerful argument for poetry. “This most verbally obsessed of art forms never uses two words where one can do,” she wrote, “and never lets that one word mean just one thing.”

A humanities professor at Claremont Graduate University, Ferrell directs two poetry awards for the university. The awards, she said, “give us the chance to recognize poetry at a time when language is being applied roughly and recklessly in public forums across media and the nation, when complicated arguments and crude insults have been reduced to 140-character parodies of the elegant concision and keen insights poetry is known for.”

Her advice: say so long to Twitter and send someone a poem instead. Maybe it will spark a deeper conversation.
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National Poetry Month
 
 


Isn’t it encouraging to see poetry showcased everywhere? (For 30 of the year’s 365 days, at any rate.) And isn’t it inspiring and energizing to take on one of the many poem-a-day challenges available this month?

Well, if you have taken up a daily challenge, I hope you’re doing better at it than I am. Eliot famously said, “April is the cruelest month,” but I think it’s more intimidating than cruel. This is a bad time to be in a poetic slump, a bad time to have epic hopes with only doggerel results. It’s a bad time to rack up rejections and see your most recent acceptances recede on the calendar.

Oh, I’m writing, but nothing to be proud of. How do you handle the poetic doldrums? Reading the poetry of others helps, but for me it tends to spur me into something that soon fizzles. I won’t bore you with examples.

Let me know how you’re doing, this month of months.

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Words You Should Know

Celebrated American poet Edward Hirsch knows a thing or two about writing poetry. With nine books of poems to his credit, he’s also written The Essential Poet’s Glossary, an excerpt of which appeared earlier this month in Literary Hub, my favorite email newsletter.

From Aubade to Epigram to Lyric, Hirsch provides thoughtful commentary and examples on many of the words and concepts important to poets. The one I keep returning to is his explanation of Inspiration. “In-breathing, indwelling. Inspiration is connected to enthusiasm, which derives from the Greek word enthousiasmos, or ‘inspiration,’ which in turn derives from enthousiazein, which means ‘to be inspired by a god,’” he begins, then goes on to discuss two views of the source of inspiration: “that it comes as a force from beyond the poet” and “that it comes as a power from within the poet.”

Whatever the source, it’s what the poet does with inspiration that counts. Hirsch ends his discussion by quoting Paul Valery: “A poet’s function—do not be startled by this remark—is not to experience the poetic state: that is a private affair. His function is to create it in others.”

You can read the entire excerpt here.
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Time to Step Up

Like many writers, I live inside my head, talking to my various selves, hoping a few others might hear. But these days, it’s time to step outside ourselves and step up for our imperfect democracy. Protests are blossoming not just in the streets, but also in literary journals as poetry regains its old role of social criticism.

How many wars, revolutions, and repressions must we witness, how many despairing refugees must we turn away, while we sit safe in our shining city on a hill, girded with oceans, lulled by a national dream as evanescent as any dream and as impermanent.

It’s time to step up for Freedom, Justice, and Equality. And for small-d decency, hand to hand, soul to soul, me to you.
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Such an Ugly Time

That’s what Rat's Ass Review, one of my favorite online journals, is calling its special theme section on the first 100 days of the Trump administration. I’m honored that RAR editor Roderick Bates chose to include three of my poems: Muslim Wife, Words for Dark Times, and Dark Feelings. You can read them here.
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Meanwhile …

For a poetry class on Buddhist influences in Jane Hirshfield and, improbably, Billy Collins, I experimented a bit with haiku. The form is more spare and controlled than I’m used to, but I’m intrigued. Here’s what I came up with first:

Finch flies from the wire
idea of bird remaining
      I imagine spring

How do you feel about haiku and its cousins tanka, haibun, and renga? Are they appropriate forms for English-language poets? Send me your ideas.

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What Are You Writing?

Why should we get all the bylines? Submit your latest poem—just one for now—and we’ll publish the poems we like best in an upcoming blog post. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know if the poem is accepted or published elsewhere. Send your poem, plus a few lines about yourself, in the body of an e-mail message to:
poetryeditor@RicherResourcesPublications.com

 

You Are Here

Welcome to But Does it Rhyme?
We're a small, but hopefully growing, band of poets who like to talk about our craft and share what we've written. We'll highlight favorite poets, review new books, and explore the process of writing poetry from inspiration to conclusion. (We might venture into essays and short fiction, too.) We hope you'll like our blog — and contribute your own thought and poems.

Sally Zakariya, Poetry Editor
Richer Resources Publications

Charan Sue Wollard (LivermoreLit)
Kevin Taylor (Poet-ch'i)
Sherry Weaver Smith (SherrysKnowledgeQuest)

books
Richer Resources Publications

 

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