woods near Cherokee Village, AR
When writing new
poems, I often use the discipline of writing a syllabic pattern to get thoughts/
ideas/ images into a workable form. The Cinquain––2, 4, 6, 8, 2—is a favorite
of mine, as is the Etheree.
In fact, “On
Poems and Pears” began as an Etheree. Here is the way it looked before I turned
it into free verse.ON POEMS AND PEARS
1-Three
2-pages
3-of poem
4-shrink when revised
5-like sacks of tawny
6-windfall pears, split and cored,
7-skin pared and rot scalpelled out
8-till only solid fruit remains,
9-cooked in sugar syrup for three hours,
10-yielding glasses of clear jeweled preserves.
The Etheree poetry pattern was created in 1967 by a Magnet Cove, Arkansas poet, the late Etheree Armstrong. “The form is 10 lines with the syllable count matching each line number. It is unrhymed, though it must have rhythm, meaning, imagery OR carry an undertone of a second meaning.” (From a copy of a letter signed by Mrs. Armstrong given out by her son, Britt, the speaker at a local poets’ meeting.)
Two more of my poems follow.
WE WON’T FORGET
Flagduct-taped
to the pole
in especial
honor of the tenth
anniversary of
Nine-Eleven. The banner’s
faded from many years of use
but memories of the horrendous,
senseless attack on our country have not.
wrenched-off
hackberry
limb––as large as
a dinner plate––buds
at the twig ends aground.
On this cloudy Good Friday,
I ponder Holy Week lessons:
even though the limb is dead, new life
springs forth––a second chance. Hallelujah!
Why not try writing an Etheree yourself? Send to plpalaster21@gmail.com
[This post originally a column published in Calliope: A Writer's Workshop by Mail, #140, Summer 2013.]
