Dancing At Dawn
The slanting sunrise shows coal red stripes
only to eyes open at dawn.
Just so my soul glows under her stripes
drawn and redrawn, dancing at dawn
unseen in burnt sky's still empty room.
She spins under the foot of the spider;
dawn glows stippled, redrawn in that room
where the backslider's webbed by the spider.
~November 2012
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Sunday Mini-Challenge
Kerry has us working with a very interesting stanza form of W. B. Yeats', which is based on alternating syllable counts and individual words repeated for the rhyme scheme. This one was especially fun for me, as I have an inner rule of never using the same word twice in a poem, and here I got to break it with full permission. thank you Kerry--I was amazed at how this limited-seeming form gave amazing scope
Image: Clouds, by Arkhip Kuindzhi
Public domain, via wikipaintings.org
I can see it, Hedgie. You've drawn it so well, I can practically feel it. I, too, try hard never to repeat a word (with the obvious exception of articles, etc.) in one poem. I think this challenge might be difficult for me, as it goes against the grain of that long-established (good) habit. Kudos to you for stretching and pulling it off.
ReplyDeleteOh my! This is awesome! Your repetition is so smooth, every word just glides along the line. I love the drawn and redrawn repeats the most. Excellent!
ReplyDeletesmiles...i like the soul glowing...and def the first bit of sun int he morning is magical...cool little dance in your words in this as well...heh i am all for breaking rules...smiles.
ReplyDeleteSo interesting here to have the coal stripes at dawn - I would think of that red as a kind of ember (though perhaps not with coals) so it's a sunset-y kind of glow - great to have it at dawn. (Of course, one can come to dawn from either direction - staying up or getting up!) And, of course, the stripes here are pretty punishing - and the drawing - well--I'm thinking blood red as well as coal but so great to be part of the dance.
ReplyDeleteYou do kind of stay true to your rule as each time you repeat a word it functions almost as a homonym-- certainly with a very different slant and import so that the poem is a bit of a prism (prison?) - where a whole bunch of freedom and different slants of light and stripe are happening.
I also found it a much broader form than I'd imagined, but I did not use language with any real cleverness. Just repeated. k.
On the contrary, I think you used the form just as Yeats did, musically, for sound that underlines meanings, and I liked how it worked out very much, as I said at your place. There is clever and clever--I just finished reading around the prompt links and I really like that everyone has made this sound a bit different, when it looks so rigidly demarcated. Thanks for reading and picking up on the undertones here, k.
DeleteYou know, I was thinking about your piece and the Wandering Aengus while jogging around, and also how poems feed into poems, and realized how oddly the Wandering Aengus (which must be on your mind) is paralleled in this - the time of day (dawn) - the fire in the head and blowing aflame in room (coal), the hazel wand even reminds me a bit of the stripes drawn on your character - the empty room (girl run away) - I'm not going to go so far as the dawn glows stippled and dappled grass! But it struck me as so interesting - and of course, this might be all random - but still it seemed very cool to me. (At least I always am interested in how words and images percolate especially when one gets close to them.)
DeleteThat *is* interesting, because I wrote this mostly half-awake early early this morning, I was looking at the stripes of pinky-red in the eastern sky, so that and the empty room line especially just came out of nowhere--but it's very true that nowhere is a big cauldron and what we read and ponder over, as I have that poem since I reposted it, goes into the brain stew and often does come out again seasoned with one's personal spices. Plus, the form itself in the example Kerry used has a lot of that Yeatsian voice that creeps into your subconscious also--very bardic/oral tradition-like to me, he is.
DeleteFantastic use of the form, Hedge. A highly effective poem, imbued with an eery pre-dawn mood. The image is wonderful, too. The spider added a great deal to the mood of this piece.
ReplyDeleteNot sure I understood some of the imagery but I lived the playing with the words - erspecially "my soul glows under her stripes
ReplyDeletedrawn and redrawn, dancing at dawn".
Love the image of the dawn spinning under the foot of the spider...so much to admire in your words. I think you may want to break that rule again sometime...
ReplyDeleteI find this just remarkable, Hedge.
ReplyDeleteThis form went against my rule against repetition, too but or and I'm so surprised to see/feel how really well this worked when applied properly.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy this morning crimson scene...almost as if this dancer's only audience is the spider in the nooks of ceiling beams...
Great poem, Hedge, I was projected directly into this glowing-dancing scene!!
Oh, and I love the detail of the shadows drawing and redrawing her!!
Funny...I'm laughing about my first sentence...speaking of repetition!! Lol
DeleteI rarely get up early to see skies like this ... except when on vacation. I drive my family crazy as I get up before 6 to eat and be on my way to take photos and hike. I get back around 10 with hundreds of photos sometimes. I love the thought of a ribboned or striped sky... but I don't quite understand the spider comment... unless there really was one busy wrapping up breakfast. I know when waiting for my daughter's bus (6:45 am!!) the spiders and their webs are glistening and new, waiting for food....
DeleteBeing retired, you would think I'd sleep late, and sometimes I do--but after a work lifetime of rising while it was still dark, I find I feel I've blown off the best part of the day if I miss the early morning. There's something about the energy--you don't want to waste it. I think that's how you feel on vacation, maybe. The spider is the proverbial fly in the ointment,(to mix metaphors) the spinner of webs, that can wrap you in a numb cocoon if you slide into its trap. (This can be anything you like that is your inner obstacle or adversary or whatever.)Thanks for reading, Margaret. I will get out again in the morning--that's my best commenting time, too.
DeleteHannah, I love your comment. Thank you! It's great to get people to the babbling stage. ;-)
Delete:)!!!
DeleteThank you, Joy! Just Beautiful - and often my day DOES go astray by that spinner of webs (or is it my little boy (just turned five today :)
DeleteHappy birthday to him, Margaret. Mine turned nine last week.
Deletei love your writing and deftness with form, and this is no exception, though i lost it in the last line because i can't place "slider" in this poem. maybe i'm just thick. i think it's me, i have a strong and vehement aversion to the word "slider" being used now to describe food, i.e. tiny burgers that apparently are made to slide down our revolting american gullets. so i guess maybe that's why i can't figure out what the hell it means in your very beautiful poem. sheesh. sorry. oversharing, am i? oh what the heck. xo
ReplyDeleteWell, if that won't make a person rewrite nothing will! I fixed it, I hope, to make more sense and not give that signal. Ugh--thanks for pointing it out, marian.
Deleteomg now i'm just giggling, what kind of a crazy person gives feedback like this? holy. but STILL "backslider" is a whole nother thing and i like it way better. oh, man. you're a really good sport for putting up with this one, joy. xoxo
Deletep.s. srsly though, i have been on many a rant about how sliders shouldn't be on menus. i don't even want to eat at a restaurant if they give in to the sliders craze. gross. & sorry for being a hijacker.
This thread is way past the hijacking stage. I thought your comment was actually very helpful, as that last line hadn't felt really right from the beginning. And I can't think o f any more abhorrent disgusting concept than the sliders you describe, and which I have never had or ever will--sometimes I think America has passed the Ancient Rome level of hummingbirds' tongues and gladitorial circuses and hit humanity's all-time low--Carls' Jr, sliders and reality TV.
DeleteWell, seems i'm late for the party. The bones of this one seems pretty well picked over.
ReplyDeleteI'll just say it was great as always and the spider intrigued me. They always get in my morning head disrupting the dawn
Never too late to do your own bone picking. Marian made me rewrite the ending a bit, hopefully clarifying things. Ugh. Thanks for reading, rick.
DeleteJoy, a wonderful write.
ReplyDeleteIf I get up at dawn can I write poetry like this? It would be worth it if so. It inspired me to go back to the prompt and give it a second chance after this writing clinic, Hedge.
ReplyDeleteDawn is my time for writing, and probably yours as well, judging from this wonderful poem. I agree with you that helpful critique (Marian) can often improve a poem where the poet can't see the wood for the trees.
ReplyDeleteYou certainly took the form and made it work for you. Well done!
ReplyDeleteK
now THAT is a dawn worth dancing to! love the form, too!
ReplyDelete♥