Poetry Friday round-up is with Kay at A Journey through the Pages.At Today’s Little Ditty, this month’s ditty challenge has sent me for a loop. Michelle interviewed Calef Brown here, and he challenged us “Write a poem or a story about two anthropomorphized objects.”
At first I tried to write about two birds on a wire, but they weren’t speaking to me. Then I grabbed a bag of story starting cubes and rolled a mountain and a star. As I revised this poem, I decided to try a reverso. (See Marilyn Singer’s explanation and model poems here.) I have not been terribly successful with this form. I can’t seem to make the two verses from different perspectives, but I want to be a player in the ditty game, so here it is…
Mountain Sparklers
To mountain high
old star appears
spiraling out of the sky,“Shine like a sparkler.
Be who you are.”In a spray
of light flakes,
Mountain glows
old with wisdom
from Star, his friend.From Star, his friend,
old with wisdom,
Mountain glows
of light flakes
like a spray.“Be who you are.
Shine like a sparkler
spiraling out of the sky.”Old star appears
to mountain high.Margaret Simon, 2018
Reflections on the Teche 
It is Marilyn Singer. I’ve made this mistake too. Hope you can correct your post.
I will correct it. Geez!
Reversos are so challenging. You caught that wonderful switch in meaning with your first two/last two lines!
Thanks. I think I’ll plug away at this form a little more. I’m determined to catch a good one.
I love it, Margaret, and love reading it either way, the really fun part about reversos. And I love the two that your dice gave you. “Be who you are./Shine like a sparkler.” Terrific!
beautiful!
Good grief, Margaret. As if this month’s challenge wasn’t tricky enough on its own! I have never been able to write a reverso to my satisfaction either (the differing perspectives is TOUGH!), but I so admire your attempt! What you did achieve is a beautiful, lyrical poem that is vividly expressive with its imagery. I also love your choice of form for a poem about two objects that speak to one another. Well done on all accounts!
Thanks. That means a lot coming from you.
Well that’s a double challenge you gave yourself! I love the idea of making this month’s challenge a reverso–well done!
Margaret, penning these lines, “Shine like a sparkler. Be who you are.” was a good move. It gave you an inspirational thought to build perspective.
I also really liked the imagery created by the words, “In a spray/of light flakes.” I believe Michelle said it well, “Well done on all accounts.”
I think that’s a pretty good reverso poem!
I’m coming back to this post Saturday morning….after the back and forth and busyness of Friday I wanted to come back in the quiet and re-visit. And, its been fun reading all the comments here. The “be like a sparkler, be who you are” works here…it’s a lovely bit of advice from one friend to another. And, it works both ways in your reverso. I love your phrase in the comments, “determined to catch a good one.” LOL. Yah. Me too! I have no doubt that you’ll be juggling “good ones” after trying …and then having your brain on something else (baby?) and they all just flood to you before you can pick up a pen.
This is just lovely. I find reversos so hard to write–I had enough of a challenge with this months ditty challenge. I love the imagery in this.
So clever! Great job! Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
Gorgeous poem Margaret, I love the dialogue these two powerful beings are sharing—in both directions!
Love it! Great job with a challenging form.