duplex form | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘duplex form’

Poetry Friday: These Poems

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged book spine cento poems, duplex form, Ethical ELA, free verse poem on June 21, 2024| 21 Comments »

Poetry Friday gathering is with Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference.

I have fallen out of a daily writing practice. I don’t have my students to keep me honest. Summer break has seeped into my psyche and everything feels like a pause. Good news I feel rested. I’m sleeping better, and my daily exercise has leveled up. But I feel guilty about the writing. I really thought I would do more of it.

Ethical ELA helped me out this week with daily prompts for June’s Open Write. On Saturday, Sarah Donovan started us out with a prompt from June Jordan’s poem “These Poems.”

These poems
after June Jordan

These poems
they are sated
with sweet wine.

These lips
open for words
whispered to wind.

These wishes
wander in warm sun
hoping to find
your heart
to hold.

I follow these strokes
stem by stem
scribbles of ink
seeking recognition.

Do you see me?

On Sunday, I led the prompt about writing a duplex poem after Kay Ulanday Barrett who wrote after Jericho Brown. The poem I wrote came to me after my husband’s recent dog bite injury. Everyone we talked to wanted to know all the details. He is doing better, but he is wearing a wound vac that is a gismo that continually pumps the bad stuff out of his wound. We are hoping this method works toward faster healing. (Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers.)

I Ask

(Duplex after Jericho Brown after Kay Ulanday Barrett)

the poem what it wants me to hear today.
What thread runs through the details?

Everyone wants to know the details.
What happened at the corner lot?

What happened at the corner
turned his life, his legs inside out.

Turned his life, his legs inside out,
details that thread the woven story.

They tell details to thread the woven story.
Shout for justice for the finish line.

Say justice is truth; shatters the plan,
pulls the thread on the whole thing.

Pull a thread, the whole thing changes
to what the poem wants me to know.

Monday’s prompt was from Susan Ahlbrand. She shared clips from Gilmore Girls to prompt us to write about graduation day. I took a quote from Lorelei who said, “I’m not crying.”

On the final day, I was taking care of two of my grandchildren, so I put together a quick book spine poem, prompted by Jessica, from my daughter’s son’s shelf. This week revived my soul and hopefully put me back on a path of daily writing.

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Poetry Friday: The Duplex of Virtual Teaching

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged duplex form, Jericho Brown, Sunday Poetry Swaggers, virtual teaching on October 2, 2020| 19 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

I have become enamored of the duplex poetry form, a modern take on a ghazal + sonnet + blues poem invented by Jericho Brown, the Pulitzer Prize Poetry Winner for 2020. I’ve read the description in this article over and over, and every time I see something new. In other words, it’s complicated.

Here are the boundaries:
Write a ghazal that is also a sonnet that is also a blues poem of 14 lines, giving each line 9 to 11 syllables.
The first line is echoed in the last line.
The second line of the poem should change our impression of the first line in an unexpected way.
The second line is echoed and becomes the third line.
The fourth line of the poem should change our impression of the third line in an unexpected way.
This continues until the penultimate line becomes the first line of the couplet that leads to the final (and first) line.
For the variations of repeated lines, it is useful to think of the a a’ b scheme of the blues form.
Jericho Brown

I decided to challenge my writing group, The Sunday Night Swaggers, with the form. Challenges help to get us moving. (I hope my partners aren’t throwing eggs at this blog post.) I enjoyed this process. The repetition with the permission to vary it led to new discoveries.

To see more duplex poems from our group:

Catherine at Reading to the Core

Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone

Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

Linda at A Word Edgewise

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Poetry Friday: A Poem for Me

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Bonny McDonald, duplex form, Festival of Words, Words for You on September 18, 2020| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Matt at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme.

Last week I posted a poem I wrote for my mother-in-law, a work commissioned by her for a local writing festival fundraiser. I commissioned a poem for myself and selected Bonny McDonald to write it for me.

Bonny and I have lost touch over the years, so I enjoyed our email exchanges that put us back into that comfortable place of friendship. You know the kind. When you feel like you were never really separated.

Bonny didn’t just take the questionnaire that was given by the Festival of Words organization. No, she emailed me more questions like
What makes you think of your ancestors, and what messages do you get or teachings do you carry in your heart from those who came before you in your family?

My answers to that question and to “Who is your favorite poet lately?” (Jericho Brown) led to this wonderful duplex poem just for me. I cried when she read it at the Zoom event.

Namesake
A duplex for Margaret Simon,
inspired by the portrait of her grandmother, Margaret Shields Liles
The mother of your mother is with you
Margaret, still, a figure in a painting
Margaret’s figure sits still in the painting
Her violin poised to spring up for a tune
A tune fit for a violin springs up
For the child of your child in your lap
Oh child of my child, a song for you
I wrote a few verses to leave with you
Now to leave them is what’s left to do
A note resonates with the lift of the bow
A note resonates a little while
Harmonics hold to a foundation
Your grandchildren hold you to the place where
The mother of your mother is with you
Bonny McDonald, all rights reserved