Sometimes, leading a workshop, I like to start out with a
collective reading of a poem.
Something that will shake them up, and let them know we are not in
Kansas, and something that tells them this will be fun. I might choose this poem,
present it to them without comment, and have each anxious student around the
table read a couplet.
Humberto Ak’abal
Klis, klis, klis…
Ch’ok, ch’ok, ch’ok…
Tz’unum, tz’unum, tz’unum…
B’uqpurix, b’uqpurix, b’uqpurix…
Wiswil, wiswil, wiswil…
Tulul, tulul, tulul…
K’urupup, k’urupup, k’urupup…
Chowix, chowix, chowix…
Tuktuk, tuktuk, tuktuk…
Xar, xar, xar…
Tukar, tukar, tukar…
K’up, k’up, k’up…
Sag’k’or, saq’k’0r,
saq’k’or…
Ch’ik, ch’ik, ch’ik…
Tukumux, tukumux, tukumux…
perpuaq, xperpuaq, xperpuaq…
Tz’ikin, tz’ikin, tz’ikin…
Kukuw, kukuw, kukuw…
Ch’iuwit, ch’iuwit, ch’iuwit…
Tli, tli, tli…
Ch’er, ch’er, ch’er
Si-si-si-si-si-si-si-si…
Ch’ar, ch’ar, ch’ar…
from Poems I Brought Down from the Mountain
Humberto Ak’abal
http://www.akabal.com/
Of course, this is a translation
of bird talk. And not from Spanish either, since Humberto Ak’abal is Maya and
speaks mostly K'iche'. This poem
is all dialogue, but you can see from other poems on his web site that he has a
way with image. A fine poet,
translated into many languages. His website is also linked to YouTube, where
you can see him recite some poems.
Here is a poem that is a
masterpiece of onomatopoeia. Take
your time when you read it.
Sssh
Rolf Jacobsen
Sssh the sea says
sssh the small waves at the shore
say, sssh
not so violent, not
so remarkable.
Sssh
say the tips of the waves
crowding around the headland's
surf. Sssh
they say to people
this is our earth,
our eternity.
This poem has a kind of silent
reverence. It has silence all
around it.
Translated from the Norwegian
http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/23/grayson_r.html
North in the World: Selected
Poems of Rolf Jacobsen. Edited and
translated by Roger Greenwald. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002.
ISBN: 0-226-39035-7 (Hardcover)
The Roads Have Come to an End
Now: Selected and Last Poems of Rolf Jacobsen. Translated by Robert Bly, Roger Greenwald and Robert
Hedin. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2001. ISBN:
1-55659-165-9 (Paperback).
One way
to have students concentrate on sound in poetry is to have them write a poem
with a vocabulary in which they don’t know the meaning of a single word. Around Valentine’s Day I have them use
a vocabulary from Lost Words of Love by Susan Sperling. I ask them to write an erotic poem with
words like these: ablude, amoret, fleshment, flesh-spade,
floit. melsh-dick, murfle. Real words, all about 1,000 years old, in
English. I do not provide
definitions, so all they have to work with is sound.
Recently I wrote an anagram poem based on the word Cajolery.
The anagram poem is a form created by the
brilliant poet, Terrance Hayes:
http://www.failbetter.com/02/Hayesnuclear.htm
I submitted the poem online to The American Poetry Journal
and it was accepted immediately.
http://www.americanpoetryjournal.com/
It was only later, when discussing the poem with my
students, that I realized I did not know what the word Cajolery meant.
I encourage my students to be in a state of not-knowing when they write
poetry, so maybe I was setting a good example.
I have
often admired the way artists can listen to music when they work, but I can’t
do so while writing. But sometimes, late at night, with a shot of gin at hand,
I have found I can listen to this online station: Didgheadradio.com. You can
find them in iTunes under international.
Every piece they play has a didgeridoo in it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC9w4KWEgJE
I love
the purity of music as an art form. No image, no narrative, no physical
substance, just music. I love the way musicians get lost in a song. “In the
Pocket” as they say. I envy the way musicians can sing and dance to poetry; as
a consolation, I remind myself that bad poems often make great songs.