Tami Haaland - Poet Laureate of Montana asked me to take part in the FB Poetry Challenge and that was after Jen Webb and a group of poets collected around IPSI, the International Poetry Studies Institute asked me to contribute to an exercise they were undertaking, which is to respond to an email thread to write Prose Poems. A random poem would appear in our inbox and we could respond, or not - there are currently 17 writers taking part and thus far I understand around 600 Prose Poems have been written and collected in less than four months, which is extraordinary. I felt odd to be asked since I am actually a lyric writer for songs and not a poet but it has been an eye opener for me. So I thought I would air some ideas here. And since I am on the Greek island of Crete I thought I might do my 5 days of the Poetry Challenge as an Icarus themed exercise and idea around things I am working on and through. One thing I have found is the Prose Poetry idea has allowed me to explore ideas in other places - and being able to convert them into lyrics at times - and some of the songs have been worth working on. This first one being a good case. So here is the prose poem (unedited because they are meant to be quick - and often in response to others posted on the email thread):
On a bridge that crossed a river as wide as the sea, she stood angel still, cold as a shadow in the moonlight, pulled by the undertow of strange rooms and unmade beds. Her words like small fish squirmed from her grasp, seaward, searching for ferries - you said, 'the horizon,' and she clasped the last of the drifting notes close, songships lamenting lost sailors and cold linen sheets
And as I thought about the scene I had just created it occurred to me that it is a metaphor for women through the centuries; women who were always waiting for men to return I don't mean that as a feminist sleight of hand but centuries of men going to war, going to sea and so on. I am a fifties child and the second world war rung through a community of widows in my own parish. And then there is the idea of Naucrete the mother of Icarus who seems to have been written out of the story of 'father and boy' altogether. So, as a song it became that idea - with a country-esque, Tijuana, Mexican/USA border feel to it as a tune developed. Of course this doesn't do credit to repeat lines, the bridge, chorus idea etc, in fact the whole prosody that is a song. But it is my Day 1 of the poetry challenge and on the Icarus theme I have called this:
NaucreteShe stood on the bridge
looking out 'cross a river
which was longer than time
and wide as the sea
cold as a shadow
in the pull of the undertow
of strange rooms and cold linen on unmade beds
where she played a broken-heart-stringed mandolin
All losers are self-made men
she had known this all along
deceived by dreamers
panning fools gold
throwing pennies into the river
brought her no luck at all
just strange rooms and cold linen on unmade beds
where she played a broken-heart-stringed mandolin
In the smudge red light of early dawn
she would take her bag and move along
for another go on the merry-go-round
of strange rooms and cold linen on unmade beds
where she played a broken-heart-stringed mandolin.
I don't have the means to post a recording here or I would post that - another time, perhaps.
