Irina's Poetry Corner

Dear SunWinkers:

In recent weeks, we’ve been backing and filling on topics in the area of the sound and sonority of the language, including a couple ideas, neologism and tumbling verse, which we hope encouraged you to think about sonority and rhythm in new ways. Another way of sharpening your acuity on such considerations is to deprive yourself of the benefit of line breaks. When you do that, you end up with a

Prose Poem

Seemingly a contradiction in terms, the phrase may refer to

1. a passage, usually short, of non-discursive* prose, the poetic quality of which is self-evident, or to
2. a long work, which, although printed as prose, because of the prominence of the rhythms, the rich connotations of the language, the scope and significance of the whole, can properly be called a poem.**

Babette Deutsch, Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms[NY, NY: HarperResource 2002 reprint].

*i.e. not…

Dearest hardy, intrepid SunWinkers:

I frequently badger you to read your poetry aloud, and today’s column is no exception. Writing poetry without hearing what it sounds like is like studying a piano etude without touching the keyboard. For about a year, I’ve been making the rounds of poetry open mikes here in Vancouver USA and trying to be a good citizen of the poetry community. Reading your poems to an audience is so valuable, I just can’t recommend it highly enough! Ghost Town Poetry open mike, February 12, 2015 You get to hear it aloud, hear yourself read it, see what the audience responds to and what falls flat and what flies over their heads. It builds confidence in public speaking and in yourself as an artist. I’ve grown immensely from doing this. Here’s a sample, from January’s Ghost Town Poetry open mike: http://youtu.be/4Cdg3JWppk4?t=20m

This week, we bounce from Metaphors…

Dear SunWinkers:

If you’ve been following our column, you’ve gotten a pretty good survey of the basic essentials in the modern poet’s tool belt. You’ve learned how to use a hammer, a screwdriver, a chalk line, a carpenter’s square, and a level. A poet uses metaphor, simile, imagery, line breaks, sonority, and rhythm every time one sits down to write a poem.

Among the quirkier, funnier, more arcane devices—the hole saw, stud finder, miter board, and drill press of the wordsmith’s workbench—is today’s topic, the Oxymoron.

The word oxymoron is from the Greek words meaning sharp…dull. So the origin of the word itself is an oxymoron! An oxymoron might also be called a contradiction in terms, or a two-word paradox. We’ve all heard them:

civil war
pretty ugly
firewater
safety risk
lengthy brief

We could go on forever. It’s just one more way to make your writing a little…

Written: © Maxima

Croatian

Bakin spomenar

Kada mi baka uvečer priđe,
Pod miškom drži spomenar.
Tada sam sretan,
Jer dobro znam,
Da ide bajka,
Meni za dar.

A baka važno,
Započme priču.
U davna, davna vremena bijaše
Vještica strašna
Na metli jaše
Za njom tisuće vilenjaka,
I samo zjevaju da djecu plaše

Umračnoj sobi, mukla tišina.
Za oblak skri se mjesečina.
Može li bakice neka druga
Mene je strah a noć je duga

Baka se zamisli…
Onda zastade
Pa dobro,sinko,
Bit će neka druga
Sada mi spavaj,
Jer noć je duga

English

When Maxima approached me with a request to translate this poem, my first reaction was, No, I can’t do it, that’s too difficult. Then I thought, Well, I can at least try, and if I’m pleased with it, if I succeed in writing lines in English that create the same charm and the same flow as the original…