Continuing the pregnancy poems, here are two new ones. I've written more, but these are
the ones I'm moved to share at this moment.
Feedback questions
I'd love to hear if anything interests you about them, any ideas for strengthening them, and if you imagine them being incorporated into performance in any way. Right now I just see them as written, but am open to other possibilities.
Feedback questions
I'd love to hear if anything interests you about them, any ideas for strengthening them, and if you imagine them being incorporated into performance in any way. Right now I just see them as written, but am open to other possibilities.
Quickening at 12.5
weeks
What is that I feel?
A flicker, a twitch, a bubble?
Butterfly wings flapping against the breeze?
The tap tapping of a clandestine message meant just
for me?
Try as they might, no one else can feel you.
You’re my little secret!
Our First Duet, 16
weeks
We performed our first duet today.
The first that you may have been aware of, that is.
But, I wonder when did your consciousness begin?
Was it the moment your cells first divided, or in the
accumulation of your senses?
Is it in your sensitivity to the pressure of my twists and
bends?
Or in your new found ability to make out the bright stage
lights penetrating through layers of me to you?
Outside, I tumbled and danced, for 200 laughing and cheering
children;
Inside there was a private rollercoaster ride for one.
Now, hours later, I feel you flutter and flit
And wonder: “are you reliving the memory of our first duet?”
Betrayal, 24 weeks
I pass a forlorn child waiting on steps,
scuffing his feet in the dirt.
Suddenly I am 8 again,
waiting for her:
Long after the other children have gone,
I sit unwanted on a wall, swinging my legs.
I hum to soothe the feeling of unimportance,
my entire unsure existence on
pause.
Walking on, I glance back at this child who reminds me of
me,
Caressing my belly to feel the being who will be you.
Is it always the person closest to you that is
doomed to be the first to betray you?
As my mother hurt me,
Will I do the same you?
Here are notes from Meena and Cynthia's feedback during our skype meeting today.
ReplyDeletepoem 1:
interests
Cyn: playful, reminiscent of kids literature, fun
attracted to verbs: flicker, twitch, tap tapping, has an energy. Assonance: flicker and twitch
rhym: flapping and tapping. Loose rhythm that cycles forward on a sonic level
Meena: clandestine message, butterfly wings, flickering, carries an energy
Changes
Cyn: add 3 tap tap tapping (but that line is also a bit long, maybe split it between message and meant, put a surprise across line)
poem 2:
interests
Meena: likes how starts factual, then all the questions afterwards are breaking apart that first line.
Cyn: Sense of movement in language: energy of the twists, bends, roller coaster.
Wonder/adbuta rasa (what other shades of it: surprise, delight)
strengthening: more words than necessary. Could cut more words and syllables.
Thoughts about consciousness could be related to anti-abortion language
poem 3:
interests
cyn: sudden flash back to childhood. Leads to relationship.
Meena: shift in subjectivity. the flip of time and subjectivity (whose voice? child in belly, child in me, child on steps?)
Reader trying to figure it out. Theme: intergenerational patterns. brings up the question of how to shift patterns.
Change:
Cyn: Are you speaking in 8 year old voice in italics? If so, is there a change in language? voice in prose with different vocab and language?
Strong conceptually: can flesh out more, understand more about what mother did. Want to more about history.
Cyn and Meena: more show don’t tell. last two couplets are more telling rather than showing.
Elaborate more.