Quickie: Light Verse & Why I Write It

Like I always say, I have plenty of influences. Plenty of these poetic voices you probably have heard of such as Emily Dickinson (I’m sure you could have all guessed her abundant influence on me from the quote alone), Sylvia Plath, etc… But I also gain plenty of influence from light verse writers. You know the type of writers that make you just…see the glass as half full instead of half empty. The kind of writers that put a sarcastic, humorous spin on life-they make you turn that proverbial “frown upside down!” Wendy Cope is one of the main reasons why I write light verse.

That isn’t to say that I didn’t go through my, “Dying is an art, like everything else” phase…I mean what poestess poet hasn’t? It’s a right of passage, really. But there is a silver lining. What is that silver lining you ask? Laughter. Laughter truly is the best medicine. I’m not saying that I go everyday burying my head in the sand, but there is always one moment in everyday (usually countless moments) that makes me laugh, and I write about that moment. I try different takes on different situations. I wanted to try something… (EEK!) I was going to do a spotlight on a particular author (Wendy Cope) but I figured I’d save her work for next time and I wanted to share some of my own pieces with you…light verse of course 🙂

Salt to Pepper
I do not know what I would do
Without your spice of life;
Forever at my side. We a pair
Of balance: I am the taste that
Purses the lips, you the heat,
The flavor that coats within.
There can never be one without
The other; in excess, we draw the
Liquid of life to lips. You are the
Yin to my Yang, the indigestion
To my high blood pressure.

Published in Mezzo Cammin: an online journal of formalist poetry by women

Exchange of Hearts
…but bitter, it has never been so sweet.
I tell them and they just don’t understand
The way I feel for you…you’re mine to keep.

And yes, our kind of love’s no easy feat:
You tend to do things that I cannot stand.
But bitter, it has never been so sweet.

I’ll even take the bad. You lie; I cheat.
It’s not like we have that gold wedding band.
The way I feel for you…you’re mine to keep.

We play the field, and yet our hearts still meet
Same time, same place. We live on love’s command.
But bitter, it has never been so sweet.

I love the taste of heartbreak. It’s so neat,
Tied in a bow and swapped from hand to hand.
They way I feel for you…you’re mine to keep.

Your heart belongs to me: no gift receipt.
I try to work my way through love’s demand
…but bitter, it has never been so sweet.
The way I feel for you…you’re mine to keep.

Poetry Book Review of the Week

View with a Grain of Sand – Wislawa Szymborska

I think that one of the greatest things to do on a blog is to find a book (or in this case, a work of poetry) read it and review it! This is going to be a pretty short and succinct review, but I wanted to try out the idea… Here goes!

I just so happened to have read a work entitled, View with a Grain of Sand by Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska. She has published 16 collections of poetry, was the Goethe Prize winner in 1991, the Herder Prize winner in 1995 and the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1996.

Szymborska reminds me of the observation and insight of Kay Ryan with the wit and sardonic humor of Wendy Cope; very contemporary in nature and execution. I can see the poems here as actual events in her life very easily: many first person accounts, deep outlooks on life, death, and eternity (philosophical entanglements). I was drawn to her because her insights were humorous but true at the same time and like her title implies that life’s observations should be taken with a grain of “salt”. Her images are very concrete and one can visualize things happening in the poems. The language is believable and accessible to all readers,

“With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star
although we’re different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.”
(View with a Grain of Sand, Szymborska, page 7).

View with a Grain of Sand contained the most exceptional blend of rhyme, rhythm, meter, iambs, and syllabics. I found that her choice of lyrical content suited all of the pieces that she placed it into. Szymborska, utilized alliteration in her poetry as well to evoke sounds from natural speech and her surroundings such as her poem, “Poetry Reading”,

“In the first row, a sweet old man’s soft snore
he dreams his wife’s alive again.What’s more
she’s making him that tart she used to bake.
Aflame, but carefully—don’t burn his cake!—
we start to read. O Muse”
(View with a Grain of Sand; Szymborska, page 26).

Such wit and humor she has, and I eat up every line.

View with a Grain of Sand.

I can read this collection of poetry over and over again, and I have already started to do just so. The stories and voice are very personal. She writes in a very matter-of-fact way, but because of her sarcasm and humor, everything is highly relatable to the reader. She starts with more observations that are closer to her own life and then branches into the greater story of life. She starts from a tiny seed of personal experiences and it grows into more ideals of life and everything between.

I connect with Szymborska’s writing because her writing feels human. They did not feel contrived by physical formality or meter or rhyme, the pieces were not all contrived from anger and a need to tell a story, but they were simply her observations of life. It is as though she speaks for many writers, including myself, from her poem “Poetry Reading” to her more insightful piece, “The Joy of Writing” which pretty much sums of the sentiments of all the writer of these collections:

“The joy of writing
The power of preserving
Revenge of a mortal hand.”
(View with a Grain of Sand; page 36).

*I personally say it’s a Must Read*

Welcome To CosmopolitanMuse

I began wondering about where I draw my inspiration from in my own writing. Was it philosophy? Sociology? Art? Nature? Romance? Humanity? I realized that my inspiration encapsulates all of these things and more. Why? Because of the very innate human nature of observation. We take in our surroundings, categorize them, store them, recall them from memory. That is what truly makes us different from the tree, the bird, the fish, isn’t it?

Our 5 senses not only draw us closer to Earth, but in a way, separate us from the kingdom to which we belong because of reason alone. Now, without becoming too philosophical, that is what I am attempting to do with this blog: find a place of balance between this rich and modern (cosmopolitan if you will) world that we live in, full of vibrancy and vitality which can sometimes pull us away from our innate sensibility to admire our world and observe, wonder.

Quite a bit of my blog will also have to do with contemporary poets that I enjoy reading such as Kim Addonizio, Wendy Cope, Billy Collins, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, and Kay Ryan to name a few.

I hope that this blog brings forth even more contemporary poets that readers have not heard of and I have never heard of, gives some writing exercises and spawns discussion!