Sample Poems
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Tuesday, June 30th, 2009While Twitter is often lampooned as empty chatter, I’m finding it an increasingly rich source of news and information. (Just look at what it has done in terms of revealing the aftermath of Iran’s election.)
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What Could Be Verse?
Monday, June 15th, 2009The first time that I ever wrote a sonnet,
’Twas filled with grand Romantic affectation,
As tho’ perhaps Shelley or Keats had done it
And I had merely taken poor dictation.
And so I tried to write free verse instead,
Which left me feeling somewhat loose and sore
As if, instead of a four-poster [...]
Elsewhere
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009There was an age in which this brown field,
the brown, veiny trees beyond,
the wind above like unbreaking surf,
could lure my feet
across the spongy soil
its brittle, weedy carpet,
into the stippled shadows
where the fellowship of empty branches
could brim me over
with shimmering melancholy.
However,
I am expected elsewhere,
and so a paler shade of feeling
must sustain.
—Lester Smith
(Originally appeared in Woud [...]
Poetic Forms: Haiku, Senryu, Tanka, and Lunes
Friday, May 29th, 2009counting sylllables
mentioning cherry blossoms
this is not haiku
(from Zen Rampage, back cover)
Haiku
Everyone knows what a haiku is, right? A poem in three lines, with seventeen syllables divided five/seven/five.
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