Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Prompt #7 - Love, Funny Side Up
---
COUNTERPANE
Counterpane covers
islands adrift, now anchored
boundaries erased—
Marquesan & Manhatto,
lush jungle, New England snow.
---
Inspired by "The Counterpane," chapter four of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
The challenge was to write about "humor in love" within the five-line constriction of the (English version of the) tanka poetic form. I find the friendship of Queequeg and Ishmael hilarious; you may not. I find the form and structure of tanka overly constrictive, especially with its thirty-one syllables (5-7-5-5-7); you may not. (It definitely runs to counter to the lush "overwriting" of Melville.)
Does the above work? Not as well as I would like, perhaps. I was thinking about things that demarcate boundaries and things that erase them, all the while trying to keep those concepts purposefully ambiguous.
No comments:
Post a Comment