Sestinas and the Journey

Quote of the Week

"We are men of action. Lies do not become us."

The Dread Pirate Roberts, a.k.a. Wesley


The creative process, to many people, remains a mystery. My wife and I were blessed to see and hear Arlo Guthrie in concert. He said, "Writing a song is kinda' like fishin'. It's mostly just about being there. And, if you have a pencil when one swims by, you can catch it."


Here are a few of the catches from this week:
Sestina

By Katie Metz

Does anyone know where my insurance has gone?

It has yet to return from a flight

I have searched too long for a job to call mine

It would be madness to wait for a fowl

So with my occupational tools in hand

The day begins without a cheap from my canary

Trying to remember the importance of a canary

I shout down the tunnels “Has anyone seen where my plumaged pal has gone?”

With no reply I trudge onwards a sturdy shovel in hand

Watching carefully for any signs of flight

I decide not to care about the lost fowl

Instead I focus on earning what is mine

No one else seems to be working down here in the mine

Could it possibly be due to my missing canary?

Why have the birds here at all when the only look pretty but smell foul?

Maybe the other workers finished early and have gone...

I look down at my feet and pick up a yellow feather the kind used in flight

A trickle of unease tinges my thoughts all from the feather clutched by my hand

Throwing it to the dusty ground I instead grasp the shovel close at hand

I move on before another ominous sign taints this mine

Wondering why in the first place a bird would be forced into these dark tunnels by flight

I suddenly remembered that something within here was tested by my canary

He had never failed yet... where could he have gone?

The test must not be that important anyway if it was trusted to fowl

Farther down the path the air took on a quality that came close to foul

Soon I am dragging my shovel in my nearly limp hand

All the sprightly energy of my youth is now gone

My thoughts are clinging to lucidity no longer acting as if they are mine

And then it occurs to me the use of a canary

If they glide in and soar out all is well however not so if a bird fails to return from its flight

I am painfully reminded that my bird never flew home from flight

Where oh where is my fowl?

Stumbling I fall to the ground and land nose to beak with my dead canary

With a burst of adrenaline I right myself with both shovel and hand

As though with wings I escape the wretched mine

Gasping fresh air I realize how close I was to gone

Never again did I underestimate the worth of a canary and its risky flight

I would be gone if not for the daring golden fowl

They lend a much needed wing towards protecting a mine

ses·ti·na[se-stee-nuh]a poem of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, originally without rhyme, in which each stanza repeats the end words of the lines of the first stanza, but in different order, the envoy using the six words again, three in the middle of the lines and three at the end.
dictionary.com


We also discussed the journey poem.
The six Components of the Journey
from The Practice of Creative Writing (see below)
Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Mentor
Tests and Ordeals
Reward
Return




Masking the Truth

by Zach Cassady

The mask that hides your true face

We can't always know why it's there

Or even when we have them on

Masks can be used as walls for your heart

They can also break though them

Make no mistake the mask exists

Can that mask truly hide your face

We like to believe it can

The mask is like a band aid on a scar

The band aid doesn't cure the scar

It only covers it from view

The mask is only the cover in your life story

The mask that your face hides

When you use your mask on some

Then, there becomes confusion to who you are

But use it too often and

It becomes who you are

The mask is a tool for your destruction so

Face the mask that hides the true you

Two resources I highly recommend to anyone interested in the craft of writing are:


The Practice of Creative Writing
by Heather Sellers


Rumors of Water
by L.L. Barkat


Words of the Week
(click on the word to read a definition)
Parergon
Flounce
Homologate
Braird
Pleonasm