Tuesday, May 2, 2017

It's 42 degrees and it's thundering and the rain is pouring down, and about twenty very wet women are jogging (slogging? bogging?) up and down the steep hill outside my window. Ick. I am happy to be dry and warm. I spent much of Saturday standing around in a grim almost-drizzle with my in-laws, watching or waiting to watch the senior dance projects at Bennington, one of which took place in a pool of water. I was reminded of the years I spent sitting on the sidelines of little-kid baseball games, grousing about how long six innings could actually last, internally cursing the slow and hapless pitcher, and wondering if I would have any non-frostbitten toes by the time the torment ended. Who knew that the same thing could happen at a modern dance extravaganza? [This is not to denigrate either baseball or dance, which are both beautiful. And I would stand in the rain all day for the privilege of watching my son perform.]

Anyway, there's much to be said for a thick red bathrobe and a cup of hot coffee and an enthusiastic iron radiator.

I wonder what you thought of the poem I linked to yesterday. A friend of mine commented that it sounded like a compressed sonnet to her, an observation that I found very exciting because this was not a conscious construction strategy . . . although, oddly enough, the poem does mention the word sonnet. I do know that I wrote it at a time when my son was infatuated with the Hamilton soundtrack and was also listening to a fair amount of Kendrick Lamar, so my air was suffused with hip-hop rhymes and cadences. I also know that I had Macbeth on my mind.  But the sonnet structure--which I can now absolutely track in the piece--arrived without my conscious volition. It seems that decades spent reading and copying out sonnets have affected my brain patterns. I think that's thrilling.

3 comments:

Ruth said...

Dawn, I copied and pasted your poem to my documents so I could properly mull over itproperly, will say I keep hearing it at a poetry slam, delivered so eloquently and yes, envied. I felt this poem. So often I should've just shut up and not tried to response.

Dawn Potter said...

Well, I for one do NOT want you to "just shut up." I find many of your remarks profound, and of course you are one of my number one teacher mentors. I have learned so much from you. XXX

Ruth said...

Thanks and love