Spontaneous Poem, Monday Sept. 14th

From: Keith Badowski
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 8:32 AM
To: Linda Ames
Subject: Monday Poetry Challenge?

Hi Linda:

How about giving me a poetry challenge for today?

As for challenges/prompts, anything goes: strange topic, specific form, an image, a question, a first line, phrase that must be used, a reference that must be included, etc.

If you don't mind, let's not go with random words like the last couple have.
I need a break from that angle if possible.

Thanks in advance!

Peace,
Keith

From: Linda Ames
To: Keith Badowski
Subject: RE: Monday Poetry Challenge?
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:55:23 -0400


A phrase: "The Pain Royal" (or if you prefer, "A Royal Pain") and here is the further suggestion.

I was recently photographing a cemetery in Turner County. Among the gravesites were several children’s graves with just their names and no date: Daniel Lee, Estell, Oscar, Ruby, Ruth, and Willie - "At Rest".

I thought about doing a poem, but have not yet been inspired to write since I'm more involved in some focused genealogy research.

So, I hope this helps inspire something for you.

Thanks, Linda


For the Children ‘At Rest’ in a Turner County Cemetery by Keith Badowski

Deep beneath the stage of soil
Amenities exclude signposts
Numberless apartments swapped around
Inside an inky womb for always
Earthen playground where giggles burrow
Loam for breakfast, loam for lunch

Layers of unconsciousness, layers of unsaids
Erosion of baby teeth, of cartilage
Eyelashes engulfed into earthworms




Egg of Eve expended
Spade cuts the soil, spill pours down
Tobacco roots drape like a tassel
Exchange this embryo for an embankment
Locket for the pocketless
Lace folded with the linen




Open the door on otherwise
Suppose Oscar was your brother
Cape wearer, candy welsher
Ambitious academic but admirably available
Reverse such regard—God refused it




Raise this radiant rock
Up unscathed
Before the tinkling bell of belief
Yes, Yahweh, I yearn for my young




Rack after rack of remaining rations
Unschooled in kitchen utensils
Tablecloth, teapot, teaspoon, sand-timer
Hunger alone inhabits her household




Well read, well spoken, well know, well-to-do
In the in-crowd of innocents
Laughs, larks, licorice, and lightning bugs
Lips to lick and legs to limber
Invitation to such an inventive island where
Every dead child is equipped for his extended family



Note: These were mostly completed yesterday, but I didn’t have time to type them and slightly tweak them until this morning. I love alliteration--way too much for my own good! Throughout the writing of these, I flipped through a Dictionary one letter at a time to find words with the same first letter that make interesting lines together. The idea to make a collection of acrostic poems that spell the names Linda gave me probably came from the fact that acrostics were among the earliest type of poem I remember writing. One of my elementary school teachers taught acrostics to me and set all us kids to writing them, using our own names as the starting point. Since these are poems about the names of children on graves, I instinctively thought I ought to use the form I learned first in childhood. I imagine most of these verses though are in the voice of the surviving parents.

How the Dwarves of Yore Rang My Bell By Keith Badowski

This article originally appeared in the Georgia Poetry Society newsletter, December 2007.


I suppose every poet can point to a few formative experiences with poetic works that inspired attentiveness to poetry and stirred up the desire to make more poetry. In my case, the earliest poem imprinted on my consciousness was J.R.R. Tolkien’s song/ballad that begins “Far over the Misty Mountains cold” from The Hobbit.

The primary means of transmission was the animated version of The Hobbit which aired on television in 1977—when I was nine years old. In heavy rotation on my turntable was the vinyl record album of the soundtrack, and to this day, I can still hear the dwarves singing their history for Bilbo Baggins:

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells,
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

I’m sure, at the time, I thought of this poem mainly as a song, one I could sing along with as I memorized the entire soundtrack through repeated listening. The other thing that the animated show inspired in me back then was an interest in writing and reading. As I realized that The Hobbit was based on Tolkien’s book, I wanted to read it and Tolkien’s other books—The Lord of the Rings series. Also I began to have the desire to make books, after Tolkien’s model. My earliest writing attempts were fantasy stories, featuring far off lands, sword-wielding heroes, and strange monsters.

I became more aware of Tolkien as a poet while studying a unit on Poetry in middle school. When asked to memorize a poem to recite in class, I chose “Over the Misty Mountains”, probably because it was still rattling around in my head from my earlier overdose.

While Tolkien’s song did not immediately inspire me to write poetry, it has had a lingering influence on poetry writing—which began in earnest during high school. My very first published poems appeared in the high school literary magazine, Everness, in 1984, including a fantasy adventure ballad, entitled “The Ivory Bear”, loosely modeled on the style of Tolkien’s “Over the Misty Mountains”.

Hither came he to the Mount of Fate;
He came with a purpose from the Land of Hate.
The tale he had heard had brought him there;
The tale he had heard of an ivory bear.

The bear of gems and ivory forged
Placed on an altar with gold they gorged.
His plan was such to claim it all
For the race who had made it had taken a fall.

Yes, I admit it’s not very good, but I think the influence is obvious. I remember having so much fun writing it too, with all those rhyming couplets.

In college English Lit classes, I was exposed to Tolkien’s influences, Anglo Saxon poetic narratives, such as Beowulf, and Middle English alliterative poems, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Tolkien’s use of alliteration sank very, very deep hooks into my poetic tastes. How I still adore the sounds of phrases such as “Misty Mountains”, “dungeons deep”, and “hollow halls”.

To this day my own poems often slip into alliterative phrases. I must go back through in the revision process to cut some of these, because otherwise an excess of alliteration would give a funny, archaic feel to what I’d prefer to be contemporary sounding poems. Yet I never cut the alliteration entirely, because those sounds are what first won me over to poetry. For me that stylistic tool still contains a bit of magic.

It’s not only fun to reminisce about a formative poetry-related experience; it’s also informative to your current writing to be aware of it. Perhaps by looking back at influential poems you can become more conscious about the stylistic and thematic choices you now make as a poet. Try to identify and revisit the poems that made the earliest imprint on you. You might just rediscover a “mighty spell”.

Keith Badowski is employed by a Methodist church in Phenix City, AL. His poems have appeared sporadically over the years in publications such as Oxalis, Monkey, and Rambunctious Review. To learn just how big a geek he is, visit his blog, entitled “There Goes the Top of My Head” which is found at http://keithbadowski.blogspot.com/