April 13 – 13 Is Poetry

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.” ~ Diane Setterfield

I began this prompt with a quote from The Thirteenth Tale because on the 13^th day of our 30/30 in April, I wish to celebrate the number 13 and metaphor (as a poetic device).

The guidelines:

- choose 3 to 13 (nonconsecutive) words out of Setterfield’s quote

- use them in a poem that is a deliberate celebration of metaphor

I’m adding two simple definitions of metaphor (stolen from the dictionary *cough*), just so that we can hear the same tune (which, of course, we should dance in our own styles):

1) Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable

2) Metaphor is a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract

I also want to share one of my favorite metaphors from Sylvia Plath, “I’ve eaten a bag of green apples”, which appears in her poem (aptly titled), “Metaphor”. Today, I wish to read poems full of metaphors used to tell tales as mind-tickling as Sylvia’s bag of ambiguously green fruit.

Let’s fill the Imaginary Garden with poetry that shows how metaphor can help us birth art that keeps us from disappearing when we die. Please add the direct link to your poem to Mr. Linky. Then go for a swim in other Toads’ poetic ink.   

A Toad's Favor(u)rite Poem

I found this challenge difficult, until I went downtown to the historic part of the city, I frequent.  I felt the spirits whisper to me and the connection I discovered stunned me.  I live close to Elizabeth City, NC.  Orville n' Wilbur Wright stayed in town before going to Kitty Hawk, for their first flight.  They also inspired the poet I want to share with you today.

 It all started the night I went to my daughter's boyfriend's graduation.  I sat there in the bleachers and Robert Frost's poem, A Road Not Taken, popped into my mind.  It was read at my graduation.   Later in the week,  Robert Frost's name surfaced again.  I took my daughter on an art date downtown.  I discovered there was an antique shop, in the former Southern Hotel.  This shop is inside the historic lobby.   It is steeped in history and charm.  The original staircase once lead to the rooms and a ballroom was on the fourth floor.  Still in existence is the original marble slab check in counter, the service elevator door and button, and the gorgeous checkered floors.  The ceiling has had some work, but you can see it is unique.

  I talked to the shop's owner about the history and yes Orville n' Wilbur Wright had been in these parts, in this hotel.  She said other names and I heard her mention Robert Frost.  I stopped on the way home to mail my butterfly art submission to a magazine and knew I had to do some research.  I discovered Robert was a  New Englander, like me.  He  had been here in this area, not just in the city, but on the Dismal Swamp.  I live near the Dismal Swamp State Park, which is in both North Carolina and Virginia. The swamp was part of the National Underground Railroad and considered a national treasure. How did he end up here, I wondered?

Elinor Miriam White and Robert Frost

 

He had proposed to his love, Elinor White we share the same initials. She was in college and said no. She wanted to finish her education before marriage, smart girl. He had written a poem for her called My Butterfly-I have goosebumps I just mailed my butterfly art-weird.  It was his first published poem.  She refused his proposal and he boarded a train-distraught and ended up in my neck of the woods.

My Butterfly

Precipitate in love,

Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above

like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.

When that was, the soft mist

Of my regret hung not on all the land...

 A Line Storm Song

In the wood-world’s torn despair

Than now these numberless years the elves,

Although they are no less there:

All song of the woods is crushed like some

Wild, easily shattered rose...

       

Ghost House

I dwell with a strangely aching heart

In that vanished abode there far apart

On that disused and forgotten road

That has no dust-bath now for the toad

Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;...

“Poet Robert Frost vanished into the Dismal Swamp, according to local legend, contemplating suicide. After imbibing at a local roadhouse, Frost changed his mind and was inspired to write his signature poem, The Road Less Traveled.”

 Info here

            Later published as The Road Not Taken:

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day! 

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back...

Elinor and Robert did get married in 1895! She finished college, he did not. 

 I discovered Robert Frost wrote a poem about Orville n' Wilbur years later. Their first flight was in Kill Devil Hills, but the record soaring one was in Kitty Hawk. Info here. 

There are 473 lines in his Kitty Hawk poem. I will share a few stanzas-no not my favorite poem.

Kitty Hawk

Kitty Hawk, O Kitty,

There was once a song,

Who knows but a great

Emblematic ditty,

I might well have sung

When I came here young

Out and down along

Past Elizabeth City

Sixty years ago...

 When the chance went by

For my Muse to fly

From this Runway Beach

As a figure of speech

In a flight of words,

Little I imagined

Men would treat this sky

Some day to a pageant

Like a thousand birds.

Neither you nor I

Ever thought to fly.

Oh, but fly we did,

Literally fly……

Robert Frost

And now my favorite poem: 

To the Thawing Wind

Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
 Bring the singer, bring the nester;
 Give the buried flower a dream;
 Make the settled snow-bank steam;
 Find the brown beneath the white;
 But whate'er you do to-night,
 Bathe my window, make it flow,
 Melt it as the ice will go;
 Melt the glass and leave the sticks
 Like a hermit's crucifix;
 Burst into my narrow stall;
 Swing the picture on the wall;
 Run the rattling pages o'er;
 Scatter poems on the floor;
 Turn the poet out of door.

Robert Frost

I love how Robert uses nature as a metaphor.   For me, this poem expresses the writing process. I feel the insight of how we as poets bring life to our words and make them breathe.  

Robert Frost:   " A poem aims for “a momentary stay against confusion.” It “begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”   ...“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.”  He stated the highest goal of the poet is— “to lodge a few poems where they will be hard to get rid of.”

For info about this poet check these sites:

The Figure A Poem Makes

Frost Bio

Frost Timeline