Within a Shell
I plucked one perfect, mottled sea shell From the crushed bones of its ancestors; their grit The sunkissed sand beneath my feet Soaked through, with ocean's briny tang, and hard, Unlike the powdery, pillowed dunes That can't remember what it's like to feel the sea. I wondered at its journey, how it ended at the sea I held within my hand, a home, now just a shell How many years from sea to shore to dunes - Who says the spineless creatures don't have grit? Whenever tempted by the thought that life is hard I think how hard it must've been - from fins to feet. The Little Mermaid envies me my feet, But happily, I would slip into the sea. Discernment of His master plan is hard But God and Science aren't at war - the shell That landed at my feet, rubbed smooth by grit Divine, tells timeless stories, buried in the dunes. A thousand million years of tales lie hidden in the dunes As happy children dig, build castles in the sand, and bury tiny feet Their soft skin damp, their chubby legs adorned with grit This moment's all they know of the eternal sea Experience, tight-clasped secret held within its shell At least today's too kind to tell them "Life is hard." Some day, too soon they'll learn that lesson: that it's hard - That castles made of sand must crumble and return to dunes. But as the children venture from the safety of their shells Exploring, till they find the chosen path for righteous feet, The path that leads from sea to shining sea Will give them strength of character, and grit. Rough edges will be polished smooth by ever-finer grit As youth meets all the challenges of life, however hard And in old age, reflecting by the ever-changing sea They'll pluck that mottled, perfect shell from sparkling dunes Unrushed, they'll rise, to rinse their gnarled, sandy feet, And throw it, heavenward, to home, that shell. Relentless, the eternal sea will tumble hard against the grit - that shell Now one with all the other grains of sand will keep us grounded, steady, on our feet, So one day, we can join our bones and stories underneath the sunkissed dunes.
— Holly Jahangiri
Author’s note:
Lord help me, I think I’ve found a form more onerous than the villanelle. At least when trying, near midnight, to finish it.
Today’s Poet
I learned this week that my application to the Summer Writers Institute at the University of St. Thomas was accepted.
[P]articipants will meet at UST and hear from distinguished writers of poetry and fiction, and engage in seminars on art and beauty, Catholicism and literature, and the craft of writing. They will also get counsel and help with their own work in lively creative writing workshops.
Between the evening public readings with masters of the art, the intense seminars and workshops, and the good company at meals, participants will experience that most elusive thing: a literary community intended to deepen and strengthen their own work while also welcoming them into the great literary and cultural tradition of the Church.
So, in honor of that, today’s featured poet is James Matthew Wilson, who will be leading the poetry workshops. Read more about him here.
On a box of rainbow sprinkles | The New Criterion
April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.
This month, my goal is to:
- Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
- Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.
I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.
Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)
Congratulations on your acceptance to the writer’s retreat! Today’s poem was challenging, for sure. I like the theme, but I guess you have to find a cadence to make it flow.
Cheers,
Mitch
You and BingBot… cadence. Hah! (Actually, it urged longer lines and more metrical variation, which I agreed with and did.) I’m struggling a bit to find the fine line between art and artifice.
Congratulations – what exciting news. Your comment about this form being more onerous than the villanelle made me laugh. It’s probably true, although I think you did a fine job with your poem. And it certainly has me thinking about the long journey of transformation a shell takes.
Thank you, Deborah! I’m glad you enjoyed my poem and glad my comment made you laugh – only one who has tried both can really, truly GET the dark truth and humor of it! It was nearly midnight when I finished the thing, and I made the mistake of running it through Bing Chat, asking it for feedback. BingBot had plenty to say – most of which would’ve involved ripping it to shreds and NOT calling it a sestina. Which, had I not been hellbent and determined, I might’ve done. But it was nearly midnight and it was “W”! LOL
In the light of day, I remind myself that it is a first – and not too terrible – effort! Your kind words, and those of another friend who shared it on Facebook with an intro that would’ve had me hiring him as my publicist, could I afford a publicist, reassure me that it’s a pretty adequate sestina, at that! I like formal verse – I think of it as a hat rack for words. Sometimes, it’s good to throw words around the room with artful abandon. Other times, it’s good to hang them neatly on a hat rack. Even better, to have a choice between the two.
Wow, great poem. What is the form? More challenging than the Villanelle? That does sound onerous. Congrats on the UST writers/poets workshop. Sounds great. We have a UST here in St. Paul, MN, too. My daughter went to school there and I did some graduate work there many years ago. I wonder if the two schools are related. Ours is a Catholic school, too.
Well – I guess our USTs are related by Catholicism, if nothing else! (My daughter went to this one, until they ran out of curriculum in her major and she transferred to UNT to major in Music there. She had nothing but good things to say about her time at UST.)
The form is a Sestina. I throw the gauntlet at your feet – have at it, Bob! (Everyone should try it once, right?) There are variations. I warn you, some of them sound even WORSE than this. I’m glad you enjoyed the poem, though – that makes it worth the doing! If everyone, today, had said, “Meh, nice try” I’d have wished I slept at 10 instead of midnight!
I’d LOVE to say “it was fun” but it’s more like entering an eating contest where the challenge is to see who can down the most raw brussels sprouts in under 10 minutes, or something. 😀 OK, not THAT bad.
Congratulations on your acceptance.
I love sestinas! (I love brussels sprouts, too, so…) You may have hated it, but you did a great job!
Alphabet of Alphabets: West Wonder
The Summer Writers Institute ended on July 9. It was terrific. (The professor wasn’t overly impressed with what he called a “free verse sestina,” so my stubborn side is going to make me write another, whether I really want to or not. He did like the sonnet I’d submitted, and I was invited to read on the last night.) I’m definitely hoping to do it again next year!