Quickmuse is a neat site where two poets square off to write a poem in 15 minutes dealing with a topic assigned them. I like that idea, but the bigger neato is watching as the poems are written. Seeing it in motion, so to speak.

Check it out.

Today’s Pothur inspiration was to concentrate on reading poetry aloud. Since I do that already, there wasn’t much I could say, but I did take the time to rerererecord this poem.

Why this one? Well, tying into this post, Sparrow is probably the one poem I’ve written that has never gotten a bad comment, yet I don’t think it’s my best work.

It also ties into this discussion about initial caps. Since I enjamb heavily and read straight through the rhymes, initial capitals for me would be a bit weird. Other people tend to savor the line more, hitting those rhymes a bit harder, and putting a slight pause behind them. That feels strange to me, though I don’t mind hearing others do it.

It’s fun to read aloud, though. If everything’s working properly, you should be able to click on the blue arrow and it will start playing. If everything isn’t working properly, er, I’ll try something else.

Sparrow

A shard of ancient glass still pricks my foot
since I passed underneath the window burst
by sparrow flight, as if the building put
itself into her path and wasn’t first
on this old street–predates by eighty springs
my birth, her egg. But in her jealousy
of robins’ breasts, of cardinal-bright wings,
she slit her throat on kitchen glaziery
and dyed down red. The tendrils of her blood
that traced the scratches in my iron sink
remain, despite my bleach, despite the flood
of soap and scrub. I’ve seen a sparrow shrink
from feathered warm to nonsense lines of brown,
and feel the glass in me that brought her down.