more apple manna
Another day of poems with the freshmores. Today's mindblowing exercise was courtesy of Hoa Nguyen, my poetry teacher in Austin twelve years ago. We riffed off of this poem, using its first line as our "prompt":[A night at the beach what is left]
A night at the beach what is left
conch shell shimmer marks
where feet trail across sand dense
as stars Humans like me
can't hear beneath the trillionth
day of DNA sung meaning
of sea waves Sting nettle
having waves to paddle
: Hoa Nguyen
My riff on Hoa's poem:
[A night at the beach what is left]
A night at the beach what is left
bloopers
canned peas
moonshimmer
coastal bleach
asinine convergence
in the hermit dunes
i sing for a supper
washed up
washed in
worldwide
dripdried
blue.
as stars Humans like me
can't hear beneath the trillionth
day of DNA sung meaning
of sea waves Sting nettle
having waves to paddle
: Hoa Nguyen
(My apologies to Hoa; my low-rent Blogger account will not recognize the spacings that are - or were - characteristic of her wonderful lines. Click here for the poem at another site. Once there, you can click the "Go Back" link to access another nine of her poems. Lots of good links at the Wikipedia entry about her.)
My riff on Hoa's poem:
[A night at the beach what is left]
A night at the beach what is left
bloopers
canned peas
moonshimmer
coastal bleach
asinine convergence
in the hermit dunes
i sing for a supper
washed up
washed in
worldwide
dripdried
blue.
Labels: pasta mama
posted by murat11 at 1:54 PM
12 Comments:
Loved the prompt poem and the take-off although I do not think of canned peas at the beach. moonshimmer, hermit dunes, drip dried swim suits, singing for supper around driftwood fires that burn hot and bright on the coastal bleached sands. bloopers and asinine convergences as people perform campfire skits or play pranks on others. washing up to get the sand out from where it washed in between your toes, and always looking back at the trail of moonlight shimmering on the inky black water making a white road to that island in the distance...
Hey, T, I hear you on the canned peas, but you know not all Americans in this worldwide drip dried blue are as conscious of not littering their beaches as y'all Californians. I've never seen canned peas at the beach, but I won't exactly be surprised when I do.
Like your prose poem there, by the way.
moonshimmer on the water is living poetry... can't express it any other way.
asinine convergence made me chuckle. kiddies better mind their peas and queues. moonshimmer and coastal bleach got me rocking though. I riffed off your prompt along with the three word wednesday words and then came back to comment only to find that I also riffed off Teresa. Now I'm off to hermit dunes of dreams - but first, Charles de Lint awaits...
Teresa: And so be it.
Glad you joined the class, Dee - 'specially with your poem. While her beach poem was easier to riff off, these two Hoa poems were the ones that really turned the freshmore heads:
[The yelling father makes metered babies]
The yelling father makes metered babies
tick tick I'm evil
the terrible peace of my creepy
lies shut your down mouth
all beat & up the awkward stairs
makes me evil disturbs you
Put a papal pin on it
[Jealous all the pissy things]
Jealous all the pissy things
hating the name Oscar
I should drip blue
heavy chi and the vortex between tables
Selfish I should say
birds and
their selfish flying
porous O above the bridge
for me
(Again, apologies to Hoa for Blogger losing her inimitable spacings.)
While I've always loved these dense cinematic bits of her poetry, these seem to me now even more to be her own homegrown zen koans (hoa-ans), even hoa-kus.
Love both of these. The term cinematic is so appropriate. They unfold like movies. Her phrasing is interesting - the tick tick I'm evil gave me shivers. Such an innocuous little small group of words but sets a tone.
Dee: Plenty of her online to enjoy more. She was a godsend when I found her in Austin. Changed my life. And mind.
little small - that's what happens when I type, think, and cook at the same time :) I have her bookmarked..
Happy accidents: little small: Hoa would approve: there is a difference . . .
"Worldwide dripdried blue." I hope the supper you sang for lived up to that.
San: Not entirely sure what it lived up to, but it sure weren't no canned peas.
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