All Activity

Chitrakavi: Picture-Verse Chitrakavi or Chitra-bandha or chitra-kavya is a form of verse that originated in Sanskrit and popularized in Tamil prosody. In this form, a verse is bound (bhanda) inside a picture (chitra). The verse need not be about the picture. It can be on any subject that the poet desires, but its letters should fit within the various crisscrossing dhruva (pre-determined fixed points) inside a chitra (picture). If you search in Google images, with the term 'chitrakavya sanskrit', an amazing number of simple and complicated picture-verses would crop up! Even a pun

Yes, it is about an imagined only child, Joel Josol. As Tinker would explain the ABBA poetic form uses internal rhymes, in reverse order: Phone and paddad alone! Really educative, her explanations, to try the forms as exercises or full blown poems. And no, this poem is not about the narrator, but about an imagined first person. gurunAthan

Thanks gurunAthan for the read. I am glad that you enjoyed it.

Thanks A. Baez. Yes, it is a poem about missing someone who was absent for a time.

Thanks Tony. I am glad that the gambling trope added interest in the figuring out of the unknown.

I am not familiar with NA mythology but the poem gives me a surreal feeling the equivalent of abstract from the visual arts. The power of the poem, to me, is in the mystery it evokes.

This short poem tells me details of a young family with intentional alliterations. Is the narrator the only child because it ended with "I get all their time"?

What captivated me is the slow revelation of the details. I love lighthouses. Whenever I had the opportunity I take pictures with it. The details makes me relive the moment with the narrator and his family. The opening was inviting. It sets the scene and presents the characters. Then, I loved the way you introduce each other element in the scene. It's like standing behind an artist completing his visual art work.

Thanks, Tony. gurunAthan

David, this is terrific writing. With regard to form, I very much like the pace which is set by your enjambments in seemingly all the right places, for example after L8, L16, and L44. There are other good ones, too, but those are my favorites. The poem itself delivers a Sunday afternoon/evening holiday-weekend-during-summer mood. Though I can recall relaxing times like this from younger years -- weekend afternoons spent in Newport, RI -- I'm also reminded of a Sunday afternoon restlessness; while it's possible to forget during the excitement of the day, by late afternoon the escape is oft

Joel, this one works for me. I like how it begins with a "secret" which, by the end of the poem, has come to light and brought on delight. I like how you pack the gambling trope into the second verse ("raffle" followed by "I bet") which seems to lead naturally into the third and fourth couplets: from "casino" to New Year's Eve festivities.

I agree with David's McRae reference. I would add it has a hint of Trakl, who also wrote war poetry. Tony

Nicely succinct, Juris! And I love Joel's eaglet reference! Tony

Really nice, gurunAthan! (Well-composed, too.) This one brought a smile to my face. Tony 🙂

Joel, that's interesting that you mention your 35th anniversary--I had read this poem as most probably about a relationship that was lost when the woman abandoned it. But I did realize that the poem could also be read simply as about a woman who was absent from the narrator for a time. I'm glad that the truth was the latter! I still think this is a classic poem that hits all kinds of amazing notes.

Thanks, Tony. gurunAthan

I don't know what Arabesque couplets are -- I know I can find out, but I won't -- but I don't need to know what they are to know I love this poem. I love the mood. Tony

A good one, Barry. Slavery is an abomination. My own Estonian ancestors were enslaved by a host of conquerors/invaders: Germans, Dutch, Swedes, etc. Tony

Mountains offer themselves to the earth as tears during a crucifixion, angels use the sky as a drum to announce the resurrection. Can a son raise oceans and use them as mirrors to catch reflections of a cross in a fathers eyes, can he in return see the pearl soaked in Christly tears. A saviour bears A planet turned inside out, four seasons are marked with the birth of a new consciousness, king prepares His people for heaven's caress.

Fascinating take on the End of Literacy and the beginnings of something that will ineluctably follow the Information Age. Highly original and disturbing. It seems like it would be helped by introducing a somewhat concrete person here, a witnessing narrator and others. To illustrate, such a re-working might replace that fourth sentence with something like: A man I once knew announces from the dark web, Heaven and Earth are now a merged app! This is not intended to be used as is, just illustrative. Something concrete would lend immediacy and connection to your dystopia. Just a

Marti, sorry for your loss. If you believe in the Bible and Jesus, he promised to bring back our dead loved ones in a future resurrection to us. (John 5: 28, 29) It will be a grand reunion. On the poem recited for the inauguration, there were several bright lines. But I wished she had anchored the poem to something like a powerful image, and stayed on that. That would have been powerful occasion for spoken poetry. It was more like prose speech than poetry to me. I don't know. That made me think of Allen Ginsberg. America.

Lovely! Indeed. Love flows like a river and dives into a cascade. And then, it dwells on the plains, and gushes up like a fountain, as the couple become more and more senior. gurunAthan ramaNi

Marti, my friend, so very sorry to hear about your mom. I pray you strength and better days to come. - David

So sorry about your mom, Marti. I didn't know. Hang in there!

I was just really impressed with the reading. Really. Not much going on here. Just taking care of Last Will business since Mom's passing in mid Nov. 2021 must be at least a modicum amount of better than 2020.