Unstressed

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A weblog from the editors of Linebreak

The regulars

Ash Bowen's poetry has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Blackbird, and Black Warrior Review, among other publications. He lives and works in Texarkana, AR.

Jennifer Jabaily's poetry has appeared in Mannequin Envy and Fickle Muses. She's a second-year MFA student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Ashley Anna McHugh is a third-year MFA student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Measure, DIAGRAM and Memorious as well as other publications.

Johnathon Williams's poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2009, the Pebble Lake Review, and Unsplendid. He lives in Fayetteville, AR, with his wife and daughters.

I Love This Poem

By Ash on Dec 31, 2009

For the past two years or so, I’ve fallen out of love with free verse.  Or rather, I’ve found–in my opinion–more and more poets writing in free verse to be doing nothing more than writing prose and inserting breaks.  (Of course, I’m excluding the truly great free verse we publish.)  But today’s featured poem on Verse Daily is a free verse poem by George David  Clark that I admire so very much.  Almost every line dazzles or amazes, which is what every poem should aspire to, but this poem just gets it so right for me that I had to post something about here on Unstressed.

Please to enjoy:

http://www.versedaily.org/2009/jellyfish.shtml

3 Comments //

Discussion

BY Richard L. Provencher on Jan 02 2010 (#1)

You are right; George David Clarke’s poem is beautiful, a life of journeys. Below is a poem I wish to share:

AWAKENING

mist embraces
a pattern of spider webs
straddling fir branches
in artistic symmetry
thread-coated
veneer of morning silver.

In the stillness wary
bullfrogs pause
their bellicose croaks
restrained

and mallards bob
in lazy spirals
aside shore’s lining
cloudburst as umbrellas
masking
duck-plowed trails.

Nature provides a menu
landscaped
in early rising.

© 2008 Richard L. Provencher

first published Volume 2 Spring 2009
Paragon 2 A Compendium of Writing
Memorial University – Newfoundland
ISBN 978-0-88901-397-1

BY John Schellhase on Jan 02 2010 (#2)

Wonderful poem. Thanks, Ash. I don’t know if you guys remember me, but I was in the MFA in translation program a few semesters back; I was the quiet classicist in a few classes with Brock. I didn’t finish out my time in the program and am currently a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines, but I follow the blog (both here and the uark blog) and I read linebreak every week. I also just signed up at swindle. I hope all’s well back in Fayetteville. And congratulations to Johnathon for the Best New Poets nod!

BY D.W. Lichtenberg on Jan 08 2010 (#3)

Hey Ash,

Out of curiosity, what is your grudge with “writing prose and inserting breaks”? You stated this in a derogatory sort of way, as though this is implicitly weaker and means the language has been less considered. And when you say “prose”, I assume what you’re really thinking of is something more colloquial and less lyric?

I actually think that too much of poetry is so concerned with lyricism that it forgets about colloquial language. I’d say I agree more with William Carlos Williams that more poets should try to use only words he’s heard used in the last week. It’s the populist in me.

Thoughts?

Cheers

D.W. Lichtenberg
THE ANCIENT BOOK OF HIP

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