My writing assignment for today was to compose 5 “micropoems”, each written on the blank side of its own respective 3×5 notecard. The purpose was to get a feel for Sentences, a series of poems by Robert Grenier. You can flip through them here, though I encourage you to research what the actual physical copies look like as well as soundbites of him reading the poems. Really fascinating stuff.
I wrote my own poems before having the luxury of a class discussion about Grenier’s work, so I took what I could from what I saw and tried to incorporate it in my own voice. Here’s what I came up with:
I had to glue them in my journal for class, but I think that individually they are more poignant than when shown pasted together. Although, admittedly, I wrote them all in one day and without a doubt they are all related simply by time and circumstance. Just try to imagine them alone, I guess, since I don’t have time to crop each picture with my present homework load.
Before I run off, I’d like to give a snippet of our class discussion today pertaining to the stubborn question what makes a poem a poem? I think everyone in the class was asking themselves the same question as they did this assignment. My prof claimed the key characteristics were complexity and resonance (though clearly defining ‘resonance’ required a classmate’s quick trip to dictionary.com).
Works for Grenier, apparently. Works for me, I hope.
watchtheFruits 