Finding Poetry in Japanese Tales
I am beginning work on a project that involves several different disciplines– glass blowing, poetry, and Japanese legends about ghosts and demons. I am not an artist of all of these arts, or very knowledgable about any of them, except for poetry; but I am finding that both of these arts, in which I find myself a stranger, are influencing my writing in new ways. For me, poetry is about connections, whether its between people or between different art forms.
Along with moving outside of my artistic knowledge base, I am also working on moving outside my normal mode of poetic form, free verse. I’ve written several villanelles, and I’ve been writing a collaborative renga in response to a Japanese tale about a woman who dies of grief when her husband leaves in search of silk and doesn’t come back for many years. It has been interesting doing a collaborative piece (I’ve been doing a 5-7-5 and a 7-7 grouping and then the next person responds to those lines, without repeating those previous images). It’s sort of like playing a game, in a way; your move depends on the previous player’s move, and you make your way through the poem. I don’t mean to say that this form is simplistic like one might come to associate games, though.
There does seem to be a simplicity to forms like the renga where I can count syllables and concentrate on nature…but to say that this form is simplistic is to not imply that it is easy- just as end rhyme may seem easy, if we look at how it’s done in children’s books and certain corny love songs where you can guess what’s coming at the end of the next line….”Sometimes I just forget; say things I might regret;….” For those of you who haven’t listened to Delilah lately, that’s a little “Glory of Love” for you.