Without actually meaning to, the Poetry Sisters have done great service to the Poetry Friday community by shining a spotlight on our current Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze. Were you, like us, not very (or at all) familiar with Sze’s poetry? We were delighted to dive in and discover his distinctive style of close focus on minute details in combination with big expansive ideas. We hope, if you joined us in the challenge, you were similarly delighted. And if you are just along for the ride and reading all the various takes on this challenge, again, we hope you are treated to a sense of delight.
I chose Sze’s poem “The Chance” because I loved the way the speaker ponders while they drive (as I am also wont to do). I loved the double meanings — “And as I approach thirty” can be miles per hour, or an age. As I approach my next birthday that ends in a zero, I absolutely agree that “the distances / are shorter than I guess.” I whole-heartedly agree with “I want a passion that grows and grows.” And those last two lines — swoon!
Rather than using those last two lines as the striking line for an acrostic (aligned vertically on the left), or a Golden Shovel (aligned vertically on the right), I used a new form (still under construction) that Heidi Mordhorst is calling the Fault Line Form, with my striking line through the middle of my poem.
On the topic of new forms, in March, the Poetry Sisters will be attempting to unravel the Ovillejo!
I look forward to reading what the rest of the Poetry Sisters, and all who are joining us in conversation with Arthur Sze, have written!
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Margaret has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Reflections on the Teche.
A(nother) Year of Reading 
Oooh, the fault line form. I am intrigued! I like your February poem so much, Mary Lee, and cheered by it, too.
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I love this striking line and the poem you’ve built. I particularly love that some of your words are found inside other words (evening, glorious). The last 4 lines are lovely.
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Oh, I want to try a fault line poem. So clever to use two words at a time or part of words like glorious and evening. It looks like you put a sweet poetic puzzle together there. Thanks for sharing the poem by Sze. You are right, he is knew to me. Your photo is perfect for the poem.
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Mary Lee, thanks for sharing the Poetry Sisters’ prompt for the end of February. I enjoyed reading your poem with the unique fault line in the center. The format is great and the way your formed your center meeting of words is well done. I am interested in Heidi’s new format so maybe one day in the future I can play with the new poetic form.
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Your execution of a fault line poem is faultless. I love how you captured the feeling of February and its tease of warmth before the bitter cold. One day everyone was out planting flowers and the next hibernating again. I read Sze’s book Sight Lines. You are right about his writing. I love the details that seem personal yet turn universal in his poetry.
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Whoa, Mary Lee. This is perfection. It’s so tangible and yet a perfect metaphoric conversation with Sze’s poem! Those daffodils, with their feet in darkness… yes. And the words-within-words are a certain kind of brilliant. Wow.
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Such a beautiful and bittersweet poem, Mary Lee. Love the idea of a fault line poem–and you’ve both (you and Sze) captured the light and the darkness, the life and the death, so intimately.
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Wow — love seeing such a great example of a fault line poem and reading my first Sze poem (wondering where I’ve been that I wasn’t familiar with his work). Love the striking line you selected and the sentiment about how February raises our hopes (so true!).
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“remember what it’s like to take a chance” even when our feet are in darkness and a single cloud can take all the warmth we thought we saw…fantastic.
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Love your fault-line poem, Mary Lee, and the way a mind wanders while driving is visually reflected in the road down the middle of the poem!!! Love it all and the “February raises our hopes” made me giggle because it is so true! Thank you also for this reminder to “grab each opportunity.”
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Fault line.. what a perfect name for your new form. Really intrigues me. “The sun briefly allowed by the clouds to shine.” What a great line. It reminded me of the times I see the rays streaming out of the clouds as if they escaped for a moment captured behind the clouds. Lovely!
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I love Arthur Sze. I’ve shared “The Shapes of Leaves” a couple of times over the PF years and it remains one of my favorites of his, but it’s so very hard to pick a favorite when a poet is so, so good. (“Which of these shimmering sunbeams do you like best?”)
I love your take on “The Chance” and I’m so intrigued by the Fault Line Form!
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This “new” Fault Line Form down the middle of your poem is a powerful format as you describe the magic as well as the challenges of this long and snow filled winter for so many of us. I could feel for the flowers ready to make their way IF the sun just stays a few more hours!
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I love this innovation on familiar poetry forms. The name, fault line poem, works so appropriately. You have given your fellow poets an exemplar, Mary Lee. It is important that we as poets explore the outer reaches of poetry’s terrian. You, my poetic friend, are an explorer! Thank you for also sharing your new learning regarding Arthur Sze. I am also curious to know more, regarding his work.
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I so agree about the great service of shining a light on Arthur Sze. I’ve loved all my reading of his poems and poems in response this weekend. Those “daffodils with their feet in darkness,” are wonderful. You already know I love that line that ends with “shine.” Wonderful fault line poem. I think I will start looking at ovillejos.
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What a beautiful job you did with the fault line form! Your line about the daffoldils with “their feet in darkness” made me pause and take note. And yes, I am unfamiliar with Sze but now I want to read more and more. Thank you, Poetry Sisters.
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Shine, Mary Lee! Shine!
Def gonna try the Fault Line form (thank you, Heidi!)
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Turning to the fault line form fits like a glove in your sensitive, teasing February poem, interweaving with Sze. Bring on the Sun and all opportunities for chance, and more Arthur Sze, thanks Mary Lee!
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Oooh! A fault line form. I like it. I also wondered if my hellebores would make it. They had buds at Christmas and then we got snowcrete. And more snow. And more snow. They haven’t died, but they haven’t bloomed yet.
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