Finding Father's Love Letters Again

I was recently notified that a poem of mine titled "My Father's Love Letters" would be in the forthcoming issue of the Paterson Literary Review. It's not a new poem. I wrote it originally in 2000 from a very early prompt on the Poets Online website. 

As I go back and look at some of the first pages in our archive of 300+ prompts, I find that those early ones often surprise me.

Here was that prompt:

Imagine you have discovered a packet of your father's love letters. It might be easier to imagine love letters written by your mother, but, no - these are your father's love letters. How would they sound? Were they to your mother or someone else? Were they ever mailed?

Our model poem for this prompt was Yusef Komunyakaa's poem "My Father's Love Letters." The links on the old page needed to be fixed. That is probably true for other links on the old archived issues. I did find his poem on another website and also an audio recording by Yusef reading that poem.

The older archive pages were in a simpler format and often need some maintenance which is an ongoing process for the site. In this case, there were only five poems posted and we didn't get as many submissions in the beginning as we do now. The prompts were much shorter at the beginning and there was no blog where we extended the prompt.

POETS ONLINE started in 1998 as an e-mail exchange with four poets who met at a weeklong poetry writing workshop. Taking turns and suggesting a prompt idea, we took a week and then e-mailed our poems to each other. As more poets joined the group, it became an awkward mailing process, and POETS ONLINE, the website was created. By early 1999, a mailing list was created to remind people to check the latest prompt & poems and that has grown to hundreds of subscribers.

It wasn't until 2003 that I bought the domain poetsonline.org. The blog appeared in October 2005 and by then we already had seven years of prompts and poems. The blog now had almost 800 posts and goes well beyond just the prompts, and has had almost 705,000 visits.

I know from emails that a number of teachers use the archive of pat prompts as a resource for students to get ideas and models for their writing (poetry and otherwise). That pleases me. Of course, anyone can use the older prompts for inspiration whether for not they ever submit to the site to be published in the next issue.

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Small Poems

Small poems often get short shrift. Basho and Issa are great poets of the haiku form, but I can't imagine them on stage at a poetry festival reading their poems for a half hour. Poor old haiku is often relegated to being an exercise for children in school. It looks easy, but good haiku is not easy to write. 

3:00 AM

Only my hand
is asleep,
but it's a start.

  - Billy Collins

I have always written some poems that are short. I also like reading short poems. Billy Collins says that "Whenever I pick up a new book of poems, I flip through the pages looking for small ones. Just as I might have trust in an abstract painter more if I knew he or she could draw a credible chicken, I have faith in poets who can go short." 

Elegy

I have turned over
all fifty-two cards
on the kitchen table.

Still, I think
you must be hiding
somewhere in the deck.

In Collins' collection, Musical Tables, there are more than 100 poems. They are not in any of the short forms, such as haiku, tanka, or limerick. They are simply short. 

Reflections On An Amish Childhood

I was a little square
 in a round hat.

Collins points to other poets who go small, like William Carlos Williams, Richard Brautigan, W.S. Merwin, Kay Ryan, and Charles Simic.

Corridor

I've grown old.
Now my own name
rings a bell.

Listen to an interview with Collins about that collection and short poems.

Flaubert

As he looked for the right word,
several wrong words
appeared in his window.

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Valentines

Realizing that our February call for submissions is somewhat of an anti-Valentine's Day prompt, we remind you that we have done Valentines in the past. We offer you this video of Naomi reading a Valentine poem that we used and suggest that you look at our Valentines issue after you watch and listen to her poem. 

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Prompt: Breaking Up

The stores are full of red hearts for Valentine's Day. It is a day for love, romantic dinners, gifts, champagne, and engagements. It is also a day for some people to feel even lonelier. It's even a day for breakups.

Not to be totally unromantic but there are plenty of love poems already, and they're tough to write without sounding corny or like a young hormonal teen poet.

This February we are asking for poems about breakups, which is also a poetic tradition.

I was looking in a big anthology for other kinds of love poems. I found in the older poets John Clare’s "The Secret" where that love never even happens. That may be the worst kind of love poem but that's one way to avoid a breakup. "I loved thee, though I told thee not," says John. 

I found Edward Thomas' poem "Go Now" about a woman parting ways with the male speaker and the effect that her simply saying "Go now" had on him.

Like the touch of rain she was
On a man’s flesh and hair and eyes
When the joy of walking thus
Has taken him by surprise:

With the love of the storm he burns,
He sings, he laughs, well I know how,
But forgets when he returns
As I shall not forget her ‘Go now’.

Those two words shut a door
Between me and the blessed rain
That was never shut before
And will not open again.

I quite like this poem by Scottish poet Vicki Feaver titled "Coat" which uses that coat as the metaphor for the relationship. That's a nice mini-prompt. 

Coat   

Sometimes I have wanted
to throw you off
like a heavy coat.
Sometimes I have said
you would not let me
breathe or move.
But now that I am free
to choose light clothes
or none at all
I feel the cold
and all the time I think
how warm it used to be.

The poem I landed on for our model this month is by Stevie Smith. She was born Florence Margaret Smith in Hull, Yorkshire in 1902. She is somewhat deceptive in her sometimes nursery-rhyme-like cadences. (She also had whimsical drawings with which she illustrated poems.) But she is a sophisticated poet, whose poems often dealt with suffering and mortality. She also has a dark sense of humor. Her most famous poem is “Not Waving But Drowning.” Give it a read too.  

Our model poem is her "Pad Pad." Think of "pad" as walking with or as if with padded feet, like a cat or tiger. 

The short poem's opening stanza"

I always remember your beautiful flowers
And the beautiful kimono you wore
When you sat on the couch
With that tigerish crouch
And told me you loved me no more...

Of course, breakups are not relegated only to lovers. Families break up. Companies break up. The choice is yours.

One more caveat to your submission: Is it a coincidence that there are so many love sonnets of 14 lines and that Valentin's Day is on the 14th? I think it's synchronicity rather than coincidence. Your poem must be 14 lines whether a sonnet or not. 

We have been down that 14-step road before here, so if you want some sonnety ideas take a look at our bed sonnets, phone sonnets, sonnenizios inspired by Kim Addonizio and some more traditional sonnet forms.

The deadline for submissions is February 28, 2023.

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