Story?

A Softer World: 419

It’s about time I started this thing up again.

Billy Collins on the “paradelle,” in an interview with Grace Cavalieri:

“I wanted to write an intentionally bad formal poem. I wanted to write a poem in which the poet couldn’t handle the rules of a genre, and botched it. And I thought, well, I could write a really bad sonnet, or a bad villanelle, but I figured there’s enough of those around, so I would just make up a new form, and I called it the paradelle, which is a kind of combination of a parody and villanelle, and then I made up this insane set of rules for it, and I tried to pass it off in a footnote as actually an old, fixed form from, I think, from the 11th century France. And the first rules are that the lines just repeat themselves. So that is almost, you know, kind of a numbskull sense of simplicity. But then the secondary set of rules asks you to use all only the previous words, and it’s a little hard to explain without looking at it, but it would be like having a really bad set of letters in a Scrabble game, and being asked to write the Lord’s Prayer with them.”

Grace Cavalieri on the paradelle, same interview:

“Do you know that I’ve taught the paradelle without knowing you were kidding? And got some fabulous poems….I was teaching a workshop in Italy, and so I…I think that’s a good thing we could do tomorrow, Everyone will write a paradelle like Billy Collins. I get home, and the Paris Review reveals that I’ve been duped. It’s a joke.”

 

Paradelle for Susan

I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love.
I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love.
Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch.
Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch.
Thinnest love, remember the quick branch.
Always nervous, I perched on your highest bird the.

It is time for me to cross the mountain.
It is time for me to cross the mountain.
And find another shore to darken with my pain.
And find another shore to darken with my pain.
Another pain for me to darken the mountain.
And find the time, cross my shore, to with it is to.

The weather warm, the handwriting familiar.
The weather warm, the handwriting familiar.
Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below.
Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below.
The familiar waters below my warm hand.
Into handwriting your weather flies you letter the from the.

I always cross the highest letter, the thinnest bird.
Below the waters of my warm familiar pain,
Another hand to remember your handwriting.
The weather perched for me on the shore.
Quick, your nervous branch flew from love.
Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to.

NOTE: The paradelle is one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d’oc love poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only those words.

I find this reassuring.

“And in any event, no law requires that the student leave college with a degree–discounting practical considerations.”  -John Gardener, The Art of Fiction (in reference to aspiring writers)

On escapism.

Wisdom from Nature Camp.

“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” -from the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds ill blow their on freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares drop off like autumn leaves.”  -posted on a bulletin board, author unknown

On books.

This musical group is rapidly becoming one of my favorites.

“I Hear Them All” by Old Crow Medicine Show

I hear the crying of the hungry in the deserts where they’re wandering.
Hear them crying out for heaven’s own benevolence upon them.
Hear destructive power prevailing, I hear fools falsely hailing.
To the crooked wits of tyrants when they call.

I hear them all (3x)

I hear the sounds of tearing pages and the roar of burning paper.
All the crimes in acquisitions turn to air and ash and vapor.
And the rattle of the shackle far beyond emancipators.
And the loneliest who gather in their stalls.

I hear them all (3x)

So while you sit and whistle Dixie with your money and your power.
I can hear the flowers a-growin in the rubble of the towers.
I hear leaders quit their lying
I hear babies quit their crying.
I hear soldiers quit their dying, one and all.

I hear them all (3x)

I hear the tender words from Zion, I hear Noah’s waterfall.
Hear the gentle lamb of Judah sleeping at the feet of Buddha.
And the prophets from Elija to the old Paiute Wovoka.
Take their places at the table when they’re called.

I hear them all (9x)

On literature.

“My favorite authors right now are Meg Cabot and Stephenie Meyer.  Homer’s okay too.”  -Megan S., age 13.

 

On souls.

“My soul seemed as foul as foul as smoke from burning cat fur.”  -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Cat’s Cradle

Some song lyrics to open my commonplace.

“Sing me something soft, sad and delicate, or loud and out of key; sing me anything.”  -Straylight Run

“Sing for the teachers who told you that you couldn’t sing.”  -The Dresden Dolls