24 August 2020 Instapoetry and an Invitation

Wouldn’t it be delicious if every person who wished to write poetry was able to do so – not with great labor, sweat, and agony, but rather with ease, joy, and a sense of accomplishment – a poem that is good enough” to share with others? Well, there is a method for doing just that: Instapoetry, and it leads to Instapoems. Below, I offer two Instapoems written by famous poets, and three that I wrote to give you the idea. I’ve also provided a description of the form and a few “rules.”

INVITATION: The honor of your presence is requested. You are invited to write one or more Instapoems. If you RSVP that you accept the invitation, please send your Instapoem(s) to catherineastenzel@gmail.com  Indicate whether or not you approve of having your work included in a Monday post. “Rules” follow this invitation. After “Rules,” please find Instapoem examples to get you started. 

RULES:* 

Feel free to ignore some or all of the guidance that follows.

• maximum 25 lines in a font size you can read without squinting
• imagine the poem fitting on a smart-phone screen
• made up of brief lines, sometimes mono-syllables
• often hints at what will happen in the future
• no capitalization or punctuation
• rhyme is permitted but discouraged
• employ sensory imagination, especially the visual
• usually deals with the present moment and the sense that the poet didn’t spend a lot of time on the poem
• what matters is “spewed-up realness”
• Consider a statement by a practitioner of Instapoetry, Charly Cox, “I didn’t know a thing. It just knew how to feel.

*Most of these “rules” and other content can be found in “Instapoetry,” a short essay published in the 21 May 2020 issue of The London Review of Books, pages 34-35.

EXAMPLES:

NOTE:  Instapoems are <25 lines. Note the difference in length of the poems below; in particular the 24-line poem by Emily Dickinson, and the other end of the spectrum, William Carlos Williams.

William Carlos Williams

 

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

Emily Dickinson  (poem 479)

Because I could not stop for Death – 
He kindly stopped for me – 
The Carriage held but just Ourselves – 
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility – 

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring – 
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – 
We passed the Setting Sun – 

Or rather – He passed us – 
The Dews drew quivering and chill – 
For only Gossamer, my Gown – 
My Tippet – only Tulle – 

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground – 
The Roof was scarcely visible – 
The Cornice – in the Ground – 

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity – 

 

 

 

 

Three Instapoems by Catherine Stenzel

 

Going

 

Black-striped orange wings

trembling on stubbled hay and milkweed mown

Rises stuttering to a purple spike

one of a pair of spires

The second dusty green whorls pink-draped

All at the edge of the cut field’s shroud

 

No flights of hundreds

weaving gorgeous through

the Forest’s unforgotten pines

Just this black-orange one left behind

Perhaps all dead but this final flyer

dancing faintly on a spider’s wire

 

 

Throat

 

Weighted fathoms drown my chest

Ankles wound about with anchor rode

Air spheres rise and rush away

as I touch bottom

I stare down the black throat

a swirling descent to unnamable sadness

When I reach the bedrock

I hear knocking from below

 

 

My Lady

 

Lying abed curled into herself

My Lady, German Shepherd bitch

cocks her head

hummingbirds reflected in her eyes

her grandfalloons* full of whirring wing-sounds

Soon enough, they stop sipping

outside her late-summer window

 

A ruffled, wind-cold dog

sleeps a winter tucked

inside itself

My Lady at her window all abed

listens to snowflakes and cocks her head

*Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons” (Opinions) is a collection of essays, reviews, short travel accounts, and human-interest stories written by Kurt Vonnegut.

Background

I’ve been lucky as a poet. About once a month, a poem drops from the ethers onto my writing tablet. (The paper kind, not the small computer) What a joy when this                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             happens! The poem comes in a lump – granted, at first it usually feels like a lump of coal, but a solid lump no less. Eventually, given enough time and pressure, carbon turns into diamond. Shaping, cutting, polishing are all parts of birthing a poem, but starting with that lump makes it all so much easier.

Again, the INVITATION:

The honor of your presence is requested. You are invited to write one or more Instapoems. If you RSVP that you accept the invitation, please send your Instapoem(s) to catherineastenzel@gmail.com  Indicate whether or not you approve of having your work included in a Monday post.