Four Echo Poems & an Invitation
For a while now, The Chairman and Jack Pine Savage (me) have been exchanging Echo Poems on various subjects. It’s fun! You can see an example of one of these exchanges (two poems) in today’s feature. Recently, the Chairman lobbed one over the net while he and T. were heading south to Chicago. I chewed on his poem for a while and then responded with my own verse. (Again, see both poems in the feature section below.)
Now you, too, can join in the merriment – see the invitation below with an opportunity to become an Echo Poem writer yourself!
Definitions
What’s an “echo poem”? In truth, I thought I had made up the form; however, when I researched the term, I found others had already claimed credit. Their definition was all about form which varies greatly from the Echo Poems The Chairman and I have been exchanging. At any rate, for the record, the explanation Google gave was:
Echo verse: a type of verse in which repetition of the end of a line or stanza imitates an echo. The repetition usually constitutes the entire following line and changes the meaning of the part being repeated. This device was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries in France, England, and Italy. The best-known examples are George Herbert’s poem “Heaven” and Jonathan Swift’s “A Gentle Echo on Woman.” (See both these poems at the very bottom of this post. These examples may be clever, yet to my ear, they are boring and simplistic! Either that or this Savage has no ‘couth. [Both Herbert’s and Swift’s poems are at the very bottom of this post.]
Enough of this pseudo-tangent. Our definition of an Echo Poem is much more demanding, requires at least two people, and does not repeat, or even use, the word “echo.” Here are the guidelines for our version of Echo Poems which you may use if you choose to join in the merriment:
1. Person A gives B a poem, preferably relatively short. Any subject. Any form: rhyme, stanza, meter, or technique.
2. Person B responds to A with an echo poem
3. The response need not mirror any of the forms listed in number 1 above, nor any other technique. In other words, B can be as creative as he/she likes so long as the two poems are reflections on one another and have commonalities or related incongruities.
4. The Person B response should be written to mirror the essence, the purpose, and the meaning of the Person A poem; however, taken a contrary view of the A poem is also legitimate. For example, in the WA writers’ poems below Person B (JPS) plays the contrary to the first part of Person A’s poem (The Chairman), but then switches viewpoints, and mirrors the opposing intent of Person A (Chairman). So, Person B, feels free to: (a) mirror the A poem with the same sentiment and meaning; (b) take the opposite point of view: or (c) as in JPS’s echo, i.e., do both.
An Invitation
Now that we’ve explained Echo Poems according to Chairman/JPS, we invite any Person A among our readers (or others who come across this invitation by word of mouth) to submit a poem with an invitation for anyone to “echo” with a Person B poem. Then a willing Person C responds with another poem echoing either Person A or B. OR submits a poem specifying that it is to be treated as a Person A’s poem to which others reply . . . and so on.
With few exceptions, all submitted poems will be published in an upcoming Monday post. If these instructions aren’t clear, please comment below and ask away. Jack Pine Savage is the facilitator of this adventure. This playful exchange is offered in the spirit of bringing out the latent (or not so much) poet in everyone. Email: catherineastenzel@gmail.com. All of us look forward to seeing your poems and to having fun with this interactive feature from Wannaskan Almanac.
The Most Recent Echo Poems from WA Writers
A) The Chairman Sends One Over the Transom to Jack Pine Savage
I’m aware where my food comes from
When I brush my teeth after lunch
I swim in the deep ocean with the tuna
I’m in the hot valley in the celery row
With the chicken laying the egg for my mayo
The soybean field too
The potato field for my chips
The salt beds too.
Do any of them give a thought for me
in my bed having my thought-crowded nap
The woman running the mayo label machine
The knife maker in Japan thirty years ago
Where is he now
His knife is still sharp
I’ll wash it when I wake up
B) The Savage’s Echo to The Chairman -
At the Wheel
Unaware of the hanging sheds
the meat hooks
the knockers
Unwary of wandering deep rivers splitting cities
simmering wastes
stewing stopped flutter-fins
Brown hands under berries trembling
Brown fingers flushing pebbles on the rows
Brown People – never near produce bins
From burning seasons’ slashes
progresses sugar cane to stripping
by way of sunburned hands to packet
from brown and yellow to white turning
Red berry buds clothed in sugar
sweeting moist buds clad in crimson burps
Seeding teeth – thick needle points
at the bottom of a silver mouth of privileged spit
Does any diner give an instant
amid unspoken mind-swarms
or loft slight thanks toward red-picked working
ivory trash and their blackened bruises
nomadic drifters of red-blue-white- highways
where robins do not cheerio that milky way
Look where they are still
red-hard labor
stingy white-hot guilt
black-eyed baby justice
After the blow, red meat’s tears below
White wall-eyed gazes
Once in a blue moon weeping
Perhaps they dream of poets’ killing
Background
Poets are a solitary bunch. That doesn’t mean they are lonely. On the other hand, as one myself, it is nice when occasionally a chance arises to share my versifying art with a kindred spirit, and with prose writers whose writing sings like poetry.
If you are interested, the origin of the Echo Poem emerged in the 1990s between Wednesday’s WA writer and JPS (married in 1996) as they attempted to outdo one another in proclamations of echoed love poems.
Exploration 1: From what is the first poet awakening? A nap? Something more important?
Exploration 2: The second poet features three colors. What do they signify?
Exploration 3: Take a stab at finding the echoes in today’s featured poems above.
Standard Form Echo Poems – per the Google definition – Herbert and Swift
Heaven By George Herbert (1593 - 1633)
O who will show me those delights on high?
Echo. I.
Thou Echo, thou art mortall, all men know.
Echo. No.
Wert thou not born among the trees and leaves?
Echo. Leaves.
And are there any leaves, that still abide?
Echo. Bide.
What leaves are they? impart the matter wholly.
Echo. Holy.
Are holy leaves the Echo then of blisse?
Echo. Yes.
Then tell me, what is that supreme delight?
Echo. Light.
Light to the minde : what shall the will enjoy?
Echo. Joy.
But are there cares and businesse with the pleasure?
Echo. Leisure.
Light, joy, and leisure ; but shall they persever?
Echo. Ever.
Source: Herbert, George. The English Poems of George Herbert. C. A. Patrides, ed.
London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1974. Repr. 1991. 191.
A Gentle Echo on Woman
By Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
Shepherd. Echo, I ween, will in the woods reply,
And quaintly answer questions. Shall I try?
Echo. Try.
Shepherd. What must we do our passion to express?
Echo. Press. 5
Shepherd. How shall I please her, who ne’er loved before?
Echo. Before.
Shepherd. What most moves women when we them address?
Echo. A dress.
Shepherd. Say, what can keep her chaste whom I adore? 10
Echo. A door.
Shepherd. If music softens rocks, love tunes my lyre.
Echo. Liar.
Shepherd. Then teach me, Echo, how shall I come by her?
Echo. Buy her. 15
Shepherd. When bought, no question I shall be her dear?
Echo. Her deer.
Shepherd. But deer have horns: how must I keep her under?
Echo. Keep her under.
Shepherd. But what can glad me when she’s laid on bier? 20
Echo. Beer.
Shepherd. What must I do when women will be kind?
Echo. Be kind.
Shepherd. What must I do when women will be cross?
Echo. Be cross. 25
Shepherd. Lord, what is she that can so turn and wind?
Echo. Wind.
Shepherd. If she be wind, what stills her when she blows?
Echo. Blows.
Shepherd. But if she bang again, still should I bang her? 30
Echo. Bang her.
Shepherd. Is there no way to moderate her anger?
Echo. Hang her.
Shepherd. Thanks, gentle Echo! Right thy answers tell
What woman is, and how to guard her well. 35
. Echo Guard her well.
The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.
Vols. VI–IX: British
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