Y Después (And Then)

Lately, I find myself thinking in poetry. Or rather, the things I want to say are in poems I've read. Yes, I want them to speak for me.

Yesterday, I wanted to say something but couldn't find the right words. I know all the words that have come before have been wrong. So, I figured these particular lines I had read would make it a little more clear. But I can't find them. I've scoured all my books and journals, but these few lines seem to want to remain hidden, out of my grasp.

These come close at least:

Y Después, A Cento

To You, 

Today in El Paso all the planes are asleep
on the runway.  The world

is in a delay. The labyrinths 

that time creates disappear. Always
you were given one too many, one
too few. What almost happens, doesn't.

What might be lost, you'll lose. 

We find out the heart only by dismantling what

the heart knows. We must unlearn
the constellations to see the stars. 

The sky is the only store
worth shopping in for anything
as long as a life. If the moon
smiled, she would resemble you.

You leave the same impression

of something beautiful, but annihilating.

Your absence has gone through me

like thread through a needle. Everything
I do is stitched with its color.

I wish I had the power of not looking
back. Not the power of having a wish
granted, but the power to look at my wish
and see behind it.

Love, Me



Sources:
"April Snow" by Matthew Zapruder
"Y Después" (And Then) by Federico García Lorca translated by Ralph Angel
"Three-Legged Blues" by Jane Hirshfield
"Tear it Down" by Jack Myers
"Rebellion against the North Side" by Naomi Shihab Nye
"The Rival" by Sylvia Plath
"Separation" by W.S. Merwin
"One Last Wish" by Jack Myers

The Portable Poetry Workshop Project: Generating Content - Substitution

A poem can travels through both vertical and horizontal levels of meaning by way of substitution. The poet can chose to substitute the literal for the figurative or the abstract or vice-versa. Substitution can even become a poet's overall strategy or "organizing principle" whether employed as a technique or happening unconsciously.

There are a number of poems offered in this section as examples, but the one poet whose work comes to my mind is Matthew Zapruder. "Global Warming" and "White Castle" are two fine examples when it comes to substitution and the movement of meaning within poetry.

A substitution exercise from Jack: "Find some literal images in your poem and then add an abstract quality or specific detail to those images.

Happy writing, Andrea