Summer Inklings #1

It's the first Inklings of the summer!

Since we love our weekly writing workshop here at Washington University in St. Louis so very much, we will be continuing over the summer with a new writing prompt every Monday.

• Tune in every week, write a poem, post your response in the comments.

I've prepared a prompt for your writing pleasure. At Inklings, our weekly writing workshop, on Mondays at 8:30 in Ursa's Fireside, we usually start with a brief writing exercise, like "write a list of three things you saw/heard/felt today" or "write a list of fifty nouns/verbs/adjectives." Then, we read the prompt and write for about 30 minutes. Of course, since y'all will be writing at home, it is up to you how much time you spend writing.

• Everyone is welcome to respond, Inklings veterans and total strangers alike.

The first part of the prompt is a poem by former poet laureate Billy Collins:

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 your 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 teh 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.
--Billy Collins

The trick about this poem is that it's a joke. Billy Collins made up this form to parody complex poetic forms like the villanelle. If you thought it was rigid and clumsy, that was the point. But whatever Collins wanted the paradelle to be, other poets started using it seriously:

Paradelle for Morning

Wait, and listen to the air's weighty anticipation.
Wait, and listen to the air's weighty anticipation.
You are like a transparent apple, fallen in rhythm.
You are like a transparent apple, fallen in rhythm.
Like weighty airs to the apple, you listen in a fallen
rhythm, wait, and are transparent anticipation.
Birdcalls beckon something, then announce your return.
Birdcalls beckon something, then announce your return.
A basket woven inwardly, I receive in morning.
A basket woven inwardly, I receive in morning.
Receive a woven basket. I beckon your return inwardly,
then announce morning, something in birdcalls.
This script for touch shivers like coldness or fear.
This script for touch shivers like coldness or fear.
It is the thin skin of apple, a clear yellow glowing.
It is the thin skin of apple, a clear yellow glowing.
Glowing or thin, the apple skin is like a clear script.
It shivers fear yellow for this coldness of touch.
A clear script for rhythm, your birdcalls
are a weighty listen inwardly, something like fear.
You wait, or return in like anticipation of air's coldness,
then beckon, and receive it. The yellow transparent apple,
fallen in a morning basket. Touch is glowing apple
shivers. I announce this to the thin woven skin.
--Camille C. Patty

The prompt:

• Make up your own form, as loose or as strict as you like.
• Then write a poem in that form.

Post your forms and your poems in the comments, and keep an eye out for a follow-up post with a list of forms for your composing pleasure.

Good luck!