Pine Hills Review | awritersfountain

Full prompt here.

Our featured daily participant is Writing in North Norfolk.

Today’s featured online magazine is Pine Hills Review, run by students and faculty at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York. I’ll point you to Grant Clauser’s “Addendum to the Note on John Keats’ Grave Marker.”

PROMPT: Because it’s a Saturday, I thought I’d try a prompt that asks you to write in a specific form – the nonet! A nonet has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, the second has eight, and so on until you get to the last line, which has just one syllable.

Awwwww – weekend NaPo! No (time) pressure. I was excited to see the prompt was a Nonet – I have written in this form, discovered it several years ago and haven’t used it since.

I start, as always, with the featured participant’s poem. Words in the Wind by Kim M. Russell. The language is exquisite!

I wuther over moors and I
squabble in the sky.

I really enjoyed this alter-ego poem.

I added Kim’s site to my Reader and left a comment. Another aspect of NaPoWriMo which is wonderful – the connections you make with other people and their poems.

Next stop, Pine Hills Review. I admired the variety of articles and interviews but found the flashing images on the menu mixed with my morning coffee beyond vibrant (a sign of getting too old…) and decided to explore the magazine via the suggested poem.

Addendum to the Note on John Keats’ Grave Marker by Grant Clauser.

I LOVED listening to the audio of the poem. I then read the text to myself. I found the atmosphere of the poem encircle me. I was so moved by this poem that I plan to press it across social media today. In the week of our family funeral it sits even faster to my soul.

we looked up and talked about Venus,
how much she stood out among the stars,
how the night looked blacker, even
the pine trees behind us leaning south
from decades of hill wind.

cocooned
in our openness like survivors on a life raft

all of us pressed together by gravity,
everything blending into everything else,

And those end-lines. Phewwww – deep exhale. This is a beautiful poem. Grant Clauser has just found himself a new reader, thanks Pine Hills Review! I added Pine Hills Review to my Reader too.

I sat in the moment of the poem for a while before disappearing down a Twitter shaped rabbit hole!

PROCESS NOTES:

The Nonet.

I sat for seconds before I chose my subject. I liked the constraint of the syllabic frame and by line 3 was composing to order (which is always a lovely surprise) – by that I mean I wrote the line then counted the syllables and they fitted, whereas the first few lines had to be manipulated.

I just need to find a title.

Every once in a while I will share a full poem and as the Nonet is so short and it’s the weekend… this is one of those times.

Souvenirs of Life

Your box of unfolded handkerchiefs:
carefully lifted from corners,
our shared morning ritual
of colour and story,
such pretty patterns.
How I wish for
those small squares
now you’re
gone.