spoken and then transcribed
Reading A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver, struck by her use of the word ‘prosody’ and her description of how meter and rhyme were an integral part of our forebears’ lives, and felt natural to them, even if they seem stilted to us. And while I had spent the last 15 minutes reciting to myself all the poems I know by heart, I read that line of hers and decided to write a poem by speaking.
I’ve claimed before that I can speak in iambic pentameter, and I can. It takes a little working up to, but I’m a weirdo like that. I submerged myself in rhyme and meter as a child. And this is what happened when I just opened my mouth to speak… (only slightly edited).
if you were to challenge me
i could speak in prosody
i think i could even probably
keep it up a while
off the cuff, from the hip
meter from my lips does slip
you see, i had a long apprenticeship
when i was a child
i loved meter and exulted in rhyme
and i didn’t know it at the time
but some day, good home my skills would find
although not
the way
i expected.
