Happy Thanksgiving

We came up with Thanksgiving haikus after dinner this year, a sporadic Raff Thanksgiving tradition. Haikus should technically consist of three lines, the first line having five syllables, the second having seven and the third five. Here are a couple I wrote:

Remember the time
we got pizza in the car
on Thanksgiving day?

(We were on our way to Grandma's house in MD, late at night, and stopped at a gas station for a few of those freezer pizzas. We microwaved them and feasted in the car.)

She thought he was a
guru. Everything has changed.
Now he drinks and smokes.

(ha--that's about my parents. Mom was talking about how she thought Dad was a "guru," with that long hair and a beard. She still hates when Dad gets a haircut! It's fun writing haikus while people are talking.)

Our first Thanksgiving
without our baby Alice.
It isn't the same.

(Actually, it was our first Thanksgiving missing any of the sisters! It was sad!)

Here's a "minute" poem I wrote--we talked about feminism for a LONG time after Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, a minute poem has a total of sixty syllables. The first line of the first stanza has eight, then four for the next three lines. That's repeated thrice. And the rhyme scheme is AABB CCDD EEFF. My dad'd doing all these awesome poetry workshops and he taught us this form:

She was made to complete him.
The fruit eaten
opened her eyes
to become wise.

Created complete already,
she'd never see
the blessings of
the curse of love.

She would give to her children all,
and since the Fall
she's strived against
Adam, incensed.

PS--very much inspired by my Milton class, and my lit. theory class.

Here's something Dad learned in one of his poetry workshops. Most people are strongest writers in one of the following areas: narrative (story), structure (form), music (sound/rhythm) or imagination (images). If you're strength lies in either narrative or structure, you should try to incorporate either music or imagination in your poem for a complete poem, and vice-versa. I thought that was interesting. Dad's written some beautiful poetry, and Mom has, as well. She always has had a way with words.

Here's a... fun? depressing? tragic? poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give back my books and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
"What a big book for such a little head!"
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink!
Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading any more:
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And some day when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,
I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

Ouch!

Clemson-USC game tomorrow. We win every year, so we better tomorrow.