Poetic Twins
Prequels & Sequels
Over the years, the author of this article has formed a little habit of writing one Anti-Poem and then following it up (often years later) with a sister act. He calls these loosely related prequels and sequels ‘poetic twins’. The family resemblance of such siblings is most evident in the similarity of their titles, although their structure, subject matter, and themes may also exhibit some correlations. In this sense, they are more akin to fraternal, rather than identical twins. Not sure whether anyone else does this too, but in any case, today we present two pairs of them so as to properly illustrate our point. We’ll proceed with an avant-garde pairing — but first — a quote:
For personal reasons, the Anti-Poet is a sniper. He fights for the same cause, but with a totally different technique. He does not declaim the soldier Poet, but supports him from afar, although his method may seem ambiguous.
~ Nicanor Parra
1/2: Trench Trap
Mayday, mayday
Bardship Battalion
Undergoing heavy
Artistry fire!
Dug foxhole
Too deep;
Hellish shock
Setting in . . .
Please send
Literary support.
Airdrop grants
Over coordinates:
Lima, Mike
Alfa, Oscar.
Enemy columnist
Approaching position —
*END TRANSMISSION*
2/2: Urbane Combat
Pinned down
Between
Readerly Lane
And
Writerly Way.
Our assault
On The Base
Is stymied
By its Superstructure.
Rejection slips
Surefire as grenades
Render silent
Valiant voices.
The vanguard
Betrayed us.
Mission Imperative updated —
Æsthetic regrouping.
Got bookish agent
In the crosshairs
But rival choppers
From Major Publishers
Drop manuscripts overhead!
That’s the primary pair. I’ll only add that everything invoked by them obviously has a double meaning, especially the secondary title, which is deliberately meant to be misread as ‘urban combat’. Moving right along to our next duo…
1/2: Paradigmatic
Rough around the edges
Round rhymes for square wedges
Hidden away behind thick hedges
Produced as memory dredges
Double-crossed by disloyal pledges
Innocent of anything anyone alleges
Stays unfazed if hit with sledges
Hope it hangs from highest ledges
Like streamlined arrows given fledges ↣
Ça suffit — close up your ledgers!
Over-Rhyme:
Imagination rarely stretches
What a poor price knowing fetches
Even learning barely etches
Credible or discernible sketches.
As you can see, the above employs a technique which Yours Truly likes to call the recursive or rolling rhyme. The ten main lines form a ‘deckad’ (my own term for a double quintet where the rhyme repeats 10x).
Of course, now, this last piece shares a kinship with a sophomore successor, which was published fairly recently in ILLUMINATION [Brace yourself; it’s not nearly as monosyllabic as its predecessor]:
2/2: Anathematic
A side note on technicality
Many contemporary journals frown upon blank spaces between lines of verse. This is a point of contention for myself since I strongly feel that the reader deserves an extra moment in between to absorb the full import of certain carefully chosen words. Which is why I’ve adopted such void spaces as a decidedly antipoetic device.
Shout-Outs
I don’t usually do this, but it suddenly occurs to mention several of the finest fellow writers whom I’ve had the pleasure to make the acquaintance of here on Medium:
Tree Langdon, Cocoa Griot, Grin Spickett, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Dr John Rose, Darrin Atkins, Flynn Hannan, S M Mamunur Rahman, Matt Ray, Natasha Link, Tanya Nottonya, Jupiter Grant, David Majister, Tim Ebl, Timothy Key, Paul Ryburn, Scott Gese, Chris Hedges, Kylie Craft, Winifred J. Akpobi.
Rest assured that Obsidian Eagle sees you and applauds your ceaseless, oft thankless efforts!
Anybody up for a whole other trilogy? Behold:
