December 24, 2024 / walk / 28 degrees
2025: Last year, I wrote about sand dabs and pebbles and a poet named Sparrow:
As I stretched, I had a thought about my series of Haunts poems: break up the long 5 syllable sections with some short lines from other writers (mostly poets) that I fit into my 3/2 patter. I call them for fitters. I’m thinking of these kind of like Jane Hirshfield’s pebbles or Mary Oliver’s sand dabs or Victoria Chang’s tankas in Obit. I’m also thinking of them because of the poet Sparrow, who I just learned about in Lydia Davis’ essay on form. Sparrow wrote an entire series of “translated” New Yorker poems.
24 dec 2024
Form fitters! In the manuscript I just submitted (yesterday! an entire book of poems!), I included form fitters, but renamed them, Breathing With: poet’s name. Oliver’s and Hirshfield’s small forms also inspired me this summer, when I created a series of short poems, 5 lines, 5 syllables each, that I named “inklings.” A few weeks ago I found out that those inklings are going to be published in a chapbook for Dancing Girl Press sometime in the spring!
I want to revisit Davis’ form essay and read more about Sparrow. I think they have a book I can check out from the library? I vaguely recall doing a bit more reading about them a year ago.