The prompt from Jeff Griffin took me to the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology. As suggested, I read it through and transcribed chronologically and without punctuation what words or phrases I found “remarkable.” I then copied the text into Google Translate through a cycle of 5 different languages and then back to English. I’m afraid the chronology and substance of what I first noted remained more or less in tact in spite of Jeff’s prediction of translations going awry. Perhaps I was inept at the process. Would not be the first time. The poem below uses unaltered words and phrases which keep faith with the order in which I noted them originally.
Misspent
How the feminine gains strength
smelling of silence, prayers wearing out,
old thoughts—unbroken, never corralled.
To keep us from home, now I expose
the ironed life in ‘glorious’ childhood
which did not heal with time.
Nothing passed between us
but, under this wing, hard love,
possibility, memorable patience.
Day 17 Prompt from Jeff Griffin through the Found Poetry Review
The prompt from Jeff Griffin took me to the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology. As suggested, I read it through and transcribed chronologically and without punctuation what words or phrases I found “remarkable.” I then copied the text into Google Translate through a cycle of 5 different languages and then back to English. I’m afraid the chronology and substance of what I first noted remained more or less in tact in spite of Jeff’s prediction of translations going awry. Perhaps I was inept at the process. Would not be the first time. The poem below uses unaltered words and phrases which keep faith with the order in which I noted them originally.
Misspent
How the feminine gains strength
smelling of silence, prayers wearing out,
old thoughts—unbroken, never corralled.
To keep us from home, now I expose
the ironed life in ‘glorious’ childhood
which did not heal with time.
Nothing passed between us
but, under this wing, hard love,
possibility, memorable patience.
Share this: