Tweetspeak Poetry

Poetry Dare: What Tangled Webs T. S. Eliot Weaves

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You never know what might happen when you start to hang out with the Tweetspeak Poetry community. Maybe, sometime, when you least expect it, you might be issued a Poetry Dare. Recently, we dared one friend to read a poem a day. Not long ago, we caught her writing a short poem on Facebook. This month, we dared Sandra Heska King to read not simply a poem every day, but read from a T. S. Eliot poem every day, with the able companionship of Tania Runyan’s How to Read a Poem.

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His lines crawl across my cortex when I sit and when I walk and when I lie down and when I rise up.

Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

The ‘potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango tree.

I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

Now when she died there was silence in heaven
And silence at her end of the street. 

His laughter tinkled among the teacups.

While I wash dishes, he whispers words like maisonette and miasmal mist and fugitive resentment and glazen shelves and green silence. 

I can’t shake the images of brown waves of fog and daffodil bulbs staring up from eye sockets and a laughed-off head “rolling under a chair or grinning over a screen with seaweed in its hair.”

And, dear Lord, I never should have looked up “Priapus.”

Tom and I, we’ve been an item now for a couple of weeks. But had it not been for a double-dog dare and Tania’s chaperoning presence, I might have given in and given up. I might have rubbed my back upon his verse and slid away like so much yellow smoke.

Or I might have cheated after the first read and run to SparkNotes.

Years ago, after I recovered from my high school pounding heart and sweating palms, I took an English literature class at the University of South Florida. I got lost in Beowulf—a fun kind of lost. I wrote a paper on it, but the professor burned me for “reading too much into the poem.” She spoiled my fun. Re-scared and re-scarred me.

I burned that paper.

But I’m trying to play nice with T. S. Eliot. Trying to “ski” across his poems—to enjoy the sounds and sights and smells (yes, I smelled the lilacs), the rhythms and the way his words sit on the page.

Because Tania Runyan, in How to Read a Poem, has freed me to have fun again.

How freeing to know you can enjoy a poem—yes, even “just” its glittering surface—without receiving a full literary education first. The more you read and enjoy the poetry, the more the understanding and information will come as a natural outgrowth of committing yourself to the poems themselves, the most important thing.

poetry dare t s eliot notesAfter reading a poem out loud several times, I’ve taken to printing it off and marking it up with my Twistable pencils. I mark the characters, the rhymes and repeated words, the contrasts and comparisons, the line breaks and punctuation. It helps me commit to the poem in a different way, to see its colors in a new light. I make notes in the margins—words I remember T. S. Eliot used in other poems or thoughts I have as I read.

After allowing the poem to stand “as its own thing, ” says Tania, feel free to research.

So after I go through “Whispers of Immortality” for the 23rd time, I make note that a maisonette is a small house or an apartment on two levels and Webster is not Dan of the Dictionary. I also discover the origin of the word “webster” means “female weaver, ” which likely has nothing to do with what Eliot was thinking but makes me laugh because Grishkin reminds me of the spider who tried to lure the fly.

And I think the Managing Editor who dispatched the double-dog dare might be a webster who’s lured me into her poetry lair.

I may be still fumbling in the dark looking for a light switch.

But just so you know—I’m having fun.

Cover photo by Jeff Kubina, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post and post photo by Sandra Heska King.

Browse more T. S. Eliot
Browse more Poetry Dare
Browse more Poetry Teaching Resources

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Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    Wonderful post, Sandra. I think T.S.E. was a great choice for you.

    I know a number of poets who copy out other poets’ work to understand how the poems work. It’s an interesting exercise that can lead to some wonderful insights.

    What a turnoff that professor must have been. I’m glad you weren’t permanently scarred or scared away from poetry.

    Reply

  2. Will Willingham says

    Keep this up, and you might convince me to read a little Eliot.

    Then someone would probably laugh his/her head off and it would roll under a chair. Which, in your house, would probably mean a cute little dog would abscond with it …

    Maybe I shouldn’t read after all. 😉

    Reply

  3. Ann Kroeker says

    Well, thanks to your subtle dare, I looked up “priapus.” {blush}

    You are modeling how to read a poem based on how Tania modeled how to read a poem. That makes me…want to read a poem!

    I’m glad I subscribe to Every Day Poems so a poem conveniently shows up in my inbox each day. I don’t even have to track down a book to dig in. But I’m inspired by your focus on one poet, finding threads and themes, repetition and rhythm.

    I wonder who might be my poet for a season?

    Reply

  4. Sandra Heska King says

    With my nursing background, you’d think I’d been able to figure that out without tripping over a drawing. One of his poems in particular has made me so totally blush. I can think of several poets who might be more comfortable… but maybe comfortable isn’t always a good thing. 🙂

    Reply

  5. L. L. Barkat says

    Ann Kroeker did not just *ask* for a poetry dare. (Right?)

    And, Sandra? I burst into tears at this:

    “I burned that paper.”

    The new papers you are making are altogether lovely. Words upon words circled, colored, joined. It’s a dance. And one you are not doing alone. If there’s any burning, it’s the kind the crowd will be roasting their sweet little marshmallows over.

    Reply

  6. Shelly Miller says

    Love this Sandra. I sit with a notebook next to me when I read fiction, writing down words and looking them up and often find a nugget of truth that unlocks some door I shut ages ago due to fear. Words do that, they bring life in the most curious ways don’t they? I’m smitten.

    Reply

  8. Maureen Doallas says

    Not Freed

    The brown waves sprouting in
    yellow hair lie among the teacups.

    I see he is green like the mango,
    heart pounding, palms glazen

    with his sweating. Had he rubbed
    my back for fun, I might have slid

    away and tinkled the dishes. I can’t.
    Had I given up, I might have cheated

    heaven of his voice, the images
    that rise like miasmal mist to silence

    the housemaids. I might have burned
    his verse at the maisonette before

    allowing her in but she, she repeated
    “we’ve been an item now for weeks”,

    and the words she whispers again,
    that I can’t shake, should never have

    looked up, burned and re-scarred, not
    freed me. His priapus smells not of lilacs

    but of fumbling in the dark, yellow fly
    lured to fugitive light and the lair

    of the spider. Despondently at first,
    he dispatched the dog, read out loud

    her notes on his punctuation, the trying
    school rhymes — dear Lord — that spoiled

    for marks in the margins. I see colors
    that have nothing to do with what helps

    me, my cortex glittering because she is
    dead and he, ever the professor reading

    too much into the poetry of immortality,
    is repeating, “You know you’re having fun.”

    Reply

  11. Laura Brown says

    I think Ann Kroeker *did* just ask for a poetry dare. I would dare her to read Elizabeth Bishop. I would dare her to start with “Filling Station.”

    Someone subtly dared me to read the first of Eliot’s Four Quartets today by simply referring to the still point in a turning world.

    Snady, I love this post, for many reasons, not least among them for the poetic turns I see in your prose. And the word “freed.”

    Reply

  12. Sandra Heska King says

    Another poet to get to know. This is so much better than the Food Network.

    Doing poetry is so much more fun when you’re doing it with others who just want to have fun–and who encourage you to have fun. Thanks, Laura!

    Reply

  13. Diana Trautwein says

    Terrific post, Sandy. Not sure it makes me want to read a lot of TSEliot, but it does make me want to know what the heck twistable pencils are and to wonder how in the name of heaven you find enough time to do this intense study. It’s not like you don’t have TONS of other things on your plate. Sigh. I’m a slough-off, clearly.

    Reply

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