Poetry Corner – Micropoetry

Happy Spring Dear Ones!

At least it is newly Spring here in Canada – especially here on the southern tip of our beautiful Vancouver Island.

May I suggest that you read my post from Monday: Marcia’s Meanderings – Thank you, Twitter! It’s brief and gives you a bit of an introduction to this post today.

Micropoetry is a new term for me, even as versed (pun intended!) in poetic styles as I am. Being relatively new to Twitter, I recognized the standard hashtag (#) defined in Wikipedia as: “Short messages on services such as Twitter or identi.ca (that) may be tagged by including one or more hashtags: words or phrases prefixed with a hash symbol (#).” The use of this hashtag is to connect with people of like minds. If you want to share micropoetry with others you add the phrase #micropoetry into your tweet (your Twitter message) and others can see your poem. Similarly for #haiku or other short poetry styles. This works also for finding people interested in non-poetry subjects such as #hugs or #spring or #photography.

The following are some of the haiku and micropoems I have written recently:

The body slumbers ~ in moonlight spirit dances ~ sips on tears of joy. #haiku

Tulips bloom/ Two lips arch/ Smiles blossom. (in honour of Spring) #micropoetry

Welcoming smiles/ crack the landscape/ of a happy face. #micropoetry

Powdered sugar snow/Dusts the lawn/Sweetening the day. #micropoetry

On the bus a child/Knows her A B Cs song/ Sings to me sweetly. #haiku

Now this last tweet poem was done to haiku style, which means:
* the use of three lines (condensed into one line for tweeting purposes. The /or sometimes a ~ are used to indicate a different line.
* the first and last lines have 5 syllables each, the middle line 7 syllables.

The haiku style usually refers, somewhere within the poem, to the seasons – spring, summer, etc. (though aspects of the day/night such as moonlight are also used – see my first example above). In this last haiku about the child singing, I did not refer to either a season or an aspect of the day. So it was not a true Haiku poem.

Also the 17 syllable limitation gave me little room to truly explain the amazing interaction I had with this child. She sang her ABCs song over and over and over again. After each finale she and her mother would applaud her success. After the second round I applauded as well. This child made direct eye contact with me and on her third round she sang the song specifically to me! I smiled. She smiled. I think she was hoping I would sing along with her. After all the last line of the song is: “Next time won’t you sing with me!” Sadly I didn’t. But when she applauded, I applauded! The mother apparently didn’t catch on, but continued to support her daughter with her own hearty applause as though it were her child’s first ever performance – each and every time. As did I, I must admit!!!!

Needless to say – or rather, it is worthy of saying! – that a three line haiku poem could not fully capture the emotion and the interaction I experienced. I wanted to say more. Yet I wanted to send it out to the Twitter world. Therefore my message still needed to be kept to a maximum of 140 characters – that included all letters, numbers, punctuation and even spaces.

Formally the final poem looked like this:

On the bus
A sweet voiced child
Having learned her ABCs song
Repeatedly sings and sings
Enticing you to join along.
Applaud. Applaud!

Here is the final Tweet, including the phrase ‘#micropoetry’, so that it would go out to the common theme group as well as those 80+ people (bless you!) who follow me:

On the bus/A sweet voiced child/Having learned her ABC song/Repeatedly sings & sings/Enticing U 2 join along./Applaud. Applaud! #micropoetry

Can you tell I am enjoying this newly discovered creative outlet?

Give it a try yourself! Feel free to send it along in the comments section below. I’d love to read your work! Or tweet it to me @tomarciamae !

In Light and Laughter,

Marcia

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