Here’s my first go at writing a slow poem:
Age Twelve, Sharing a Room With Grammy
When you’re old, your hands and feet are blocks of wood.
She sits slowly, easing down over calcified knees.
Her bent index finger is a post to wrap a shoelace on
muscle memory ties the bow, certainly not the gnarled paws
that are all she has to work with.
A slip of her hem: I glimpse her calf.
Her legs are all veins and bruise.
Every day, she says,
Every day I wonder how I got so old.
I shrug. I am out of words.
I sit next to her, on the hotel bed.
Sometimes I think about death. What happens after…
She sighs.
Who am I kidding?
You die, you rot.
This is one of a larger series of (at the moment being written) poems about my grandmother. Apparently I mostly write poetry about my family. I guess I don’t really write fiction about them, so bits of them had to come into my writing somewhere.
For reference, slow poetry tricks include: Monosyllables, lots of stressed syllables in a row, and repetition.
Tomorrow: Revisions!
2 comments
Kevin, Son of Nog
September 21, 2010 at 2:21 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I like it, but I guess I don’t get it. At least, I don’t get what a slow poem is. Is it supposed to be slow in your head when you read it?
Anne Bean
September 21, 2010 at 6:25 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
When you read it is the main idea. Like, the language forces you to move slowly.