The Human Condition and 7 Other Poems

From “Writing Poetry 2,” with Pat Pattison

Poetry
We wrote six poems this semester, four in fixed form and two in Free Verse. We spend a good deal of energy in class workshopping each poem, with students often marveling at some aspect of a classmate’s poem, perhaps making suggestions for edits or additions. Continuing our exploration of iambic pentameter from Poetry 1, we wrote an English Sonnet, an Italian Sonnet and finally a Terza Rima. Then we wrote Sapphic Stanzas, a Greek form that uses the duration of syllables to create patterns and rhythms. It’s challenging in English which, unlike Greek, has no fixed durations.

Having been so compositional for both Poetry 1 and Poetry 2, moving into Free Verse usually terrifies the students. But the compositional tools and principles they carry, with their focus on prosody, prepared them to be intentional in Free Verse as well. Being in control, knowing what the options are, and knowing why something works (or doesn’t) is invaluable. Intuition is important, but it shouldn’t be the only route.

I asked each of the seven students in this Spring ’25 semester’s Poetry 2 class to submit their favorite poem of the semester for publication in FUSION Magazine. Since the quality of all their writing was quite high, I was eager to see what they’d choose. In this issue you’ll find three Terza Rimas, an English and Italian Sonnet, and two poems in Free Verse. I have to say I’m really pleased at the results. As usual, I do all my own assignments in Poetry 2. I’ve chosen one of my Free Verse poems.

I’d like to express my deep gratitude to FUSION Magazine for providing an outlet for these remarkable writers.

Enjoy.

Pat Pattison
Professor
Berklee College of Music

Saxon selected their poem in Free Verse. The assignment focused on creating motion using the numbers of unstressed syllables to control the feel of the lines, opening and contracting in support of its ideas. Note how Saxon used unstressed syllables to make the middle section feel out of breath – heartbreaking…
congratulations

give me hope, at least. you know i’ve been
chewing at the silences, seconds
lodging in the back of my throat
as time sticks to my molars: “Will you
come to the ceremony?”
            only
if you have time, if it’s no trouble, if you can
stretch your silence (try not to burst the bubble
in front of me).

once your palm was twice the size of mine, and
streets were lined with terrors that shrunk from
your laughter ringing in my
skull, soft like bubblegum in your teeth.

–Saxon Kennedy

After Leaving Blank Verse in Poetry 1, the addition of rhyme as a compositional tool is the natural next step. The English Sonnet, three quatrains and a couplet, rhymes abab cdcd efef gg.

Erinn decided to contribute the English Sonnet from our first assignment. Watch the verbs create lovely images and metaphors: Dawn’s fingers stretch; chariot leaps; Sunbeams embrace.

Sunrise and Surrender

When the Sun peeks over the horizon,
Dawn’s rosy fingers stretch across the skies.
Coloring the surface of our Bedizen,
Day’s glimmering chariot leaps and flies.

As the first crow of the cock meets the Earth,
A symphony of gasps, now cries join in.
The procession of life meets its rebirth,
Yawning with its slow awakening kin.

Like greedy lovers that can’t be ignored,
Sunbeams embrace the world with warming binds.
Morning light leaves nothing unadored.
As soft heat seeps through the cracks in the blinds,

Tired, I ease the blanket over my head,
Trying to prolong the darkness instead.

–Erinn Kim

The next three poems are in Terza Rima form, or “rhyme of three.” It’s a difficult structure, organized in three-line stanzas (tercets), but with a rhyme scheme that overlays the quatrains. For example, each opening line, starting with tercet two, has two functions, it opens its tercet, but is connected by rhyme to the previous tercet, creating something like a “formal polyphony.”

In this poem, Libi handles the form well, using both perfect rhyme and consonance rhyme (read/feed/wood) to open or close the motion. And be sure to listen to how the rhythms slip in and out of the iambic pentameter.

Braindead

I skim another page of boring text.
(Absorbing knowledge is futile.) I read
Again, repeat on loop, remain perplexed

By this endless hunger. Please, let me feed
On this slur of words tumbling through my
Rotting brain, grip sliding off like slick wood,

Throbbing in its fleshy vessel, each try
Sloppier than the last.
            Tripping over
My stash of satisfying junk, I lie

To save my lifeless dignity, and savor
The taste of achievement I can’t attain
Any longer, left to stare and never

Truly see, peeling off my sickly skin.
I fall with the undead, succumbed to life’s pain.

–Libi Sealman

Here’s Alex’s Terza Rima. Note the final consonance rhyme, must/last, how it almost creates an elipse… at the end. Indeed, every meal, even in a flophouse, might be our last. Wonderful descriptions and comparisons.
Human Condition

Plates, still dirty, dripping in dish racks like
Sinners in church, awaiting praise, dropping
Stolen change for the lord’s (and his son’s) work;

Sponges, once clean, now mold-filled and clinging
To a purpose no longer theirs to uphold-
Searching for dirt through cataract, fumbl’ing

Holes, but I still see the grease proud like gold
Ling’ring around – on display, yet hidden,
Grazing the hands of the hungry, who yield

In disgust, but must accept fate given:
Dirt drools in all, even cleansed, wounds of lust.
No man stays clean in worlds while men have risen.

Oozing oils and hedonic pasts, man must
Find peace in supper; it might be his last.

–Alexandra Senior

Lovely metaphor in Benji’s Terza Rima: what to do with a mediocre result in pottery (or anything else). A really nice use of enjambment (especially line six and eight) and of consonance rhyme: note how the instability of plain/stone moves us into the discomfort of “mocks me…”.
A Potter’s Conundrum

My crusted hands coax out impish visions
that sneakily lay in Thought’s brash terrain,
translating, with some sloppy incisions,

ideas to the wheel, so stubborn and plain.
A pinch here, some thinning there, but the curve
of the clay remains dull. The spinning stone

mocks me as it goes round and round to serve
my failures back to me in a lopsi-
ded bowl, the token of an artist’s grave:

I toss my tools, frustrations amplify-
ing the blank stare of my torn, dirty sleeve
and dormant kiln, pondering (as I cry)

what’s worse, to bake a piece you don’t believe
in, or desert it all to moan and grieve?

–Benji Hafetz-Price

Josh also selected a Free Verse poem, the final assignment focused on creating motion by varying line lengths in support of its ideas. Wonderful contrast in the final three lines: you can feel the explosion in the long lines, and the calming down and acceptance created by the final short line.
Notstalgia

Looking at old photos seems so silly now.
That bit lip hiding under a creviced smile,
those quivered nails that dug through my
skin, fizzled
out neurons trying to avoid a mirror.
Sinful memory invites my stomach into
my mouth. A rage rejuvenated, tries to
coax me into gouging out the photophores socketed in his 2D head.
That nauseating fossil in the frame—begging to be 6 feet deeper.

Nah, I think I’ll keep ‘em.

–Josh Steiner

Claire chose the Italian Sonnet, a form in iambic pentameter that divides into two sections: the first eight lines (the octave), and the final six lines (the sestet). The octave rhymes abbaabba, two In Memoriam quatrains, while the sestet is flexible: any combination or two or three rhymes (e.g., cdcdcd, cdecde, cdcdee).

Note Claire’s verbs. They really make the sonnet pop. See how many words have to do with hot/cold. The form’s presentation is non-conventional, ignoring the usual skipped space between the octave and sestet – instead isolating lines four and five. It almost acts as a prechorus. Nice effect.

Trivia Night

The ace crowd comes early, shucking their gloves
and coats, their boldness bubbling like beer.
“Tonight, our re-redemption starts!” they swear,

buzzed and babbling excitedly, rush-
ing to drink past their chattering nerves:

preparation for the sweet heat of war.
But when the quizmaster shoots an icy glare,
a chill blows, frosting the ceiling above.
Round One! Flurries of pens scratch-scratch, pelting
the pure white point sheets promising victory.
The teams launch their guesses, warm ones melting,
uncovering the thawing mystery:
a precious, stolen hint from icy thoughts
or a truly abominable loss.

–Claire Hudson

It’s both fun and daunting to do all my assignments myself, and post them with the students. First, to simply find an idea, then to struggle through the compositional strategies each form suggests, and finally to write and rewrite until the last minute, then turn it in, warts and all. I look forward to it every Spring, the only semester I run the Poetry 2 class.

I chose my second Free Verse, using line lengths to create motion that, in turn, supports the ideas. I found the idea of an estuary interesting: “a body of water where freshwater from rivers and streams mixes with saltwater from the ocean.” I see it as a metaphor for a journey: you’re neither where you came from or where you’re going: in that mixture of memory and anticipation, you could easily ignore, and thus lose, the present moment.

Estuary

The morning’s sunlit world fills with
smiles and chatter, the low moan of the
train whistle and rattling cars, rolling on
steel rails relentlessly toward Boston. Lean
back, glancing occasionally at the woods
and waters of Connecticut as they slip past,
dreaming in this half-life, suspended
between where you’ve been and where
you will be. Turn away, for what can
you keep from a transitory world?

Nod off then, soothed by the vibrations and the swaying of the car,
while the blue of the sky reflecting in trackside ponds
goes unnoticed, and the great white windmill
spins as it will, with or
without you.

–Pat Pattison

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