Angeline
Poet Chick
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2002
- Posts
- 27,213
Do you know Annie aka UnderYourSpell? If you don't please come into the thread and meet her and her poems. And if you do know her, come and bring your comments and questions, questionnaires, etc., too.
I met UYS in 2008 when she started submitting poems here. I remember reading a handful and thinking, this is a person who rhymes and writes traditional forms and makes me want to read more of it. And boy did she provide. The 242 submissions on her poem page represent only a fraction of her output here over the years.
Once Annie found her way to the forum she never turned down any sort of challenge, nor has she even seemed to blink at supplying a staggering amount of form and free verse poetry. We're not just talking ballads, sonnets or even sestinas either, but double acrostics, rees, higgledy piggledies, pantoums, illustrated poems, the Anniekey (which she invented) and on and on. Annie is a fearless writer. In 2009 she was voted Most Influential Poet by her peers and is the only person on the forum to complete our only Poetry Survivor Contest. (Read the rules thread if you want to see what a challenge that was.) She never even turned down a forum "gunfight"--a contest wherein two poets agree to write to a certain form and/or theme within an hour or less and then be judged by three peers. It is a daunting challenge to write under fire like that and then be judged on the spot. And Annie is the only poet ever to have won a gunfight with a unanimous vote.
But what about the poems? Our poetry world has its traditional form aficionados and those who are less enthusiastic. That should be obvious to anyone who spends time reading here. Of course we also disagree on the nebulous questions of what a poem is and what purpose it should serve. But let the poems and Annie speak for herself on that.
I asked Annie's permission to post this first poem in its entirety and she agreed. So first here is her Ode to a Dung Beetle.
Higgledy piggledy everso squiggerdly
rolls the dung beetle all over the land
picking up masses and even morasses
making the most of whatever's at hand.
Little dung beetle, oh little dung beetle
why does your heart sing for buckets of it
life rolling onwards backwards and forwards
shovelling up elephants bit after bit.
~
What matters where my body lay
released from torture on this day
yet death will be but a pause
my soul shall rise above the fray.
I see my home in my minds eye
life has been just a passing sigh
for the peace of my years
not lost even in this last goodbye.
To look to the sky as in a dream
beauty of earth below would seem
in the long green grass
reflected my final passing gleam.
excerpted from A sleep I shall have
~
You filthy gerund rubbing whore,
afflatus in each stanza lie,
alliteration never knowingly nudging
bawdy bacchic lines.
Your cadence rises and falls.
Kitsch obliterates each
scriblerus club that dares to
enter there.
excerpted from Filthy gerund rubbing whore
~
When it's time to harvest the pom-poms
The pygmies turn out in twos,
One to gather the fruit in,
And the other to spread the news.
He climbs to the top of the pom-pom tree
And waves his semaphore flags,
While his friend shakes the branches around him,
And gathers the fruit in bags.
So if your hat has a tassel
Hanging for all to see,
Remember the place far, far away,
And the pygmy stuck up in a tree.
excerpted from Pom Pom Picking
~
I could have posted many more examples. Annie has such range that it's hard to choose favorites, but those are some of mine.
So welcome Annie and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. This is going to be fun! When did you begin writing poetry, what attracted you to it and how would you define good poetry?
I met UYS in 2008 when she started submitting poems here. I remember reading a handful and thinking, this is a person who rhymes and writes traditional forms and makes me want to read more of it. And boy did she provide. The 242 submissions on her poem page represent only a fraction of her output here over the years.
Once Annie found her way to the forum she never turned down any sort of challenge, nor has she even seemed to blink at supplying a staggering amount of form and free verse poetry. We're not just talking ballads, sonnets or even sestinas either, but double acrostics, rees, higgledy piggledies, pantoums, illustrated poems, the Anniekey (which she invented) and on and on. Annie is a fearless writer. In 2009 she was voted Most Influential Poet by her peers and is the only person on the forum to complete our only Poetry Survivor Contest. (Read the rules thread if you want to see what a challenge that was.) She never even turned down a forum "gunfight"--a contest wherein two poets agree to write to a certain form and/or theme within an hour or less and then be judged by three peers. It is a daunting challenge to write under fire like that and then be judged on the spot. And Annie is the only poet ever to have won a gunfight with a unanimous vote.
But what about the poems? Our poetry world has its traditional form aficionados and those who are less enthusiastic. That should be obvious to anyone who spends time reading here. Of course we also disagree on the nebulous questions of what a poem is and what purpose it should serve. But let the poems and Annie speak for herself on that.
I asked Annie's permission to post this first poem in its entirety and she agreed. So first here is her Ode to a Dung Beetle.
Higgledy piggledy everso squiggerdly
rolls the dung beetle all over the land
picking up masses and even morasses
making the most of whatever's at hand.
Little dung beetle, oh little dung beetle
why does your heart sing for buckets of it
life rolling onwards backwards and forwards
shovelling up elephants bit after bit.
~
What matters where my body lay
released from torture on this day
yet death will be but a pause
my soul shall rise above the fray.
I see my home in my minds eye
life has been just a passing sigh
for the peace of my years
not lost even in this last goodbye.
To look to the sky as in a dream
beauty of earth below would seem
in the long green grass
reflected my final passing gleam.
excerpted from A sleep I shall have
~
You filthy gerund rubbing whore,
afflatus in each stanza lie,
alliteration never knowingly nudging
bawdy bacchic lines.
Your cadence rises and falls.
Kitsch obliterates each
scriblerus club that dares to
enter there.
excerpted from Filthy gerund rubbing whore
~
When it's time to harvest the pom-poms
The pygmies turn out in twos,
One to gather the fruit in,
And the other to spread the news.
He climbs to the top of the pom-pom tree
And waves his semaphore flags,
While his friend shakes the branches around him,
And gathers the fruit in bags.
So if your hat has a tassel
Hanging for all to see,
Remember the place far, far away,
And the pygmy stuck up in a tree.
excerpted from Pom Pom Picking
~
I could have posted many more examples. Annie has such range that it's hard to choose favorites, but those are some of mine.
So welcome Annie and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. This is going to be fun! When did you begin writing poetry, what attracted you to it and how would you define good poetry?
