May challenge song title poetry
share your favourite song title poem
Song title poetry started as a joke and a reaction. At the final days of NaPoWriMo when the prompt came up to write to a Tay Tay word I wanted to give up. Those adverse reactions can be quite strong. It’s not that I don’t like Tay Tay, it’s that when something is so trendy, so in, so pushed by all possible places I lose interest. I fail to see the authentic touch no matter how much girl next door attributes are thrown about. I have no girl nor diva next door who’s anything like that.
On my own prompt station here on Substack, I always say that if a prompt is too much, use it as a starting point. No wrong or right. If you don’t like it, work with it in a way that allows you to create.
It’s about time I listen to my own advice and so the first song title poem was born. I picked up the tingle in the gut that said this is fun. The counter reaction was, this is silly!
Have you seen how many silly ideas are good? Some are right out ridiculous, but not all. People may laugh… but what if they don’t and what if they do?
I decided to try. I devoted each day to a letter in the alphabet. I wrote a post, I wrote about it on Notes, I put up links in my newsletter and here we are. All letters done. We created a community together of rediscovering old songs, new artists and creating something new of something existing. Is it recycled art? Is it repurposed? What was it? You tell me. For the rest of the month, we’ll talk and discuss different aspects of our song title poetry journey.
Today I would like you to share your favourite song title poem in the comments. I’d be happy if you could also invite other readers to come along and read. Maybe a post on your publication if you feel like it. Tomorrow we will choose our favourite song title poem by another substacker. Today is all about your own favourite.
Not sure about my favourite. But I think this one holds a special place in my heart, because it was the first one I felt stood alone as its own poem, regardless of the prompt. I had written 2 before this (Steve Earl for E, and Gastr del Sol for G) and while I like them well enough, they were not quite there. But then I turned up on J, and John Coltrane provided the inspiration to take it to the next level haha.
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-: Ode to a Wise One :-
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inchworm
up against the wall,
after the rain
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i want to talk about you—
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softly,
as in a morning sunrise
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A note on borrowing - in the West there tends to be this idea of "originality" being the central tenant of art and creativity. This is not the case in other paradigms. In tanka and haikai poetics, for instance, quotation can play a significant role, and sometimes a poem might be almost entirely ripped from another poet, with one or two subtle changes. In haiku (which are routinely composed of just 5-7 words), even just one word changed, can provide new insight, and therefore become a new poem. Furthermore, in haikai there is a long tradition of "capping" someone else's poem - that is, taking a haiku tercet, and adding a couplet to it, making it into a tanka (in 5-phrases). So that was another way I approached this. Through the art of combination (toriawase - one of the central principles of haikai) something new can be made out of something old. Of course we have a tradition of quotation in the West as well, but in haikai poetry it is expected at some point, rather than an exception. Moving toward this kind of approach is central to poetry operating in a communal/community focussed way, imo (giving up the idea of "owning" poem or phrase, having more "fun" and "games" with writing poetry, rather than the overbearing Western idea of the "oh-so-serious-poet", etc.). :-)
I came to see my daily poems as odes and prayers to each musician, and their impact on my life, but then in a metapoetic sense, as odes to music itself, to poetry, and to the act of song and sound and singing. The sound of the universe awakening. The sound of a bird's wings against the air. The sound of laughter peeling across the night. All sounds are songs. This became the central idea behind writing the poems each day - looking for images that would allow for a celebratory, ode or prayer-like feeling. Devotionals, if you will. A thankfulness for the world's sheer existence.
This approach has been growing in my poetry for the past few years - I think I wrote the first of these kinds of poems back in 2021, and began trying to work out what I was up to - and in the last year or so I had started to articulate it better to myself. A lot of my recent poetry has all been written in response to the "forgotten poems" I post on my newsletter, for instance - again, all kinds of odes or prayers (Forgotten Poets - dedicated to poetry from the late-1800s and early-1900s that has been forgotten or obscured). This challenge allowed me to deepen these ideas - and to clarify a number of things about my these shifts in my poetry, and what I wanted to get out of it. :-) So it came at an opportune time for me, poetically.
And yeah, I have written elsewhere about how I thought the idea was a bit gimmicky at first - a bit of a joke, as you put it Pilgrim! But yeah, agree 100% with everything Non Sibi Cunctis said on this thread. So well said, I have no need to provide further comment haha. And finally - love the poem on the stairs you included this week. So perfect! Thanks again for the amazing month everyone! And looking forward to these last few days of chats and reflections. xxx
If some consider it to be 'silly' or otherwise a waste of time to try, investigating, playing, experimenting or just exploring curiosity such as 'what if', that is their loss and, in my perhaps naive or view of no consequence - sad.
Even when something does not produce what one expects or results in a 'lesser quality' of output than do other inspirations or prompts, as you have suggested, serendipity will very often delight by discovery of the unexpected or triggering of memories, otherwise lost in the archives of the mind.
So, I congratulate on the song-title prompt and I have enjoyed my own feeble attempts to make something of it and much of what others have produced.
Thank you. I appreciate your gentle 'prodding' or 'provoking' or stimulating of us to try new approaches and not least, at times, a welcome reminder to write.
Take care. Stay safe. ☮️