Wallitner Weekly 29

Hello everyone!

A lot of productive things happened this past week.

Okay so this week has been a tough one. I figured out what I want to do for the song of hope. I want to rewrite one of the sections that was “aleatoric” meaning the members would sing a pattern I wrote in their own time. It’s a really cool effect, but I don’t think it will work out the way that I wanted it to. But at least I know that know.

I have made massive strides to publishing my first book of poems. I did a lot of reading into different styles of poetry books and how long they are supposed to be. I decided to publish a chapbook, which is a small booklet of about 30 poems that all share a similar theme. My chapbook will be called “Graduation Day” named after one of the poems in the booklet. I was hoping to have it published yesterday so that I could share the link with all of you today, but the formatting process took a little longer than I thought. I plan to release “Graduation Day” through amazons self publishing portal. This will allow me to have a paperback version, as well as a kindle e-book version.

I have passed the manuscript to several of my colleagues from school and they all enjoyed the poems. I hope that you will too!

I’ve got lots of plans for next week too!

As soon as this newsletter goes out, I will be on my to the west side of the state to go hangout with some friends. Tomorrow we will be going to a pumpkin patch. I will be bringing my fiancee’s laptop so that I can work on my book during the downtime. One of the friends that we will be hanging out with is an artist and I hope to talk with him more about drawing a map for my fiction series. I think that fantasy books are particularly cool when there is a map that the reader can reference. That way they can follow along with the adventure.

Rules are made better when broken.

One of my favorite poets in the world is Billy Collins. He is a U.S. Poet Laureate and I absolutely adore his style of writing. See Collins’ writing isn’t always so formal. He doesn’t always rhyme. But his poems make the reader think unlike any other poet I have read.

I especially like Collins because in the beginning of every poetry book of his that I’ve read, he writes a poem about the reader. In “Picnic, Lightning” the book currently on my desk he wrote a poem called “A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal”. The poem is about Billy Collins sitting at the breakfast table across from an invisible person (the reader) and this person doesn’t say anything, but patiently listens. Thats the relationship between poet and reader. The poet cannot see the reader, but the reader listens.

I adore this sort of writing, especially when it is done well. I love clever poems that make you think about the deeper meanings.

I have a book on poetic forms that one of my professors suggested I read. They suggested I learn all I can about poetic rules so that I could learn when to break the rules. These are some of my favorite poems in my opinion. Id like to share with you a poem that I wrote about my soon to be wife, and yes this poem is included in my upcoming poetry book.

Love

I’ll remember you when I’m old and grey

I’ll remember the wrinkles on your face

I’ll remember the way your nose crinkles 

When you laugh as if no one is watching.

I’ll remember you like when we were young.

The day we met you wore a bright blue dress

And since that day I have worn a bright smile

You have blessed me in so many ways, love.

I won’t forget the way you looked at me

On the day I told you I love you first

Mere hours before I joked it was too soon

I won’t forget the way you looked at me

Somehow my soul has known you all my life

Yet we only met when I was twenty.

How I survived all those years without you

I will never know.

I count the syllables of the last line

I pretend that you do the same, and I

Hold my hand to yours as we intertwine.

I love you and I always will. Always.

That is my poem “Love”. It is one of my favorite poems for several reasons. One, I wrote it for the love of my life. And two I managed to do one of my favorite things. Each line is ten syllables, except for the line “I will never know” that line only has five syllables. In the following line I mention that and use it to propel the story forward. It’s a meta style of writing, and I adore it.

Poetic rules are like a box, and some of the boxes are well crafted and ornate, but I believe that the best boxes are one of a kind. They’re one of a kind because of some little alteration, or maybe its a crack, or a secret drawer in the box. Something that separates that box from all the others.

knowing the rules and breaking them anyway lets us appreciate the rules even more. That extends beyond poetry. Thats how life works too, I think.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my poem about Love. You’ll be able to read it and many others in my new poetry book “Graduation Day” which I hope to publish this week.