It’s Tuesday and the dVerse Poets Pub is open with steaming soup and hot drinks to warm you on this chilly December day. I’m Kim from writinginnorthnorfolk.com, your host for this week’s Poetics.

Firstly, a dVerse announcement:

ANNOUNCEMENT!!

Two chances to join Open Link Live (OLN LIVE) this month:

Thursday, December 7^th from 3 to 4 PM EST and Saturday, December 9^th from 10 to 11 AM EST.

***If you’re not in Boston’s EST time zone and wonder what time these OLN LIVE sessions run where you live, go to https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter.***

To participate in OLN LIVE, simply click on the link that will be provided and join us with video and audio. Read a poem of your choice or just come to listen. The more the merrier!

NOTE:  You may still post ONE poem as usual to OLN, even if you do not join us live.

Back to the Poetics Prompt.

When I was a child, just discovering music, I surprised my pop-music loving parents when I became obsessed with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor. I bought it with my pocket money and played it on our old record player again and again. They were even more surprised when I wrote a story inspired by the music.

^{Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ca. 1875
Image found on Wikipedia}

A few years ago, I entered a competition that asked for poems inspired by pieces of classical music. Sadly, mine wasn’t even long-listed, but the experience has resulted in this week’s prompt.

Your challenge today is to choose a piece of instrumental music (no songs, but I am happy for you to choose a piece of jazz or instrumental rock if you don’t like classical music) that speaks to you, and write a poem either about the piece, including information about its composer and content, or whatever it conjures in your head. If possible, add a link to the piece of music. Here is a selection of poems about music:

Music

by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Jack Collings Squire

Oft Music, as it were some moving mighty sea,
Bears me toward my pale
Star: in clear space, or ‘neath a vaporous canopy
On-floating, I set sail.

With heaving chest which strains forward, and lungs outblown,
I climb the ridged steeps
Of those high-piled clouds which ‘thwart the night are thrown,
Veiling its starry deeps.

I suffer all the throes, within my quivering form.
Of a great ship in pain,
Now a soft wind, and now the writhings of a storm

Upon the vasty main
Rock me: at other times a death-like calm, the bare
Mirror of my despair.

Sonnet XXIII. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

by Christopher Pearse Cranch

The mind’s deep history here in tones is wrought,
The faith, the struggles of the aspiring soul,
The confidence of youth, the chill control
Of manhood’s doubts by stern experience taught;
Alternate moods of bold and timorous thought,
Sunshine and shadow — cloud and aureole;
The failing foothold as the shining goal
Appears, and truth so long, so fondly sought
Is blurred and dimmed. Again and yet again
The exulting march resounds. We must win now!
Slowly the doubts dissolve in clearer air.
Bolder and grander the triumphal strain
Ascends. Heaven’s light is glancing on the brow,
And turns to boundless hope the old despair.

I love this poem, Kind of Blue by Lynn Powell.

Another fine example of a poem about music is Two Guitars by Victor Hernández Cruz.

^{Image by Ronny Sisson on Unsplash}

Finally we have Vivaldi by Stuart Dybek.

If you are new to dVerse and/or Poetics, here’s how to join in:

• Write a poem in response to the challenge;
• Enter a link directly to your poem and your name by clicking Mr Linky below;
• There you will find links to other poets, and more will join so check back to see more poems;
• Read and comment on other poets’ work – we all come here to have our poems read;
• Please link back to dVerse from your site/blog;
• Comment and participate in our discussion below, if you like. We are a friendly bunch of poets.
• Have fun.