The Apostrophe Blog
Found poetry takes words, phrases, and sometimes even entire passages from other sources and recasts them into what I like to think of as the literary equivalent of a collage. My found poem, “So now this autumn,”((www.sweettreereview.com/so-now-this-is-autumn-nancy-flynn)) is made up of lines taken from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, translated by Anne Carson. I think this particular form works especially well with the poetry of Sappho since her work is only known in its shards and fragments anyway. My poem was published online in 2017 at Sweet Tree Review.((www.sweettreereview.com/winter-2017))
According to their website, “Sweet Tree Review is a quarterly online literary and arts publication obsessed with ineffable connectivity.” What better way to make connections that to be in dialogue with Sappho, one of the greatest poets of all time? The spacing in the borrowed lines as well as some of the punctuation is based on Carson’s text. In a few spots, I added additional capitalization and punctuation as needed for clarity.
So now this is autumn
Nancy Flynn
of all stars the most
beautiful —
open out the grace of your eyes,
black sleep of night.
The hour goes by.
Become a voice.
Do not move stones.
Someone will remember us,
I say.
Even in another time,
I might go
downrushing
danger,
honeyvoiced.
Go,
so we may see
thought
barefoot —
to loose all the wrong [we] did before
by luck of the harbor,
to pray for a share
out of the unexpected.
To be,
to arrive
tongue,
to tell tales.
After
and toward
says this
of black earth—
pity,
trembling,
flesh by now old age.
We live
the opposite,
daring
in a thin voice.
For day is near,
stirs up still things.
For mortals: there is a share
as long as you want
to touch the sky with two arms.
You will go your way among the dim shapes. Having been breathed out.
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
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