I love poets, as much out of jealousy but also for the talent and the parallel universe they must live in. I would like to live there.
Cindi Reiss is a member of one of my writing groups-The Phoenix Writers Club. She is a poet. She shared with me the following pantoum, which is a form of poetry.
She offers the following description of this form. “The pantoum originated in Malaysia in the fifteenth-century as a short folk poem, typically made up of two rhyming couplets that were recited or sung. However, as the pantoum spread, and Western writers altered and adapted the form, the importance of rhyming and brevity diminished. The pantoum was especially popular with French and British writers in the nineteenth-century, including Charles Baudelaire and Victor Hugo, who is credited with introducing the form to European writers.
“The modern pantoum is a poem of any length, composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The last line of a pantoum is often the same as the first.
The interweaving of repeated lines in a pantoum suits the poem particularly well to ruminations on the past, circling around a memory or a mystery to tease out implications and meanings. The change in context that arises from the addition of two new lines in each stanza changes the significance of each repeated line on its second appearance.”
Keeping the Faith
1—I lost my faith, so embraced yours
2—I knew little about Jews, less about Judiasm.
3—I watched Ten Commandments to see your story
4—The Jazz Singer related to how I was perceived.
2—I knew little about Jews, less about Judiasm
5—Though my aunt cleaned for the ‘nice Jewish lady’ in Cherry Hill.
4—The Jazz Singer related to how I was perceived
6—an outsider looking for acceptance in unfamiliar territory.
5– Though my aunt cleaned for the ‘nice Jewish lady’ in Cherry Hill
7—You were the first Jew I came to know, a sabra finding his way in my country,
6– an outsider looking for acceptance in unfamiliar territory.
8—Together we gave our children a melding of Jewish traditions.
7—You were the first Jew I came to know, a sabra finding his way in my country,
3—I watched Ten Commandments for your story
8—Together we gave our children a melding of Jewish traditions
1—I lost my faith, so embraced yours
