Anaphoric

Rune of the Finland Woman~Marilyn Hacker

For Sára Karig

"You are so wise," the reindeer said, "you can bind the winds of the world in a single strand."—H. C. Andersen, "The Snow Queen"

She could bind the world's winds in a single strand.
She could find the world's words in a singing wind.
She could lend a weird will to a mottled hand.
She could wind a willed word from a muddled mind.

She could wend the wild woods on a saddled hind.
She could sound a wellspring with a rowan wand.
She could bind the wolf's wounds in a swaddling band.
She could bind a banned book in a silken skin.

She could spend a world war on invaded land.
She could pound the dry roots to a kind of bread.
She could feed a road gang on invented food.
She could find the spare parts of the severed dead.

She could find the stone limbs in a waste of sand.
She could stand the pit cold with a withered lung.
She could handle bad puns in the slang she learned.
She could dandle foundlings in their mother tongue.

She could plait a child's hair with a fishbone comb.
She could tend a coal fire in the Arctic wind.
She could mend an engine with a sewing pin.
She could warm the dark feet of a dying man.

She could drink the stone soup from a doubtful well.
She could breathe the green stink of a trench latrine.
She could drink a queen's share of important wine.
She could think a few things she would never tell.

She could learn the hand code of the deaf and blind.
She could earn the iron keys of the frozen queen.
She could wander uphill with a drunken friend.
She could bind the world's winds in a single strand.


...it's a joy to read this Hacker poem aloud--the meter sounds like a anapest/anapest/iamb in each line (that's UUS/UUS/US, with 'U' meaning unstressed and 'S' meaning stressed), and with alternating end-words that echo each others' sounds, and occasionally allow for a perfect rhyme (a la well/tell). Anapests and Dactyls ('SUU', such as in 'happily', or 'secondly') are telling--they really make a poem "skip" when read aloud.

An anaphoric poem is one that starts with the same word or phrase (or ends with the same word or phrase) in every line. Generally, every line is one full sentence. Anaphoric poems can be free verse, or can employ meter and rhyme, as Hacker does here. They give a poem a built-in rhythm and structure, and give you something to play with. Anaphoric poems are great for writer's block.

Your assignment: Pick a flexible phrase and use it as the header or tail-end of every line in a poem. This should push you into unexpected directions. Try a few of these--start easy, with a phrase such as "When I was..." or "We were..." and build to more complex, colorful phrases, such as something like "She came to the door..." or "In simpler times..." or even "That time in the baby blue van.." whatever gets you going.

Happy Writing--

Dani