Inspiration: Respond to Experience with Transliteration
A challenging but rewarding practice activity for processing reading and writing poetry is transliteration – the act of converting from one genre to another. Consider converting one of your journal entries or short blogs into a poem.
Process
Reread your prose entry, then condense the language or create word images to express the same message poetically. Consider the mood you would like to create and choose words for their sound as well as suggested meaning. For example, if you have strong, negative feelings about the experience or topic, choose dental consonants and harsh sounding diphthongs. If you have warm cozy feelings about the observation or incident, use soft sibilant consonants and open assonance with vowels.
You could give this assignment after reading together Gordon Park’s poem, “The Funeral.” In the poem, he describes things that appear to have changed since he left his hometown many years ago. You could ask your students to write about places that seem different to them now that they are middle school students.
They first write a paragraph in prose, and then recreate the incident as a poem, by condensing the language or creating word images. The move from prose to poetry reiterates the concept of condensed language or the use of sensory and figurative imagery that you talked about earlier in the definition of poetry.
The following is seventh grader, Kristen’s paragraph, then her poem in which she experiments with hyperbole and rhyme.
Kristen’s Paragraph-Poem Shift
Paragraph: Since I’ve gotten older I have realized many things have changed. The school looks a lot smaller than it used to. My home used to feel roomier and it felt like it had more space. My bed even seems smaller. The walls and sealing feel closer but my sibling seem the same.
Poem:
The walls and the ceiling have started to shrink
While I get taller and taller
And the schools must be fooling my eyes
They’re growing smaller and smaller!
My room is getting less roomy.
I can’t stretch out in my bed.
I wonder what will happen?
Opps, I’ve just hit my head.
“Changes” modeled after “The Funeral” by Gordan Parks (sic)
Anna J. Small Roseboro, a National Board Certified Teacher is a published author and poet but is primarily an educator with over forty years’ experience teaching English and Speech to students in middle school, high school and college in public, private, and parochial schools in five states. A mentor for early career educators, Ms. Roseboro earned a B.A. in Speech Communications from Wayne State University and an M.A. in Curriculum Design from the University of California, San Diego. Her newest published work is a series of books published by Rowman and Littlefield designed for pre-service teachers and for those teaching middle school for the first time. See those three books GETTING STARTED (2018) MORE ABOUT WRITING (2019) EXPERIENCE POEMS AND PICTURES (2019) and NOT INTIMIDATING (2019) on her website http://teachingenglishlanguagearts.com/.
Jonathan Harker: Don’t Go!
4 May
Geh nicht!
Said the blackbirds outside the window
Pecking the eyes of a large rodent
Geh nicht!
Creaked the steep wooden stairs
Shifting slightly, becoming an opponent
Geh nicht!
Pleaded the decrepit maid on her knees
Nina would despise the grotesque tease
Geh nicht!
Warned the crosseyed landlord
His forbidding prophecy ignored
Geh nicht!
Nickered the frenzied horses
Even the coachman expressed remorses
Geh nicht!
Whispered Nina from across the seas
A warning from the chilled Romanian breeze
Obviously inspired from Dracula–
Wow,Ambre! So enjoy your writing, and the “said the blackbirds…pecking the eyes of a large rodent” is such a stunning, haunting image while beautiful in its “i” sounds.
The Prose:
My sweetie, back in 1968, drove a baby blue ‘62 Ford Falcon, entirely too small for the size of us…he was 6’2” and had enormous feet and I at 5’8” … we filled up that little car. I think he bought it for $150, a fortune back then, but his summer job at Coca-Cola bottling, kept him flush and covered his tuition.
Friday nights in the summer, the July days of hormonal dating when I had just finished my freshman year at the U, we didn’t care what the movie was; the point of the drive-in was the glorious groping, all that kissing, all that explo-ra-tion.
But the drive-in comfort factor, well, that fell short for our leggy bodies. The Falcon, of course, had to navigate the terrain of drive-in humps, to get the right angle for leaning back and watching (or pretending to watch) the movie, each drive-in row like a field of levies against the river flow of teenage hormones.
Once parked, he reached out the window, retrieving from the post and stretching the wire, the clunky speaker and perched it on the window ledge and turned up the volume. In July with all the windows down we could hear the characters on the screen speak in unison across the field of cars.
He and I were all about French kissing that lasted for eternal minutes, then coming up for air just to dive back into another heated liplock.
That Friday night, we jabbered about nothing that mattered, just killing the minutes till dark settled over the rows and rows of Plymouths and Dodges and Chevys and Fords in varying degrees of decline – it was a teenage parking lot of mischief. The movie, who knows, perhaps John Carradine in Astro Zombies. As the sun sank behind the massive white screen and all those Midwestern teens scrambled from the concession stand, packing Ju-Ju-Bees and popcorn, back to their cars, as blessed dark blanketed the scene. The cartoon short geared up, flood lights went out, and we got down to the business of necking.
Wiggling, shifting bodies, and a fair bit of groping, distracted from the feature on screen, we suddenly jolted and found ourselves thumping into the convertible in the row behind us, bumper on bumper, having rolled backward, ripping the speaker right off its post. Scrambling, we bolted upright, yanked ourselves to attention, and realized his size 13 feet had kicked loose the pull-crank emergency brake.
In a matter of seconds, three indignant girls, in their ponytails and cat-eye glasses, vaulted out of the Impala convertible and hands on hips planted themselves right in front of our Falcon. Postured for confrontation, the tallest girl, seeing him pull himself out of the Falcon, blurted in a full-on megaphone level voice that drowned out the movie speaker, “Jimmy O’Riley, what on earth have you been doing?!” She sounded like somebody’s finger-wagging mother.
Stunned that we had dislodged the brake, had hit another car, but worst of all, we hit the car of three girls from Jimmy’s parish who he’d known since elementary school and who definitely knew his priest.
“Oh my God,” Jimmy choked. He saw that neither of our cars had suffered damage, clambered back into the Falcon, turned the ignition, and backed up. Kha-thumping up and over every drive-in hump, we headed in utter embarrassment straight for the exit and those one-way-only tire-puncturing teeth, speaker now mute but hooked solidly onto the driver’s side window. We paused for a second to make sure we weren’t going in the wrong direction, as those teeth would destroy tires if we exited in error. At that point, I’m sure Jimmy would’ve sacrificed all four tires just not to have been identified by those “good Catholic girls” for our shenanigans.
NECKING AT THE DRIVE-IN
My sweetie, back in ’68, drove a baby blue Falcon,
entirely too small for our leggy bodies, his gigantic feet;
we filled up that tiny car.
July Friday nights pumped with pheromones;
we didn’t care what the movie was –
the point of the drive-in was glorious groping,
all that kissing, all that explo-ra-tion.
Navigating the geography of drive-in humps,
the rows like a field of levies
against the river flow of teenage hormones,
we parked.
Sweetie reached out the window,
secured the speaker from the post and mounted
it on the window ledge,
turning up the volume as the character voices
blended in unison across the field of cars.
Sun sinking behind the white screen,
Carradine and his Astro Zombies, faded
into the dark as we got down to the business of necking.
All about French kissing,
eternal minutes, we came up for air
only to dive back in for another liplock.
Distracted from the screen, we suddenly jolted,
found ourselves bolting upright,
yanked to attention, as bumper on bumper,
Falcon to Impala convertible, we’d rolled
into the car behind us,
his size 13 feet tangled with the emergency brake.
Three indignant girls,
in their ponytails and cat-eye glasses,
planted themselves in front of the Falcon,
hands on hips, castigated,
“Jimmy O’Riley, what have you been doing?”
at a volume that replaced our now castrated speaker.
Scrambling to assess no dent,
cringing to recognize his old Catholic elementary classmates,
Jimmy clambered back behind the wheel,
turned the key, backed up,
and ripped up and over every hump
to exit our foiled
night of drive-in necking.
[I kept the speaker mounted on my bedroom wall for the next four years. 🙂 ]
by Susie Morice
I am LMAO not simply at the story but also at your descriptions, starting with “each drive-in row like a field of levies [sic] against the river flow of teenage hormones” all the way through those sanctimonious Catholic-school girls with their “cat-eye glasses” and “kha-thumping up and over every drive-in hump”. I can picture Jimmy O’Riley’s Ford Falcon ripping over the drive-in exit grates, speaker wires flying! Thanks for taking us along for the ride!!!
” glorious groping”
“explo-ra-tion”
Love!
Fun inspiration text ; )
“We didn’t care what the movie was” – I’m teen years we go for the loving. In our old age we go for the popcorn! Love the humor here!
Ha! Thanks, Kim! It was fun to write. And you’re right about the popcorn! Susie
Freeway arrived bounding, leaping
right into our hearts.
His heart was battered
after losing his owner.
There was nowhere for him to go.
The train from Georgia
must have been cold.
Our home was warm
and filled with love.
Near the sparkling Christmas tree
he met Abby and Scruffy,
two other refugees
who have taken over the house,
not to mention the bed!
We have a routine now,
all of us.
We wake,
we eat,
we sit,
we snuggle,
we walk,
we play,
we sleep.
Life is good-
for all of us.
The pets as refugees is a vivid image. The routine really shows that you are established as a family. It sounds like you’re all a little happier together.
Ohhhh, that is so tender. You’ve saved lives and it ends with “we…” “we…” “we…” which makes it all so perfect. This made me feel really good. Thanks, Susie
“Obituary”
Not for the deceased.
Do the dead speak
Either this or that
Historical document?
Teller of truths
A deceased’s life record
If erasure then written
Relevant omissions
Disjointed, disjunctive fallacy
False logic
Chronicles MIA information
The ex Xd out
Stormy seasons inked in whiteout,
Symbolic lived reality.
Life is complicated, ain’t it?
Rent from family fabric, This
Rants against their ripping
Prayer for separation. Amen!
Divine, celestial, kingdom,
What’s that?
Erasing this document
Tells a lie. Know that!
He & She were one
Effect follows cause:
Five children, one now dead
A tractor, an accident.
Not enough whiteout to
Change that alternative fact.
Could have been different
What of life’s what ifs?
Hypothetical syllogism:
Unknowable, unprovable.
Understanding categorical
Imaginings.
Glenda — This is a provocative piece. Obituaries are fascinating documents. I’m wondering about the “omissions,” the “fallacy…false logic,” the “lie,” the “imaginings.” The idea that an obituary is not penned in truth but by those left after who create their own truth is something I had not thought about. The unanswered questions stir a sense of dissonance. Susie
Your poem about veracity of obituaries remind me of Photoshopped pictures. We used to believe pictures were accurate. They captured what the photographer actually saw through the lens of the camera. We now know many photos are manipulations as are many obituaries. So sad one does not know what to believe.
Schools have changed a lot over the years. (inspired by a prompt/discussion of how schools have changed)
Deb M
Chalkboards have been updated to Smartboards and TVS.
Notebooks and textbooks replaced with iPhones and Chromebooks.
Traditional classroom chairs in favor of stability balls
Virtual classroom where communication comes via email and google docs,
“YouTube” should be an accredited academy.
Schools have changed a lot over the years.
1954 Racial Segregation declared unconstitutional.
Integration. National Guardsmen ordered to
preserve the peace
stood guard to prevent violence
Students were told… integration is not today
Elizabeth Eckford was the only student
to enter the school that day.
Schools have changed a lot over the years.
2018 Nationwide protest against gun violence
demanding safe schools, free of violence-
walked out for those who lost their lives ,
turned their grief into activism and advocacy.
Students walk out.
Schools have changed a lot over the years.
Saluting the American flag now replaced with respectful silence
disclosing our sexual orientation once considered taboo
now able to openly share our gender preference;
young adult books discuss real issues
Outsiders ,To Kill a Mockingbird,
American Boys, The Hate You Give
Schools have changed a lot over the years.
Pet therapy to help cope with a rise in stress, anxiety, and panic attacks.
Today’s issues have changed schools a lot over the years.
*1974 should be date
oh boy I think my head cold has got the best of me today- I don’t know how to edit my original text… the date the students referenced to was 1957 Little Rock – in response to 1954 Supreme Court Ruling.
Deb, your poem simultaneously makes me think about my early years in school while looking ahead to what school might be like in the future. It also makes me wonder how much parents know about what goes on in school. Many days I think parents would be shocked to know what their kids want to talk about in reading class!
This originated from a piece on summers on my grandparents’ farm. One section was about the chore of putting up corn. As a farm wife, it is still a summer tradition.
Sweet Corn Summer
A pick-up bed,
A mound of ears,
Able-bodied workers
Of all ages:
Husking
Stripping silks
Trimming
Washing
Boiling
Corn is cut from
cooled cobs
with the buzz of
an electric knife
and bagged by the pint,
frozen in golden combs
To deliver the taste of summer
All year long.
Gail,
Where was the farm? I love this glimpse into your past. So much of this is idyllic “sweet” along side “cooled cobs” and the “taste of summer” alongside all the movement of husking, stripping, trimming. It had to be hard work, and even painful, but you offer the rewards of taste and sound.
The farm was in central Nebraska, and it made for wonderful childhood adventures. Putting up corn is hard work, but for some reason, I don’t mind the task!
TRANSLITERATION
A baby grand piano sat in our living room for years, my mother’s pride and joy and creative outlet. For us kids, the piano was a treasure too. Oh, we didn’t play it, “Don’t touch those keys!”, but we certainly played under it, over it, and around it. It was Base for tag. It was a tunnel for the Christmas train set. It was a cave for protection, jail for the bad guys, and one huge challenge for my brother Jimmy-the-Barbarian. I remember the time Mom found teeth marks on one of the back legs. Jimmy. Another time she crawled up under it to discover a stash of matchbooks. Uh huh, Jimmy. The worst, however, was one afternoon she sat down to play while we three kids sat cross-legged and mesmerized beneath it. The entire piano, all seven hundred and fifty pounds, shifted on its axis. Every screw from the central support had been removed. A headline flashed before Mom’s eyes, “Tots Crushed While Mother Plays On.” For a while I think she was tempted to keep the piano and sell Jimmy.
My mother’s pride and joy was
Her baby grand piano.
Oh, she liked her children too,
But none of them
Learned to
Play that beautiful instrument
Except over it and under it.
Jimmy, especially, found the piano legs
Irresistible.
He chewed them.
He charred them.
And with his best friend, the screwdriver,
He tried to remove them!
Eventually Jimmy became
An engineer
And the piano became somebody
Else’s pride and joy.
Jackie,
It took a bit of time for me to think through this inspiration today. Every day, I give myself 15 minutes. Whatever I can do in that time will be good enough, I say. The prose to verse in that time frame was a challenge, but I discover, uncovered something about both forms and the idea, more generally, I find myself wondering that about yours — the process (and others writing today).
I enjoyed the prose so much here, especially the part about selling Jimmy. Made me giggle. I thought that maybe shifting that into the verse would miss something, but, really, your verse is just different — something else is uncovered. The focus is of the prose is more your mom, I think, and the verse –more Jimmy. I envision a picture book here — “He chew them/He charred them.” Love it. Glad/hope no one was hurt.
Sarah — Thanks for your appreciation of my efforts. It took me over an hour to write the story because I started long and kept chopping out words and then whole sentences. I really don’t know how to write a poem which utilizes all the imagery and sounds that Anna talks about. I just tried to get the gist of the verse carried over.
In a more elegant way, your poems shows the truth of the maxim, one person’s junk is another person’s treasure, and alerts us to the truth that everyone will not value what is valuable to us! Cold truth, but true anyway.
Jimmy is quite the character (a barbarian-ha!); it’s a relief to know he became an engineer. I could visualize the piano “shifting on its axis”. Both the poem and the prose piece were well-crafted and fun to read.
Jackie — OMG, this is just the funniest! I love the prose as much as the poem. The hilarity of discovering the piano basically dismantled…oh man! Jimmy becoming the engineer. And the piano “somebody else’s pride and joy.” I love the images of you and your brothers playing under the piano…all those creative moments of child play. Priceless. Laugh out loud funny. I was happy to go along for the reverie on this! Susie
I can relate to this… your word choice! OMG I want to meet Jimmy! I think Sara is right -this would be a delightful picture book! thank you for sharing!
This poem was taken from a lengthy journal entry about ways that books throughout my life have shaped me. I took the early years of my life as my focus in order to keep the poem short – the journal entry is too long and rambling to share here, but this is my poem:
Books Shaped Me
I was blessed to be born to readers and writers.
Bedtime stories and early books shaped me.
I learned from “A Day in the Jungle” in the Bedtime Story Book that friends make us stronger.
I learned from “At the Seaside” in A Child’s Garden of Verses that the tide erases sandcastles.
I learned from Childcraft Poems and Rhymes that purple cows need friends.
I learned from “A Visit from St. Nicholas” that visions of sugarplums should keep dancing in my head.
I learned from Nancy Drew that life is a mystery.
I learned from the Boxcar children that families don’t always work out.
I learned from A Taste of Blackberries that people we love die.
I learned from the Bible that I’ll see those people again.
-Kim Johnson
Kim, So appreciate how today’s inspiration brought you (and others to journals/notebooks) to revisit ideas and stories. I was not a reader when younger, so I particularly enjoy a look into the lives of people who read early on . My heart is aching as I see the child within you holding books with jungles, sandcastles, purple cows, and sugarplums. How wonderful! The final line here “I’ll see those people again” is beautiful.
Kim, We share some childhood favorites like Stevenson and Nancy Drew! The lessons learned from books is such a great topic. It makes me want to mull over that idea for myself. Your closing line is powerful!
i’ve adapted one of my flash fiction stories into poetic form for this prompt.
“Oh, finally.”
An old beat up truck slows, pulls to the shoulder, stops, waits. Jogging to the passenger door, the hitcher reaches for the handle.
“Don’t work, use the inside.”
The dome light flickers as he opens the door. A bench seat upholstered in duct tape with complementary repairs to the dash, an AM radio grasps for the faint remnants of a distant wave. A huge Indian Dude sits behind the wheel: long, coarse, black hair, face sculpted by time and unpleasant circumstance, and tremendous calloused hands—tremendous, bloody, calloused hands.
“People say stupid things in bars,” The Big Indian Dude volunteers seeing the hitcher staring at his hands.
“Yeah they do.” Seeing blood nowhere else he adds, “I’m guessing you won.”
“Can I.” The Big Indian Dude offers rhetorically.
“Hmm,” the hitcher relates.
They drive through the starlit New Mexico desert in silent understanding; the driver’s eyes focus on the road ahead, the passenger marking the passing, yet unchanging landscape.
“This is where I turn off,” The Big Indian Dude speaks with quiescent finality.
Coasting of the road dragging to a stop, rusty and abrupt, bloodied hands resting at the top of the steering wheel, eyes fixed forward; The Big Indian Dude says nothing more.
The hitcher looks around, looks at The Big Indian Dude, relaxing his face with quiescent acknowledgment exits the vehicle.
“Thanks.”
“Hmm.”
The Big Indian Dude drives off into the desert, into the shadowy vastness.
The hitcher stares after him for a moment, then up to the sky; the countless blazing spirits peering through the endless silken void—through all that was and will be. He brings his gaze to the highway that lies behind him, quietly turns to the expanse before him, the horizon pure possibility. Returning to the cosmos he whispers to the wind, “How is it I came to be here?
poem:
An old beat up truck slows,
pulls to the shoulder,
stops,
waits…
The hitcher approaches;
dome light flickering on
duct tape upholstered seat.
AM radio grasping at the
faint remnants of a
. distant wave.
Huge Indian Dude
Looms over the wheel:
long, coarse, black hair,
face sculpted by time and unpleasant circumstance, and
tremendous, calloused hands—
tremendous,
bloodied,
calloused hands.
Silent in the starlit New Mexico desert
the road ahead,
the unchanging landscape.
“This is where I turn off,”
voiced with quiescent finality.
Coasting off the road
dragging to a
stop.
Rusty and abrupt.
“Thanks.”
“Hmm.”
The Big Indian Dude melts into the shadowy vastness.
The hitcher stares after him
for a moment;
then up to the sky.
Countless blazing spirits
peering through the endless silken void—through all that was and will be.
I love the question at the end of the prose piece – “How is it I came to be here?” which is asked of the wind. I also love the poetic tone of the piece after the transliteration and the evidence of the countless blazing spirits with the feel of eternity at the end of the poem. This activity really shows the importance of the weight of words in poetic form, where in prose we can take more time to explain and give more detail. I like how you selected flash fiction as what you wanted to change.
steve,
This prose-to-verse reminds me of your poem earlier in the month (love that we have known each other that long) about your trip across country. I imagine you having an anthology of road trips. The verse and economy of words bring us right into the aged, worn, silent, calloused and seemingly generous encounter. Even though the “countless blazing spirits/peering through the endless silken void” there is a calmness that your arrangement of words offers. Stunning.
Prose: A place that feels different to me now that I am older is the mall. When I was a teenager, I would walk two miles to the mall to escape my ten siblings, exhausted mother, and depressed father. The mall had space to walk: the levels and escalators. The stores invited me to browse and imagine. Sure, every garment reminded me of my hand-me-downs, but in those stores was hope. Now, malls are overwhelming, exhausting, almost sickening with consumerism. Too many choices, nothing fits how I imagine myself to be, and the crowds (did I not notice them back then) make me just shop online these days.
Verse:
When I was a teenager,
loved the mall, the halls–
roaming
free from the gaze of authority
to try on selves with scents.
Now this place, with age,
stirs panic, heightens senses —
pacing,
suffocating in Consumer Town
until I can surf Virtual Mall.
i really like the “then and now” aspect of your prose and poem. i can also relate to the blatant consumerism you speak of.
one of the ways i define poetry is as a conservation of words. that’s what this prompt promotes, and what you accomplished so successfully in whittling down your prose.
“Nothing fits how I imagine myself to be” is a line that resonates with me so clearly from your prose. I put far more things back than I buy, and I think we could be soul sisters when it comes to shopping. I, too, despise the crowds and the avoid the masses. My younger self was also like you – I still have happy thoughts of shopping then. In your poem, my favorite line is “Now this place, with age, stirs panic…suffocating….” I agree with Steve that the then vs. now perspective is appealing and shows how our values and enjoyments change over time.
Kim, I so appreciate you comment here — your/our connection, and your generous reading of mine and other poems this month.
Sarah – I like the sense of growth in this piece. I loved the mall as a young teenager…it was loaded with possibility and new things. But now, meh, not so much… now it feels like duty. I go only when I absolutely have no alternative. It feels like the redundancy in “stuff” is trying to eat us alive. The sense now with the service clerks…they rarely seem genuinely friendly or interested … they either “attend” way over the top or they ignore as if I am invisible. It’s a strange change in my perspective…. and your poem really does resonate. Susie
Susie, I so appreciate your thoughtful responses to me and the other poets these past few weeks. Your reading deepens mine and offers insights that I had not seen prior. So glad you are here.