Duplex

Welcome to Day 2 of the June Open Write. If you have written with us before, welcome back. If you are joining us for the first time, you are in the kind, capable hands of today’s host, so just read prompt below and then, when you are ready, write in the comment section below. We do ask that if you write that, in the spirit of reciprocity, you respond to three or more writers. To learn more about the Open Write, click here.

Our Host

Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana.  Margaret has been an elementary school teacher for 36 years, most recently teaching gifted students in Iberia Parish. Her first book of children’s poetry was published in 2018 by UL Press, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape. Margaret’s poems have appeared in anthologies including The Poetry of US by National Geographic and Rhyme & Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes.  Margaret writes a blog regularly at http://reflectionsontheteche.com.

Inspiration 

From Poets.org Poem-a-Day series, Kay Ulanday Barrett’s poem Duplex for the Sick & Tired was written after Jericho Brown who created the form. 

A poem can spasm, stretch, but it can let salve in.
There aren’t enough pages for the longing.

           There aren’t enough pages for the longing
          drenched in medicine bottles and ice packs.

Drenched in medicine bottles and ice packs,
our aches sing beyond joints and stethoscopes in denial.

           Those who sing beyond joints and stethoscopes in
          denial, how do the symptoms stack your days?

Jericho Brown drew inspiration from the tradition of jazz music as well as the sonnet form to create a new modern form called a duplex. The form, like a sonnet, is 14 lines. The first line is echoed in the last line. The second line of the first stanza repeats in the first line of the second stanza. Each stanza follows this pattern. The echo of the line can change perspective. Look at Jericho Brown’s masterful poem Duplex  from Tradition, a Pulitzer Prize winning collection in 2019. 

Process

A duplex poem is 14 lines, 7 couplets, 9-11 syllables per line. 

The second line from each stanza repeats as a first line for the next stanza. 

The first line is echoed back in the last line. 

I like to think of this form as a double helix that twists and turns upon itself, dragging us along its path. If you don’t feel comfortable using the form, take some elements from it. Work with repetition to focus on your topic. 

On the Saturday before Mother’s Day, my husband was out on a run. He’s a runner who loves to go for a long run on Saturdays. While passing a corner miles from home, a German Shepherd came out from its fence and attacked him. He suffered severe injuries to both his legs. Since his attack, people want to know the details. They ask for the details, and they are angry on his behalf. My husband will be okay, but he is still undergoing wound care and will be for a while. 

Margaret’s Poem

I Ask

(Duplex after Jericho Brown after Kay Ulanday Barrett)

the poem what it wants me to hear today.
What thread runs through the details?

Everyone wants to know the details.
What happened at the corner lot?

What happened at the corner
turned his life, his legs inside out.

Turned his life, his legs inside out,

details that thread the woven story
They tell details to thread the woven story.
Shout for justice for the finish line.

Say justice is truth; shatters the plan,
pulls the thread on the whole thing.

Pull a thread, the whole thing changes
to what the poem wants me to know. 

Your Turn

Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe.