Using another poem as a template

Poetry forms such as the villanelle and the sonnet are extremely useful, as they provide a framework within which to write. When I was doing my MA in Creative Writing, a course almost lost in the mists of time, I did the poetry module because it was the form with which I was least comfortable and I wanted to learn, rather than parade the things I knew I could do. (I’d had five radio plays broadcast by that point). I can’t remember exactly what the homework was, but I decided to parody Ted Hughes’ poem Pike. I can’t quote the whole poem here for copyright reasons, but I am allowed to give you the first verse. If you know the poem you’ll see what I did, but if not you can easily find it on the web. 

Pike, three inches long, perfect, 

Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold. 

Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin 

They dance on the surface among the flies. 

I took the subject matter, which I subverted to make a point about the tourism industry in Kenya, and I also copied the form. It was great fun, but I was reprimanded for using someone else’s creation which meant that my poem was worth less as it couldn't have existed without the original. I don’t know. It was a worthwhile exercise, and I recommend it as a way to get into unfamiliar structures and have fun at the same time. 

Not quite the same bus I saw in Kenya, but its purpose
is identical. And that's me, sitting on the lefthand side at the front.

SAFARI BUS

Safari bus, fourteen foot long, ugly,

Misplaced mechanism, black tigering the white,

Photographic predators: the rows of Nikon lenses,

They collect among the zebra like flies.

 

Or move, in single-file formation

Across a landscape, grey with dust.

Anomalies against an ancient skyline,

Silhouetted by a scarlet sun.

 

Near the waterholes, hardware at the ready,

Casting long shadows;

Locked onto this week’s lucky break, a lioness.

Or feeding vervet monkeys peanuts.

 

Snub-nosed predators, windows shut,

Not to be opened on any account;

They raise the roof instead, mushroom style,

The exhaust vibrating gently, spewing grey.

 

Three we watched yesterday,

Shimmering in the hot sun; then

There were four, then five, then eight -

But by nightfall there were none.

 

For even now, the darkness belongs to us.

And you know they spare nothing,

Not even each other.  Two of them,

Stranded by the side of a rutted road -

 

Laced together, shredded metal intertwined.

One headlamp stares upward, blind: another

Lies shattered, shards of glass

Growing like desert roses in the dust.

 

Sometimes they congregate, their meeting place

A clearing, flanked by gnarled giants

Who remember greener times

Before the cattle and the fires.

 

Bleached and ravaged plain,

It was as wide as Africa.  It hid

Us in its desiccated scrub, but let us watch

The ivory face of death: now

 

They shoot with Ektachrome,

Raking the bush with their telephotos

For what might move, aching to still it

Splashes of dye on resin-coated paper.

 

Pied kingfishers hover above the water,

Black and white reflections: a larger one

Peels away from the others, changes gear,

And drives slowly towards us, watching.

In 2008, long before the Russia invasion of Crimea, I wrote a poem ostensibly about Chernobyl but stating my feelings towards Russia, which had been one of the good guys whilst Gorbachev was in power and promoting glasnost but had taken a darker turn under Putin. When the UK agreed to buy gas from Russia I was incandescent with fury. As the child of a Polish father, I had been brought up with a deep distrust of Russia, and I could see what was coming. My fears became a reality even worse than my imaginings, and so I have written a sequel to that first poem using the same form as the original. It uses something called the Onegin Stanza, or Pushkin sonnet, which was invented and popularised by the poet Alexander Pushkin. 

REACTORS

 No forest wears a lasting scowl,

However red its trees once were;

Przewalski’s horse, the eagle owl,

New overlords of birch and fir,

For birdsong measures distance now.

The bison has replaced the cow,

And mankind’s gold has turned to dross;

Each house is carpeted with moss.

But  elk and lynx and wolf, beware -

For in the mud, or so it’s said,

(Though all thought such a beast was dead)

The footprint of a Russian bear.

Watch out! Beneath that hairy skin

Mutated genes may lurk within…

 

THE NIGHTINGALE

 No landscape can evade all drones

However brave its people are

This war is waged by mobile phones

Against a beast who would be tsar

The nightingale in times gone by

Left India, compelled to fly

To distant lands, by songs so sad

It stayed to sing, to make folk glad,

They put the bird upon their flag

But blue and gold is tinged with red

As buildings fall and men are dead

The flag, now tattered like a rag

Still flies. What country’s next in line?

It could be yours, it could be mine.

 

Kyiv