One Ring to Rule Them All

Thank you! Really liked the imagery.

``I deserve this nuclear ring because I am Pakistani.``

Wow.

incredibly moving...

``But right now
My gentle husband and I stare at each other across a war-scented abyss. Alone,
I glance often at my newly-minted ring.``

intense...

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

I beg your pardon but that is no poem - its not poetry. Chowk Staff: I protest.

Kaukab:

…a welcome back and mubarakbadis are in order as well:)

good flow….”a three-pronged rotor balanced precariously on one point..” and …”If I look at it long enough I spin with its rotors, careening towards a tangled, mangled future…..”

hope you will share more now

…t

For once, I agree with URSTruly. Does printing prose in a funny format qualifies it as poetry.
Chowk staff - by what criteria do you categorize it a poetry? I also protest.

Friend

And only because of this kind of ``anti-war poetry`` bush will attack Iraq. The poetess will be responsible for all the carnage.

#`s 4 and 6...
clearly you have a limited scope in defining poetry.

You call this a poem?

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Re #4 and #6 - What makes a poem a poem?

Dear friend and Urstruly,

I can see why you`d object to this being called a poem: after all, it doesn`t rhyme (or does it?). You asked the Chowk editors for criteria. Consider the definition provided by the trusty Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, a guide i have carried with me through college and beyond and which i reproduce below:

Poetry is ``language sung, chanted, spoken, or written according to some pattern of recurrence that emphasizes the relationships between words on the basis of sound as well as sense: this pattern is almost always a rhythm or a metre, which may be supplemented by rhyme or alliteration or both. The demands of verbal patterning usually make poetry a more condensed medium than prose or everyday speech, often involving variations in syntax, the use of special words and phrases (poetic diction) peculiar to poets, and a more frequent and more elaborate use of figures of speech, principally metaphor and simile...``

There`s more to the definition, but i`ll stop here. It seems i will have to defend my poem. Because i think it IS a poem, and not prose, and here`s why: If i wrote the same words in the same order as they appear, as a paragraph, you would probably ask me why it sounds vaguely funny. I`d reply that that`s due to certain recurring sounds and words, which combine to give the paragraph a certain loose rhythm. You`d say, ``That sounds poetic.`` I`d say, ``Exactly.``

Who am i kidding? You wouldn`t say that. What you`d really say is, ``Prove it`s a poem.`` So then, at the risk of totally ruining its effect, i`d ask you to first put aside any notion of poetry being made up lines of the same length with perfect rhymes at the end (eg ``the fat cat/sat on a mat``), and look for gentler rhymes and sound repetitions within my poem`s lines. Look at the ``i`` sound repeated in ``tiny,`` ``diamonds`` and ``triangle,`` which makes you stress the first part of those words in a pattern. ``Tiny,`` ``triangle,`` ``tips`` and ``it is`` also repeat a hard ``t`` sound - an example of alliteration, creating a certain rhythm.

The second stanze alliterates with an ``s`` sound: ``see,`` ``something,`` ``noticed,`` ``jeweller`s,`` ``displays,`` ``universal,`` ``balanced,`` ``precariously.`` I like to think that makes up a soft rhythm too, as you stress on those words. In the same way, notice the hard ``c`` repeated in ``capability`` and ``coy.`` I like alliteration, and it`s all over the poem. You just need to consciously note it in your mind - your tongue, however, is already slipping over the sounds.

As for rhythm and imagery, notice the recurrence of the number three in the poem. The ring is a triangle, i talk of it signifying ``husband, home and children,`` i give three colors each (white, green and brown) for me and three (red, white and blue) for my husband. There are more three`s - see the last line? See a rhythm yet?

If you really want a rhyme, see ``tangled, mangled,`` or even ``danger cluster together``. If you`re willing to work with the idea that this could indeed be a poem, i`ll point you towards the long forceful ``ee`` in ``careening`` that echoes and concludes the poem with the ``ee`` in ``gleaming.``

Is it a poem yet? (Saying yes doesn`t mean you agree it`s a GOOD poem.)

Besides, if i wanted to write prose that said the same thing as poetry, i would just have said, ``I`m scared of going to America and vaguely ashamed of being Pakistani, even though i love my husband and my country both.`` Try to get Chowk to publish THAT.

#7 ana, ana, ana .... (can you see how much I am hurt by your remarks?)

How did you assume that I have a limited scope in defining poetry. From Kaka Hathrasri to Sumitra Nandan Pant, I can jhelo and enjoy everyone. (I guess you have equivalent in Pakistan, substitue the names). I have no objection to this lady writing. However, calling it a poem is streching the scope too far.


Subuhi#10
This is what I understand from you ..
It is a poem
because it has alphabets
in each line
so that is a pattern
and a rhyme
But I disagree
.. with subuhi
Funny patterns
can write any man
and call it a poem.

Now I have alos written a poem. Do you agree subuhi?
(nah.. I would have spanked myself with a stick if I was writing this poem)

Subuhi,
Now after reformatting, does it look better? Why do you have to format it in a funny fashion? Just to call it a poem? Reformatted version conveys your message better.
-------------------------------------------------------------
A cluster of fifteen tiny diamonds set in a triangle “with its tips cut off” (as I like to describe to faraway friends) - it is my wedding ring.
I see something I never noticed at the jeweller’s. My ring displays the universal symbol of nuclear capability: a three-pronged rotor balanced precariously on one point. Nuclear capability - how coy the message from my ring, with its hopeful triad of husband, home and children.
Apt as well: I, the wearer of the ring, belong to a country that proudly scorched to white ash a mountain five years ago. I hold a green passport, fit the breed examined at airports, share the brown skin of terrorists. I deserve this nuclear ring because I am Pakistani.
But do you know whom I have wed? A red, white and blue American.
I hope to join him in his country soon. But right now my gentle husband and I stare at each other across a war-scented abyss. Alone, I glance often at my newly-minted ring. If I look at it long enough I spin with its rotors, careening towards a tangled, mangled future. In it I see joy and hope and danger cluster together, bright, hard and gleaming.
---------------------

hey this is very much a poem--whether I read it with or without formatting--the rhythms linger--there are two patterns. A slow rhythm in the beginning and end plus a quick one in the middle. here is the quick and angry one:
Apt as well:
I, the wearer of the ring, belong to a country that proudly scorched to white ash a mountain five years ago. I hold a green passport, fit the breed examined at airports, share the brown skin of terrorists.
I deserve this nuclear ring because I am Pakistani.

But then the voice is contemplative--it isnt that simple that she deserves a nuclear shaped ring since she belongs to a certain country. That ring means something. the identity she intends to adopt. Her husband`s country is now hers too.

how she can bridge this duality. the voice becomes more detached--the emotions are complex. The marriage ring has become a political anomoly.

Poem makes one think, doesnt it? why is a simple love controlled and regulated by governments. How can one woman from Pakistan threaten a country? But this is exactly how rancid and twisted the politics of this century are.

friend...
if you think that this is stretching the scope too far, then I repeat...your scope is still somewhat limited.
there are such things as prose poems but.......
i see nothing wrong with subuhi`s poem the way it is above....it still conveys a khyal...which not even well-rhymed, right amount of syllable poems are capable of doing sometimes...those things look more mechanical, and devoid of thought.
and that`s not my opinion alone...but you are entitled to yours.

If it looks like a poem, talks like a poem, walks like a poem...

Congratulations Kaukab. I`m very happy to hear your good news, although I can understand your trepidation at leaving home and country to take up a new life with a new person. Though at least you aren`t going to suffer from culture shock. I wish you the best of luck and hope that you are happy.