Eunice’s Poetry Book for Sale On-line

My cousin, Eunice Barbara C. Novio, is about to launch a poetry book called Maps of Dreams and Memories. But before that, let me first lead you to a poem of Robert Frost (1874-1963). Sometime in 1923, the renowned American poet and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner wrote Dust of Snow. It was published sometime in 1923 in the Pulitzer Prize-winning volume of poetry called New Hampshire:

Dust of Snow

By: Robert Frost

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

Decades later, Bob McKenty, a poet born in 1935 and noted for his mastery of light verse, wrote a parody of said Frost’s masterpiece.  Parody is a humorous satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature such as poem. Here is McKenty’s parody of Frost’s “Dust of Snow”:

Snow on Frost

By: Bob McKenty

A wayward crow

Shook down on him

The dust of snow

From a hemlock limb.

Amused (I recall)

The poet stopped,

Delighted that's all

The black bird dropped.

But sometimes, a poem is written to show full respect by way of imitating another poet’s poem. This is called poetry imitation. The following poem appeared in Atomic Poetry in August 2015 written by my poetess cousin sometime last month:

My Friend, the Shadow

By: Eunice Barbara C. Novio

I have a friend, Mother,

sometimes he sleeps with me,

but oftentimes stays under the bed

even when you sweep underneath

he lays there;

a sleeping shadow.

He has white eyes

and always smiles,

but he makes me happy

because he does not talk or argue.

We just lie down together at night,

dreaming of what lies ahead of us,

when I grow up and how long

he would be a shadow.

A poet by doing response poetry respects the poet s/he imitates because to write it, one must understand and appreciate the piece s/he imitates so, here’s my piece:

Her Friend, the Shadow

By Norman A. Novio

She had a friend, she told her mother,

A strange bedfellow sleeping under her bed,              

And ever-smiling and white-eyed shadow.

A friend who knew by experience

Her loneliness during sleepless nights

Entering into her own story of life.

But without nocturnal sorrows and pain,

She couldn’t accomplish life’s most lovely things:

Write a book, give birth to a child or make a friend.

Between them grew an amazing exchange

Knitting poems together for years,

As the girl grew up her shadow-friend remains!

The poetry book was published just weeks ago by Aquill Relle, an on-line magazine. I am inviting the followers of this blog site to order it on-line and click THIS to start.

Grab a copy now, so I can have my porsyento…

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(Photo: aquarelle.com)