Yesterday, I wrote this blog post about my process in writing duplexes. For those of you new to this poetic form, you might think of it as an exploded sonnet. It's a form created by the poet Jericho brown; to see one of his duplexes go here, and to read about how he came to create this form, go here.
For my seminary class, I wrote 5 duplexes, which I have pasted below. Duplex #1 is the first one that I wrote, #2 is the second and so on, in chronological oreder. I wanted to see which lines were from my collection of evocative lines that weren't used in poems of mine, lines from the last 10 years of writing. Those lines I have highlighted in green. I got more experimental as I continued writing each duplex. I believe I stayed true to the spirit of the duplex, even when I didn't follow the form specifically. However, I do worry that I'm like someone who says, "I'm writing sonnets only they have 13 lines and nothing rhymes"--my silent response has always been, you may be writing something but it ain't a sonnet.
Let me also stress that this effort is my first attempt at the form, so I'm judging them through that lens. In no way do I mean to claim that my duplexes are in the same league as Jericho Brown's.
I want to remember that as I wrote these duplexes, I did move lines around, but I don't have those very first drafts to compare with the finished drafts. I am now experimenting with using abandoned lines in a looser framework, and I'll post one of those poems later.
This writing process has been great for a number of reasons, but primarily because part of the work is done. I have enough distance from these evocative lines that I don't remember what I originally planned to do with most of them, and that's part of the process that seems essential to me. Having a broken wrist means I can't write by hand on a purple legal pad which has been my process for several decades. I've always wanted to experiment with a different process, and I'm trying to look on this as an opportunity, not a burden.
Duplex #1
A patchwork of loose scraps and poor stitches.
I keep the quilts made by a spinster aunt.
At night, they whisper secrets while I sleep.
Quilts keep watch over every yearning.
All our hopes tucked into dense batting.
How do we sense a pale hope obscured?
Smell of decomposing cedar stumps,
Some days the backyard garden explodes.
I wanted stars or sacraments in my hair.
Instead I'm stuck with scraps of bread dough.
My very bones cry out to make peach cobbler.
Box of recipes and a rolling pin,
Every map routes back to the body.
Duplex #2
I have memorized the tide charts.
I know how to navigate at night.
I have a system of hidey-holes.
I can food for the hard times coming.
You dream of harsher firepower.
But killing doesn’t need such drama.
I know which plants heal and which ones poison.
Overlooked nursery, needled forest floor.
I see a path ahead hidden to most.
Bread crumbs and bird seeds blaze a true trail.
Faint thread of tiny tracks and stitches.
I thread the needle between extremes:
Paddle faster, duck and cover.
Think of the caretaker yearning to break free.
She sings the ancient lullabies each night.
By day, she hums the whaling songs.
We wail at every indignity.
The prophet rails at the ships frozen in the harbor.
Old men and their gods and endless labor
She has no time for the ancient lies.
With scarves and lighting, we cast our spells.
Each swirl in the atmosphere spells out our doom.
We move inland, far from the threats of the sea.
We ignore the petulant pleas and curses.
Cartographers of a new climate,
We anchor ourselves to a new ship.
Duplex #4
House of justice built in hurricane country,
Sturdy enough until the storm hits.
The storm hits with a careful cunning.
It knows how to find the sweetest spots.
The storm reveals the structural weakness.
My joints predict the barometric truth.
The floor joists will never be the same.
Society’s feet ache with arthritis.
We stepped carefully around the rot.
Bones ground to dust, beyond recognition.
The house has good bones, such potential,
If only a contractor would call.
We have signed the contract, mortgaged all
To make the repairs to this house we share.
Duplex #5
I sew hole in my heart with birdsong threads
This is not the angel song I strained to hear.
Other spirits keep company at night.
The harmony of pain and potential.
Pain beats the battered pot with a wooden spoon.
Potential plucks your grandma’s dulcimer.
I collect the lonely instruments.
I whisper a lonely lullaby.
The lonely have their own time signature.
I no longer recognize my own.
I see the blurry shapes of past loves.
Blurred by time, burnished with threads of dreams.
Threads of dreams, threads of birdsong, stitches sure.
My heart, a monastery, a homeless shelter.
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