Golden Brown

Last year I remember clearly the moment that my artistic journey hit a new stage. 

I wrote the poem 7 Bar Loop. I wrote this while attending a multi week workshop with Rachel Long. 

Rachel Long is an incredible poet and arguably the best poetry teacher I’ve ever had the privilege of studying under. She simply got me to think about poetry, creativity and my own writing differently. 

She single handedly got me to expand my creative, artistic and expressive vocabulary.

During the class she repeatedly came back to Terrence Hayes, an American poet who wrote a new book packed with Sonnets. His Sonnets do not adhere to the same structure as Shakespeares. There are NO rhymes.

But they adhere to one simple rule.

They’re 14 lines.

The other week I attended a poetry workshop run by Hannah Gordon of Word Down. I was asked to write a Terrence Hayes style sonnet. 14 lines, no rhyming. 

Here’s a link to the Terrence Hayes sonnet that inspired my poem….it’s from his collection “American Sonnet for My Past”.

Seven of the Ten Things

I’ll be doing more sonnets……however, this is my first:

Sonnet #一 (Golden Brown)

Golden brown. The Stranglers.
Omar. Married to tomato and
onion stew. Leisurely chopping
of onions releases a baptism
of grief. Wash my eyes and
wash my face. Baptism followed by
baptism. Apt. I forgot to bathe.
Dopamine dips do that daily.
The key is to accept, but not
succumb. Keep working quietly.
Onions learn to share space
with softening tomatoes. Alchemy
creates aromas. I create 
joy disguised as food.