AURIA CORTES

In light of Barack Obama’s speech on Racism, I thought it appropriate to point out a post on The Huffington Post entitled, Poems about Racism.  

Here’s a sample of the post: 

Harlem Renaissance poet Claude MckKay’s The White House lays out more of the difficulties faced by African-Americans and speaks to the resentment that might build in a community. There is dignity and power in the poem’s rigid form.  

Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.  

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Mija is a literary work and I’ve been reading poetry so that I can develop my skills writing prose. As a teenager I wrote a few poems. Not my best work. That’s for sure. But I wrote the poems at the suggestion of my eighth grade English teacher. Not since then have I studied the art of writing poetry. I’m hoping that reacquainting myself with poetry will help with specific scenes that appear in Mija. 

Click HERE for previous poem posts 

I haven’t written a Haiku since Junior High so I thought it would be a fun writing project to try.

The rules of a Haiku are as follows: first line contains 5 syllables, the second line 7, and the third line 5.  

Here’s my Haiku: 

I spend time writing

Deleting word after word

Leaving the page blank 

I came up with this masterpiece in less than two minutes. And most of that time was deciding if the word spend has more than one syllable.  

Using my fingers as a guide, I repeated the word spend in different rhythms.  

Spend. One syllable.

Sp-e-nd. Three syllables

Spen-d. Two syllables. 

I decided on one syllable. More for convenience than anything else.  

Now that I’m writing this, I’m not sure if the word word has one or two syllables. 

Word. One syllable.

Wor-d. Two syllables. 

Oh no, this Haiku stuff isn’t easy. Figuring out syllables isn’t as easy as it used to be.

Give it a try and post your Haiku in the comment section.