The 23rd poet laureate consultant in poetry (that’s the actual title) of the United States is as American as they come: Tulsa, Oklahoma, resident Joy Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. She’s the first Native American to hold the title, and this July we’re going to celebrate by using one of her poems as the basis for our poetry slam.
One of the best ways to learn to write poetry is to read poetry – good poetry – and think about what the author did and why. Not because you plan to keep imitating them, of course: the ultimate goal is to write like you. But because you’ll build a sort of emotional “muscle memory” that lets you employ these tricks in your own work without having to really think consciously about doing them.
It’s like catching a ball. When you were very small, you might have watched professional ball players catch or throw a ball casually, behind their back, with one hand. And it seemed like magic! Like it was impossible for you to do that. But you were told, again and again, how to catch a ball by bringing your hands together, and closing your fingers, and unless there’s a physical limitation that prevents you from doing one of those things, now when you see a round object flying towards you, your hands come up and close without much conscious thought.
Poetry can work the same way, if you let it. While writing like Joy Harjo might feel out of reach now, you can watch what she’s doing and try it for yourself, slowly and consciously, until it becomes instinctive.
Of course, it’s easiest to learn by focusing on one thing at a time, right? So this month we’ll be exploring changing central metaphors, through Harjo’s poem She Had Some Horses.
Take a minute to go read the poem (cw: brief mentions of suicide and sexual violence), and then head back here as we unpack this month’s slam. If you don’t think you’re going to be comfortable engaging with the poem I’ll be putting in enough excerpts here that you should be able to figure out the slam without reading, but if you can read, please do. The mentions are about two lines, not graphic, in a poem with several hundred lines (not that that matters necessarily, but it might).
Rules of the Slam
This month’s poetry slam is to write a poem of at least two multi-stanza cantos, using the styles found in She Had Some Horses. One of the cantos must be in the style of the first canto of Harjo’s poem.
Unpacking the Rules
Wow, we threw some jargon at you there, didn’t we? Let’s make sure we’re on the same page before moving on.
A stanza is the same thing as a verse, which is a line or group of lines of poetry set off by spacing above and below it.
A canto is basically a “chapter” of poetry: one or more stanzas (verses) in a long poem, usually set off by a number or title at the beginning. She Had Some Horses has five titled cantos:
- She Had Some Horses
- Two Horses
- Drowning Horses
- Ice Horses
- Explosion
Okay! Now that everyone knows what we’re talking about, let’s see what Harjo did and how you’re going to do it.
The central metaphor
Harjo’s central image is, of course, horses. Horses are personal and meaningful to her, and they run through her poem in a variety of symbolisms. The image that you’ll use for your metaphor can be anything that’s meaningful to you, whether it’s trees or a teacup or rain.
The central metaphor though, is that intertwining of horses and people. Harjo sets this up in the first canto, and you’ll set up your metaphor there too. What does your central image mean to you? Is the teacup actually your grandmother? Does rain mean birth and regrowth? (Look, I grew up in a desert, rain is probably never going to be a grief symbol for me.)
By the end of your first canto, your reader should understand that [image] is like [meaning] to you. Then in your next canto, you’ll use [image] in place of [meaning], and write about [meaning]. Does that make sense? Let’s see what Harjo did.
Canto I: She Had Some Horses
In the first canto of She Had Some Horses, Harjo lays out her metaphor in a specific, chanting style. You’ll use that style for your poem, with a repeated phrase containing (but not necessarily explaining) your metaphor.
She had some horses.
She had horses who were bodies of sand.
She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.
She had horses who were skins of ocean water.
She had horses who were the blue air of sky.
She had horses who were fur and teeth.
She had horses who were clay and would break.
She had horses who were splintered red cliff.
She had some horses.
She had horses with eyes of trains.
She had horses with full, brown thighs.
She had horses who laughed too much.
She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.
She had horses who licked razor blades.
She had some horses.
Like Harjo, you’ll develop your metaphor over time. In the first few lines, the “horses” could be anything. But then the horses start to behave like people: they have full brown thighs, they laugh too much, and so forth. Later in the canto, horses dance in their mothers’ arms, or cry in their beer.
By the time you reach the next canto, then, you’re already primed with the knowledge that “horses are probably people” so it doesn’t need to be explained again. Harjo goes on to write four more cantos about “horses” – that is, interrelated stories about people using the same central metaphor for “what are people.”
The Next Four Cantos:
Let’s take a look at how Harjo uses her central metaphor to write four mini-poems. You’ll notice that she didn’t use the same poetry form for all the cantos. This gave her (and gives you) a chance to explore how the metaphor works differently with different subjects and forms. Here are some excerpts (emphasis added so you can see what she did there):
2. Two Horses
3. Drowning Horses
And even if I weren’t closer
to the cliff edge of the talking
wire, I would still be another mirror,
another running horse.
4. Ice Horses
they are the most dangerous ones.
These are the hottest ones,
but so cold that your tongue sticks
to them and is torn apart because it is
frozen to the motion of hooves.
5. Explosion
then into the dank wet fields of Oklahoma
then their birth cords tied into the molten heart
then they travel north and south, east and west
See how each canto uses a different form, lets the metaphor be a different person, and plays with reality or unreality in different ways? Setting up the metaphor in the first canto lets Harjo have more freedom to play wihtout having to overexplain. You know. The way I’m doing here.
Back to the Rules
Now that you know what Harjo did, and why She Had Some Horses works so well, it’s time to try it.
Your poem needs:
- At least two cantos, but as many as you want (within the 750 word limit for our grid)
- You can title them, or just give them numbers, but set them apart from each other somehow
- Canto I
- Must be in a “chanting” format.
- Must use a repeated line that sets up and contains your central metaphor
- You don’t have to use the exact same format that Harjo did, but try to get close. That is, you don’t have to say exactly “I had some [metaphors]” but you should repeat a brief line.
- Canto II- whatever
- Must be in a different format from Canto I
- Must use the central metaphor from Canto I
And that’s it! You’re welcome to rhyme and scan, or write free verse, or blank verse, or wherever your muse takes you. As long as you have at least two cantos, you can make your poem as long or short as you want.
If you’re struggling to think of poetic structures, why not page back through the writing help section? We’ve got years of monthly poetry slams in there, and you’re free to use any of those forms. At least one or two even have repeated lines!
One request: We know it’s a pain to get unconventional line formatting to stay put on a lot of blogs, and you’re welcome to put your text in an image if you need to in order to get the lines to come out right. However, if you do that, please include the text of your poem in plain text below the image (or on another linked post, but label the link clearly) for the convenience of folks who need to use screen readers to read your work. Thanks!
