Last week, I posted part three of a five-part poem-in-progress because it ended with the line, “No one was supposed to get hurt,” which I suggested we use as the last line of a poem. I’m pleased that several NLP regulars commented favorably and expressed interest in my writing on the subject. (You might also enjoy two earlier essays of mine: “The Mysterious Romance of Murder” in the Boston Review and “No R” in The American Scholar.)
On The Best American Poetry blog, Suzanne Lummis and I are collaborating on a weekly series of posts about film noir. The posts go up on Sunday at 12:01 p.m., following the second showing of Eddie Muller’s “noir of the week” on Turner Classic Movies. You can read our latest here.
I’m entertaining the idea of doing a book on the subject. It would be in prose, but a poem or two might be included—for example, the pantoum “Laura”:
Then the doorbell rang.
Time for one more cigarette.
It wasn’t Laura’s body on the kitchen floor.
He is not in love with a corpseTime for one more cigarette.
The venomous drama critic insinuates
He is in love with a corpse.
It’s a typical male-female mix-up.The venomous drama critic knows
He is sane.
It’s a typical male-female mix-up.
He thinks she is dead and she thinks he is rude.Is he sane?
Each wonders what the other is doing in her living room.
He thinks she is a ghost and she thinks he is rude
When the picture on the wall becomes a flesh-and-blood woman.Each wonders what the other is doing in her living room.
It hasn’t stopped raining.
The picture on the wall becomes a flesh-and-blood woman:
Gene Tierney in Laura.It hasn’t stopped raining.
“Dames are always pulling a switch on you,”
Dana Andrews says in Laura.
There was something he was forgetting.“Dames are always pulling a switch on you.”
It wasn’t Laura’s body on the kitchen floor.
There was something he was forgetting.
Then the doorbell rang.
Forms with recurring elements, like the pantoum, the sestina, and the villanelle, seem particularly appropriate for film noir because the genre is itself an ode to repetition.
But enough about me. What, you’re wondering, is this week’s prompt? While there isn’t one in the usual sense, I recommend watching a classic movie, in whatever genre, and writing a poem about it—preferably in a tight form like the pantoum.
Why no prompt? Because your quizmaster and editor needs his summer sojourn and will be away from NLP headquarters until after Labor Day. Except for the summer of 2015, when Angela Ball filled in for me while I underwent and began recovering from surgery, I have met every deadline since we created NLP in May 2014.
I am proud of that record, proud of the poems you have written and the community we have formed, and proud of our book, Next Line, Please: Prompts to Inspire Poets and Writers, which covers our doings until November 2016. Which reminds me: Some believe our best year was 2017. What do you think?
Here’s wishing you all a wonderful August. And lest anyone misconstrue the third-to-last paragraph, I continue to be cancer-free, and the sun is shining.
