Congratulations to our Poetry, Story, and Art Prize winners and honorable mentions! Thank you to everyone who submitted poems, stories, and artwork to our new contest series. The entries were impressive, and we’re so excited to be publishing all of the pieces below in upcoming issues of Stone Soup! The results are: The Stone Soup Poetry Prize Winner “That Wild Place” by John Gabriel Sperl, 11 Honorable Mentions “The Cracking” by Natalie Chien, 13 “Who You Really Are” by Goldie Leitman, 9 “Regret” by Isabella Lin, 13 “Ocean’s Surface” by Micki Mermelstein, 13 The Stone Soup Story Prize Winner “Star” by Sierra Elman, 14 Honorable Mentions “A Monarchy of Stones” by Emma Catherine Hoff, 12 “Pecan’s Story” by Hazel Holt, 11 “The Lonely Path” by Chris Yihan Ye, 12 The Stone Soup Art Prize Winner Make Peace Not War by Paris Andreou Hadjipavlou, 10 Honorable Mentions Cosmic Hope by Yu-bin Bae, 12 Poker Face by Derek Byun, 13 Tears of Light by Brianna Guo, 11 Blue Dragon by Eli Park, 11
poetry
Poetry Soup – Ep. 18: “A Music Sentence” by Mahmoud Darwish
https://stonesoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Poetry-Soup-Ep.-18.MP3.mp3 Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Today, I’m excited to talk about “A Music Sentence,” a poem with an intriguing form by a poet I discovered recently – Mahmoud Darwish. Mahmoud Darwish was born on March 13, 1941 (he actually happens to share a birthday with me!), in Al-Birwa, Palestine. His family fled their hometown to Lebanon when it was invaded by the Israeli military, but eventually returned. However, Darwish moved multiple times when he got older, and even studied for a year in the Soviet Union. He was greatly interested in Palestinian liberation and joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which led to his exile from Palestine. His ban from coming back to his homeland is a topic that comes up often in his poetry – for example, the poem I’ll be talking about today. Before joining the PLO, Darwish was a member of the Israeli Communist Party. Darwish published his first book of poetry when he was 19 years old and went on to publish 30 books of poetry and 8 works of prose. Among other awards, he earned the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize. He edited multiple journals throughout his lifetime and was a very important Palestinian symbol. His poetry represented the resistance of Palestinian people to Israeli occupation. He died on August 9, 2008. Darwish’s poems were filled with social commentary and drew extreme reactions from many people due to their controversial subject matter. His poems vary in length and style, but his Palestinian heritage is very important in many of them. “A Music Sentence” is included in his poetry collection “If I Were Another,” which has many long poems, broken up into shorter parts. The collection was translated by Fady Joudah. “A Music Sentence” achieves a slightly regretful tone and offers two different perspectives – one from the inside of Palestine, and one from the outside – through its melodious rhythm and repetition. A poet now, instead of me, writes a poem on the willow of distant wind. So why does a rose in the wall wear new petals? A boy now, instead of us, sets a dove flying high toward the cloud ceiling. So why does the forest shed all this snow around a smile? A bird now, instead of us, carries a letter from the land of the gazelle to the blue. So why does the hunter enter the scene and fling his arrow? A man now, instead of us, washes the moon and walks over the river’s crystal. So why does color fall on the earth and we are naked like trees? A lover now, instead of me, sweeps his love into the mire of bottomless springs. So why does the cypress stand here like a watchman at the garden gate? A horseman now, instead of me, stops his horse and dozes under the shadow of a holm oak. So why do the dead flock to us out of wall and closet? In his poem, Darwish depicts an ordinary scene of a community continuing its daily activities despite him not being there. Though he’s no longer there, everything is continuing the way it has always continued. It’s like the old people of the land, the people of history, as well as himself, are still represented in the actions and new people in the poem. Though the poem is not hostile or angry, it also portrays a bit of regret. It shows Darwish’s longing to be back in his home and a sense of loss. Darwish uses the repeated “so why” statements in his poem to convey this – he’s confused by how easily everything stays the same despite him no longer being there. He misses Palestine during his exile, and the knowledge that nothing has changed just because of his absence is saddening. The structure of this poem also gives it an almost song-like quality (hence, the title, “A Musical Sentence”). Each stanza is two sentences. The first sentence is a statement describing an animal or person that Darwish sees a bit of his own life in Palestine in, that the people of the past can see themselves in, but that are also not the same, that are new. The second sentence is the question I described earlier, building the poem’s tone. But the question in the last stanza also serves another purpose. It references the past, showing how the dead, or the previous inhabitants of the land, are still present in the actions of the new inhabitants, even if they’re not there anymore. Each single stanza is an image, but all together it paints a picture of an everyday town. When I read the poem, it makes me imagine a place with lots of trees (actually, Al-Birwa happened to have many olive trees). This gives the poem its flow and ensures that the repetition doesn’t end up being stunted or clunky. Darwish’s images, while being clear and concrete, are also very surreal. He doesn’t directly describe them, but instead does so in a very roundabout way (“a man now, instead of us,/washes the moon/and walks over the river’s crystal”). These metaphors and pictures form snapshots, one per stanza, which fit together like puzzle pieces to create Darwish’s nostalgic remembrance of his homeland. This poem’s structure can be helpful as a jumping off point to write your own poem! It really shows the power that repetition can have in poetry. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Poetry Soup, and I’ll see you soon with the next one.
Poetry Soup – Ep. 17: “Desire for Spring” by Kenneth Koch
https://stonesoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Poetry-Soup-Episode-17.MP3.mp3 Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Today, I’ll be talking about “Desire for Spring,” by Kenneth Koch. Kenneth Koch was born on February 27, 1925, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He went to school at Harvard University and became close with the poet John Ashbery (who was featured in the very first episode of Poetry Soup!). He became a member of the New York School of Poets, a group of poets (some of whom lived in New York) that Ashbery was also a part of. Koch taught poetry at Columbia, but in addition to poetry, he wrote books on how to write poetry, as well as many plays. Many of his poems are humorous and slightly absurd (he also has plays in verse that are very similar). As you will see in “Desire for Spring,” Koch often uses exclamation points in his poems as well, to create a high spirited, energetic tone that is common in much of his work. Koch was a recipient of the Glasscock Prize. He also won the Bollingen Prize for his collection of poetry, “One Train.” Kenneth Koch died in 2002. Here in New York, spring is swiftly blossoming, so I think this poem echoes the sentiments of many people, including myself. Winter has been here for so long that we feel we need to push it out of the way to make space for the gentle flowering and warmth of spring. A very lyrical poem, “Desire For Spring,” as shown by the title, is very fitting for this time. Calcium days, days when we feed our bones! Iron days, which enrich our blood! Saltwater days, which give us valuable iodine! When will there be a perfectly ordinary spring day? For my heart needs to be fed, not my urine Or my brain, and I wish to leap to Pittsburgh From Tuskegee, Indiana, if necessary, spreading like a flower In the spring light, and growing like a silver stair. Nothing else will satisfy me, not even death! Not even broken life insurance policies, cancer, loss of health, Ruined furniture, prostate disease, headaches, melancholia, No, not even a ravaging wolf eating up my flesh! I want spring, I want to turn like a mobile, In a new fresh air! I don’t want to hibernate Between walls, between halls! I want to bear My share of anguish of being succinctly here! Not even moths in the spell of a flame Can want it to be warmer as much as I do! Not even the pilot slipping into the great green sea In flames can want less to be turned to an icicle! Though admiring the icicle’s cunning, how shall I be satisfied With artificial daisies and roses, and wax pears? O breeze, my lovely, come in, that I mayn’t be stultified! Dear coolness of heaven, come swiftly and sit in my chairs! In the first three lines of his poem, Koch mentions days that feed people with nutrients. You could interpret these days as three seasons (winter, fall, and summer). But none of these seasons or nutrients are enough for Koch. He wants something that will feed his heart, not just his health. Spring can give him this, so he spends the entire poem hoping that it will come. Nothing, not even the most terrible things that could cause anyone to give up (like the diseases Koch mentions) can quell his hope for spring. He cannot be satisfied by simple human things – only by nature, by the irresistible curve of the seasons into spring. With his flowing lines, Koch creates a sort of song for spring, while still showing his enthusiasm through a plethora of exclamation points. He also creates this excited feeling by using very specific, enticing similes – for example, he wants warmth more than even a moth (proving how powerfully he is drawn to the sun and the heat of spring, like a moth is drawn to a flame). Koch demonstrates a fear of cold, a want for the warm weather of spring. He understands the other seasons, even admires them, but he needs the real spring rather than the fake fruits he talks about at the end of the poem. He needs fresh air, needs to have space to grow and stretch. In a way, he wants to go through the rejuvenation that the world experiences when spring comes. He wants to start anew, and to be gifted this ability by the cool, heavenly breezes of spring (“spreading like a flower/In the spring light, and growing like a silver stair”). Though the theme of the poem itself is pretty straightforward, it’s also important to look at the lines and the way the poem reads. As one long stanza, everything feels very connected. Because Koch uses them so often, the exclamation points don’t feel too sudden – they’re just part of the tone. Multiple lines use commas at the ends and in the middle to maintain a flow, just like a light wind or a flowing river. However, there are also multiple enjambed lines, echoing the feeling of the slow, kind of broken up progress of budding and sprouting. Overall, Koch’s poem is a playful ode to spring, a version of which seems to be in everyone’s minds this season. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Poetry Soup, and I’ll see you soon with the next one!
