Carry Me Away/Ain't Gonna Carry Me Back (#107)

Playing with a new poetry form, as I rework previous posts into a new piece for you. Plus: New bird pics!

Part of Campfire Notebook’s new format is a monthly poetry feature. As I continue to work on new poetry submissions offline, I still want to share examples of my work with you. These are poems created purposefully each month to share around the Campfire.

As I continue developing a poetry manuscript and individual submissions, I’ve been enjoying reading more about various poetry forms.

Such as the triolet. Only eight lines and two different types of rhymes, it tries to create impact through simplicity and repetition. I like the subtle shifts it allows in emphasis and meaning, depending on how one changes the punctuation of the repeating line and the supporting lines before and after the main line.

For reference, one of the more famous folks to use the form is Thomas Hardy:

How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee!
- Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Nor memory shaped old times anew,
Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee?
“How Great My Grief”, Thomas Hardy.

This fact saddens me, because it’s a good poem, but I am not a fan of Hardy, to put it mildly.

(To put it less gently, I’ve always found Hardy’s prose to be the literary equivalent of anesthesia.¹ Throw me off the Casterbridge, please and thank you.)

Nonetheless and undeterred, I decided to give the form a try - inspired by a few previous springtime posts and recent bird photography:

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Cannonball
Sailing across the sky with abandon —
oh, how she lets herself soar
over the talc powdered bones of mountains.
Sailing across the sky with abandon —
o’er unfledged fields painted by morning,
and the sun-kissed torn edges of the shore;
sailing across the sky with abandon —
oh, how she lets herself soar!

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What do you think of the form? Is it something you’ve seen before? (And if so, what’s your favourite of the style?) Let me know in the comments below.

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Visual Inspiration for Cannonball: New Bird Pics!

The Eastern bluebird - a new lifer for me - checking out the farmer’s field below. (Photo: Bryn Robinson, 2024)

The fire and promise in the eyes of this American robin, looking ahead to warmer spring days. (Photo: Bryn Robinson, 2024)

A broad-winged hawk, holding twigs and moss in its’ beak. It flew back and forth between a few posts, including this perch, until it disappeared deeper into the woods to its’ nesting location. (Photo: Bryn Robinson, 2024)

A lone song sparrow pauses in its’ gravel dinner to stare me down. (Photo: Bryn Robinson, 2024)

The indignant American kestrel eyes me up from a telephone pole in the country. A perfect, handheld orb of murderous feathers, the farm mice below have no idea what’s about to hit them. (Photo: Bryn Robinson, 2024)

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Wordy Inspiration for Cannonball: Past Posts about Flying

#32: Together, We Can Take It Higher

#56: Measure Me, Sky.

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Thanks for reading this month’s creation, friends. You can check out other poems I’ve created for the Campfire here:

Invasive Species | The Tangent Function | A Spark That Spreads | Mango | Tangled Whispers | Springtime Elegy

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1. Surpassed only by that chief purveyor of gloom, Charles Dickens. Great Expectations? More like Great Expectorations.