I DON’T believe in explaining poetry.
What I believe in is that poetry can be taught.
And part of my way of teaching poetry is showing how it is made.
Two weeks ago, I was invited to judge a poetry contest online.
It was not a professional gig.
I had a feeling it was one of those mushrooming poetry communities online.
But I said yes, and made a generous offer to give an online poetry lecture before the contest.
Just so the participants could have a better fighting chance.
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After the lecture, I was asked for a poetry prompt, a theme or topic, for the contest.
(Yes, the organizers gave me that honor!)
I knew I’d kill myself if I’d be flooded with entries about teenage love.
So I said, let them write about Onions.
It’s been a while since I’ve read a good poem about onions.
I was given the seven finalists to be scored and ranked last Sunday.
It was a strange set of criteria: with points for Title (10%), and Cohesive Flow (5%).
I mean, what in heaven’s name?
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But I’m easy.
Or at least, I try to be easy with strangers and new fans.
If that’s how they want to run their contests, that’s how they run their contests!
Anyway, no particular poem (out of seven) really appealed to me.
They were all a bunch of clichés about the distaste for onions, how onions make people cry, and one poem even narrated the growth of an onion.
So I decided to go into my kitchen, studied an onion, and wrote a poem on the subject of onions.
When I posted my poem online, I gave another writing tip: Encounter closely the things you want to write about.
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CHOPPING POEMS WITH ONIONS
by Peter Solis Nery
One lazy, rainy September afternoon
I examined a bored bulb of onion, its
Roots white, withered, and hopeless, its
Outer skin dry, flaky, almost purple, not
As dark as the fleshy inner skin next to it. (5)
And I remembered how in school, we
Examine poetry, dissect it hopelessly
Like an onion: peeling it layer after layer
Looking for hidden meaning, trying to
Solve some supposed mystery. I groaned (10)
With the onion. Then, I smiled, shook my
Head, cut the bulb in halves, and sliced each
Mystery thinly. I inhaled the stinging smell
The layers no longer a puzzle, the pungent
Smell, pure essence. My tears began to form (15)
And I cried for all the little helpless poems
We so mercilessly chopped to death.
*
It was a rainy Sunday, and I always want some onion soup on rainy days.
I enjoy the flavor, the spicy-bitter taste, that certain bite or heat that clears my nose, and clarifies my sight.
The first words in my draft are “Saturday morning, rain outside.”
Why not Sunday?
Well, I was thinking that on a normal non-Covid Sunday morning, I would be in church, and not in my pajamas trying to make onion soup in my kitchen.
Poetry does not have to be faithful it only needs to be sincere.
The emotional truth of that weekend is not Sunday, but Saturday, when I sleep in for a while, wake up late, and lazily amble into the kitchen not knowing what to have for breakfast or lunch.
*
Why even start the poem with time and particulars like rainy afternoon?
I guess that consciously, I wanted to say that when one writes a poem about onions, one need not jump right into the onion thing.
I mean, what’s the rush?
Poetry is about slowing everything down, making the readers drop everything and have time to reflect on the world around them.
We write poems about onions because our readers have taken them for granted.
And we write poems to make people pay attention.
So, for me, one of the best ways to lead the readers into the world of the poem is to orient them as to the time and place.
I could have easily slipped in ‘kitchen’ in my poem, but who examines an onion bulb in the bathroom, or the bedroom?
If stupid readers assume that, keep them stupid!
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Anyway, it was Sunday, it’s still Covid season, so I was still in my pajamas feeling lazy.
(I’ve been feeling lazy since July!)
And maybe that’s why I also crave the onion soup on a Sunday: to perk me up, to jolt me out of my lazy ass with some flavorful kick.
Anyway, I ended up using ‘September’ instead of Saturday and Sunday because it’s a rather rainy month after the long summer where I live.
And I know September is notorious for typhoons in the Philippines.
I also used ‘afternoon’ because cooking in the morning doesn’t really sound very lazy.
But waking up at noon, and holding an onion in a rainy afternoon just sounds very poetic.
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I will continue to break down the construction of this poem in my next columns so catch me if you can. (To be continued/PN)
