The poetic form I am to write today is a new one, to me anyway, although it has actually been around, in Japan for over two hundred years. This form is the Dodoitsu poem. Like other Japanese poetry forms, this one relies on syllable counts, rather than rhyme or metre.

The Japanese language though, is different to the English language, which I and many others use. Japanese sound units for each words are shorter than many English words. And in English it can take multiple syllables to make a word, so in reality, it’s a little misleading.

Where the Haiku and Senryu both have 3 lines each, and a 5/67/5 syllable count, and the Tanka has 5 lines, with a syllable count of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables, the Dodoitsu has 4 lines, with a syllable count of 7/7/7/5 syllables.

This website gives a much clearer description of this, and more information about the form.

Traditionally, Dodoitsu was used for love poems, or ones relating to work, and with a humourous slant to the poem.

I wasn’t sure I liked this style when I first began playing with it here, but I’m changing my mind, as the words have come to the page.

These are three of my efforts:

1/

When you’re playing politics,

shouting’s now an adult tool

rather than sensible talk.

Temper tantrums rule …

2/

Deciding which I like best,

it’s a pointless thing to do,

when both purse and bank account

say, just window shop!

3/

The writer’s life – write, then think

then write some more, sit and think

wait, think, write, re-read, write more.

A book may happen …

So yesterday, I spent a bit of time exploring prose poems, on the internet (google, and on Twitter. I read a lovely prose poem, and thought, right, tomorrow that’s what I’ll do, I’ll write a prose poem, if the prompt will work OK with that. The prose poem that inspired me is one by an Australian Poet, Alison Whitelock aliwhitelock . 

Ali and I had a little discussion on Twitter yesterday, and Ali said she’d never given a workshop in writing, but she gave me this extremely useful tip: “Try playing with the words on the page. Listen to them. Let them tell you how they want to appear on the page.”

So, today, after a busy day doing other non poetry stuff, I’m finally home and have checked out, firstly, some information on how to actually write a prose poem, and then, inspired and encouraged by Ali’s advice, and (obviously) inspired by the #poemadayfeb prompt, of FIRST, I wrote the following poem, which is possible the best f’ing prose poem I have ever written.

It might be the only one I’ve written, not sure, but even if it’s the only one, it’s still a kickarse in your face prose poem, in my opinion. If you don’t like blood don’t read it, nah actually read it anyway. It’s a fine f’ing poem.

Oh, violence is mentioned, quite a bit, but not gratuitously.

Only women bleed

So, only women bleed … This song was possibly playing the first time I started bleeding, you know, got my period, for the first time. I’m not sure I connected the two things at the time, I was twelve, it just seemed like something that happened, like it or not … I was becoming a woman, so I was bleeding, because that’s what women do. Only women bleed. Yes, it’s true, it must be, the song said so, and the song was by a man, and obviously we must listen to what a man says about important womanly things, because, well, because a man is a man, therefore he knows things. It’s what men do, they know things. Women make things, (food, babies, clothes, or they used to, in the good old days), and men know things. And even though the song, that man sang, said that only women bleed, well, obviously men bleed too. They call wars and go into battle and they bleed, and they bleed, and they bleed. Some of them die, for their nation, for their fellow soldiers, for the good woman back home, which is surely an important and manly thing to do for the Nation, their fellow soldiers, and that bleeding bitch back home, this dying for it/them/her – it’s very important. But back to the initial point about only women bleeding … Hmmm, you know, I suspect the fact that the man who wrote the song, and sang it, actually used a woman’s name, [Alice] Cooper, that may be relevant because, well, you can’t really trust women, can you? They get all thingy and emotional when they bleed, and if you make them angry enough, by giving them a clip in ear, or something, if they get too snarky, well sometimes one of those bitches might kill a man … You can’t trust women, bleeding, then not bleeding, then bleeding again, then not. It’s like they can’t make up their minds, no wonder a man has to hit ‘em every now and then, because, geez, mate … And then when they finally stop bleeding, and they go mental with the menopause stuff, they can get mouthy, and stop doing things for their man and they get selfish and they f’ing start putting themselves forward sometimes, the ungrateful hags. And yeah, men hit each other too, because… because of stuff – can’t talk about it, what the stuff is, just stuff. If you’re a woman, you wouldn’t understand. If you’re a man, you’d know. Well, maybe you wouldn’t, not nececessarily, but maybe, nah, not really, but … But, you know, stuff happens, a bloke says the wrong thing, looks at ya the wrong way, and you can’t let them get away with shit like that can you? So you hit them, they hit you, and a bit of biffo never hurt a bloke, not really, and a broken nose lends a certain air to a man’s profile, and chicks love scars on a man, don’t they, it shows them their man loves ‘em, fighting for them and getting their nose broken, right? That’s how it is, with men and women – men bleed for their women, and their women just bleed, because that’s what the song says …