Michael Cope
MAKING IT MEMORABLE
There are moments when we are overwhelmed by profound emotion – joy, grief or desire. At such times, we often wish we could express our emotions in words, shape them into something coherent and memorable. It was in recognition of such difficult moments that the AVBOB Poetry Competition was launched in 2017, inviting aspiring poets to engage on the theme of I Wish I’d Said.
Michael Cope is a poet, novelist, memoirist and jeweller who cares deeply about poetry’s ability to shape and give meaning to our experience. Many of his poems use rhyme but mostly in ways that are barely noticeable at a conscious level.
Cope published a selection of his finest work across several decades, called The Craft (Left Field Poetry, 2017). This month he shares a poem from that collection with us, showing how using rhyme can release unexpected possibilities and make a poem more memorable.
Finger Knitting
While the bishop read a homily
Over the plain pine box, the figured flowers,
The women dressed in black, the family
Wrapped in the grief of these post-final hours,
I saw a small red spider on a red book,
Hymnal or Psalter,
And the dead man’s daughter
Slid into the pew, began to hook
Three blue threads together
With her living fingers.
If you read this poem aloud, you might notice its rhymes. But it flows so easily that you might also miss them unless someone points them out to you. Also, for the most part, it has no regular rhythm. So, while regular, sing-song rhythms may put some readers to sleep, we sense movement and constant change as we read this one.
Notice how the first four lines set the scene. We are at a funeral, and it feels as if nothing is moving in the face of mourning. We would not be surprised to read about “final hours” at a funeral, but these hours are “post-final.” It is as if the loss is so complete that time itself has stopped.
But then the focus shifts. The lines become shorter and more urgent; the rhythm becomes irregular. The poet has noticed something that transforms their experience of this moment, something apparently unrelated to what has been described until now. What they see is something entirely ordinary: a small red spider on a red book. But in the context of the poem, the implications are profound. It signals the intrusion of life, of movement in the midst of grief.
Then, the dead man’s daughter slides into the pew and starts hooking those three blue threads. Once again, this would not be such a significant action under what we call normal circumstances. But in the context of a father’s funeral, hooking threads is already a small way of transforming the world, of giving shape to something. At a more conscious level, that is precisely what this poem is doing. It describes how we look to the future, even in the darkest hour. And because of the form and shape the poet has chosen, we are not likely ever to forget it.
In the next few days, write a poem in which you recall something you noticed while you were feeling overwhelmed, something that made you forget your own situation for a moment and experience movement or change in the world outside your consciousness. See if you can use rhyme, rhythm or repetition to give it a more memorable shape.
The annual AVBOB Poetry Competition remains open for submissions until 30 November 2024. Visit www.avbobpoetry.co.za today and familiarise yourself with the competition rules.