“Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?” John Keats wrote – ironically in the poem “To Autumn.”
Well, to answer Keats, one of the songs of spring – or several of them – will be written by you if this essay is successful.
Though in our culture poetry is a specialized industry produced by certified poets, in many societies every cultivated person is expected to produce verse. And you are a cultivated person, since you read the supplement to Hudson Valley One. So what’s stopping you?
Here’s one way to begin. Go outside during the early days of spring. Close your eyes and feel the throbbing pulse of nature’s rebirth. Notice the first word that comes into your mind. For me, it was “gubble.” I know that’s not really a word, but that’s what I heard in my head.
Now use that word in a sentence. I came up with: The stream gubbled down Tremper Mountain.
Think of a title, perhaps a date early in spring. Now you have your poem:
April 4
The
stream
gubbled
down
Tremper
Mountain.
Your readers may wonder if you misspelled “bubbled” or “gobbled,” but that’s okay. Slightly mystifying the public is one of the perks of being a poet.
Haiku supposedly always mention the season, or at least suggests it. Look in a book of haiku, or search for “spring haiku” on the Internet, and find one you like. Now re-translate it. Let me show you how.
I just went to a website masterpieces-of-Japanese-culture.com and found “Matsuo Basho’s spring haiku.” Here’s one I like:
The bush warbler
Drops on a rice cake
On the veranda.
A Japanese person apparently did this translation, because “drops on a rice cake” doesn’t exactly mean anything to us. Here’s my revision:
A bush warbler
drops a rice cake
on my veranda.
It’s only slightly different, but it still qualifies as a revision. For one thing, I removed the unnecessary capitalization of the first lines. And I made the poem much more personal, by adding “my.” This required me to change the poem’s first word from “the” to “a.”
The haiku is more American now. In the U.S.A, we are very conscious of whether or not we own a veranda. To a Buddhistic haiku artist, it’s simply “the veranda.”
But by making it “my veranda,“ the bird’s action becomes disturbing – more like trespassing. This heightens the emotional tension of the haiku.
Anyway, I hope this helps you learn how to re-translate from the Japanese.
Here’s another re-translation exercise. I found. “Best Spring Quotes 2024” on goodhousekeeping.com (who knew that Good Housekeeping magazine still existed in some form?) Here’s one:
“Spring is the time of plans and projects.” – Leo Tolstoy.
That’s a little vague. How about:
Better than Tolstoy
Spring
is the
time to
throw
out
ugly
napkin
holders.
Now there’s a concrete example of spring cleaning!
Personally, I don’t usually throw out old items – I bring them to Family of Woodstock, or to the thrift shop in Phoenicia, just in case someone needier than I wants them. But in my poem, I can be a little cavalier.
Spring
is the
time to
bring
ugly
napkin
holders
to the
thrift
shop
That is not a very compelling literary work. A poem should be swift, like the blow of an axe.
Here’s another easy poetry-writing project. Find a great poem about spring and rewrite it. I opened The Standard Book of British and American Verse to “Spring” by Thomas Nashe (1567-1601). The first verse is:
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
I simply brought this verse up to date:
Spring is a luscious thing
that even the rockstar Sting
Loves, though his arm is in a sling,
And keeps getting tangled up with all his bling.
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
One aspect of every poem, but especially a spring poem, is contrast. If you set your verse in a verdant meadow, it’ll sound like thousands of other poems. But if your setting is a graveyard, or a sewer, it will surprise the reader – and hopefully even shock her.
Excuse me while I research sewers for a moment. I barely know what a sewer is.
April 7
In a stormwater sewer system:
two forsythia buds.
I skimmed an article called “understanding sewer systems,” on metroconnects.org, and was attracted to the phrase “stormwater sewer.” But what should I put in the sewer? Forsythia is one of the first spring blossoms. But why choose a blossom? A bud is more appealing, more unusual. In your mind you see the poor little buds floating in a sewer – like the hero of a noir movie, trapped in a maze, terrified, panicking. A bud is like a baby. How unfair that these buds never blossomed, and instead somehow fell into a stormwater sewer! What a poignant fate!
So that’s your lesson. I’ll be back in three months with: “How to compose a stunning summer poem.”
P.S. Since finishing this essay, I wrote this totally accurate observation:
Catskills Poem
First day of Spring:
it’s snowing!
Join the family! 
