new book | BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye

A Sonnet for My Last Hinge Match
By Michelle Garren-Flye

Let’s not fall in love, just listen a while:
I can’t sell myself short, it’s no longer my style.
I’m not even sure anymore what I want,
and I’m not saying that just to taunt.

I guess my desire is for a hero of old
a god shining above in a chariot of gold
or winging across the sky on Pegasus.
That’s why there can never be an us.

I expect starlit dance floors, fountains of wine,
and you to be faithful, handsome, and kind.
Settle for something less than? I won’t.
I think I’m destined to wind down my life alone.

I know your bargain doesn’t include all that,
so I’ll happily spend the night alone with my cat.

And that’s that.

Well, not quite. I’m a bookmaker, not just a writer. Now I am entering the phase of putting the book together. In some ways it’s more fun. In others, I miss the constant search for rhyme, the debate about rhythm, thinking in verse.

I’m trying something different with the illustrations this time. I’ll still have them. This is going to be a black and white book, though, so it will be less expensive. And I sort of felt like the color in my other books sort of interfered with the poetry. Maybe not quite as much with 100 Days as Hypercreativity, but some. And villanelle, man. Villanelle needs to be admired for what it is.

I had never heard of villanelle before July 16 of last year. I had just written Far & wee, my book of 20 sonnets. I felt fairly confident I had a good grasp of sonnet writing and I wanted to try something new. I asked on Facebook what kind of poetry I should try next and a friend suggested villanelle.

The more I researched villanelle and tried to write it, the more it became obvious that I’d have to write much more than twenty to come close to mastering the form. There’s so much to think about. Not only rhyme, but placement of the rhyme. And finding new rhymes. I mean, you could write ten to twenty villanelles with rhymes ending in -ay and -ate but it would get old. (Trust me.)

So this book is going to be a bit different, even, than the other two in my poetry diaries series. It documents what was going on in my life somewhat, but it’s also a literary journey for me. I’m learning how to write something new and hopefully you’ll be able to see that I get better.

I know some of my favorite poetry that I’ve written thus far is in this book. I won’t tell you which ones they are. I’m also kind of fond of some of the illustrations, even though I don’t imagine I’ve improved that much in that respect. (That is not false modesty. I have improved, but only so far.)

So, I’m off to make a book. Hopefully I can have it done soon. Maybe even in a week or so.