Riven

a cleave collaboration by Indira Reddy and Tamyka Bell,
mostly via Google Docs

Background image by greekfood-tamystika (Pixabay)

Fate’s gate: I wander Alone, shackled and bent
Beneath bright night skies Cold moonlight lays like a shroud
Of faith, a reprise Of a back bowed
To defy sonder In true torment
This moment: ponder A winter of discontent
Life’s certain demise In the arms of the proud
Leads my soul to rise Banshees keening aloud
In what lies yonder Lost in the lament

Now, take me away In places forgotten
Through time, and beyond Denuded of life
Free from flesh’s bond Where regrets are rife,
I seek no longer Howling at bare-boned moon
A reason to stay Mourning the fallen
Dawn’s light grows stronger As deep-night falls too soon

Writing this cleave poem

Indira Reddy approached me about collaborating on a good/evil or darkness/light cleave poem for Chalkboard, and I jumped at the idea. (If you’re not sure what a cleave poem is, check out our Cleave Chain project from earlier this year on Chalkboard.)

We agreed on a few parameters before we started. Most importantly, we chose a form: the Petrarchan sonnet. This form has a set rhyme scheme but allows for some flexibility in line length, which meant we could each write a short-lined poem in this form and sit them side-by-side to produce a longer-lined Petrarchan sonnet.

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Indira then waited patiently while I delayed our completion several times, and calmly tolerated my obsession with five-syllable lines. Thank you for being a pleasure to collaborate with, Indira.

We set up a template in Google Docs and worked in that, highlighting specific text and adding comments. When we needed more discussion time, we turned to Slack. Slack was particularly useful when it came to debating the merits of various titles and images.

Our Google Docs setup is pretty simple: one column each, so we could easily read individual poems down the page and the combined poem across the page. The first column reminds us of our rhyme scheme. We switched to Slack when we needed more in-depth discussion.

In my opinion, Indira is way better to collaborate with than me. This screen grab from Slack shows what happens when my brain hurts and the words refuse to fit neatly. Indira predictably claims I was just fine to collaborate with. Thank you for being so accommodating, Indira!

Our individual poems are here:

Ashen Demise, a sonnet by Indira Reddy

Hope, a sonnet by Tamyka Bell

Photo by greekfood-tamystika (Pixabay)