Wild nights Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Down would come the sails
Naked in the moonbeams we
As our Wild nights should be
Our secret luxury!
Futile the calling winds
My Heart seduced in your port
Done with the Compass
Done with the Chart!
My Q flag a flying
My wheel lashed up short.
Rowing in a blissful Eden
Ah rocking in time with the Sea!
My heart tugs at the anchor
Open your arms to harbor me
Might I but moor tonight
Dear sir, In thee!
It’s a poetic arts & crafts project for day five of NaPoWriMo. Today’s prompt is to choose a poem by Emily Dickinson, then deconstruct and reconstruct it. I chose Wild Nights – Wild Nights! (no surprise there). I incorporated a little bit more of the ‘sailboat in port’ metaphors. I was never fully satisfied with her original poem to begin with, so this was a nice chance to doctor it up a bit.
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 her poetry manuscript, "Eucalyptus," was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. The manuscript explores her Sephardic Jewish ancestry and bi-cultural heritage.
Not Enough Poetry 
Will admit I’ve never read the original (will go do so now), but this was amazing! THIS is how it’s supposed to be done, and I could never do it this way! Amazing!
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Thanks CC 🙂 I think the key to this exercise is to find one you like but that feels like its missing something …
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PS. Your link to the original poem is faulty… Just thought you might want to change that…
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Thanks, will fix it that asap 🙂
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Love the title! I love the angels you chose to expand and emphasize, really great rework!
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Congrats, Lupita, on being the NaPo featured poet! You have certainly made this poem your own, especially as you are a self-described “sailor by marriage”. Nicely done!
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Thanks Brian! It has totally made my day 🙂 I’m glad you liked the poem!
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I hope it does for your “view count” what it did to mine!!
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Yes, Lupita, you did a great job here. It wasn’t too far off-shore from Dickinson’s, but well enough away.
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Thanks Angie!
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“Futile the calling winds
My Heart seduced in your port
Done with the Compass
Done with the Chart!” Beautiful, up, up and away 🙂
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Brilliant and congrats!
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I really enjoyed the rhythm in this poem which make me feel as if I was rolling with the waves.
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nice… love the metaphor here… carries a lot of meaning… and beautiful intimacy as well
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nicely done, the sea certainly helps one rise to the occasion 🙂
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I love the cadence of the verses, specially the last stanza ~
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I always liked this poem. Perhaps if Ms. Dickinson had sailed on the seas, she would have never gone back to Amherst. Good re-make. Congrats on being chose as featured poet for NaPoWriMo. I’ve done it for the first time and am enjoying it.
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Thank you! It was a major highlight for me. NaPoWriMo is fun, I like the challenges to write about different things and in different ways. It helps me stay out of a rut 🙂
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Yes, it does. It is always a good thing to learn something new to help expand ones art and visions of it. Many times tough but a good tough.
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nice imagery of being at sea… I’ll be sure to check out the original as well!
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Oh I just LOVE this!!
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Wow, this is amazing! Not to mention blazing with passion….a sailor’s version of a sock on the door….like when the boat’s a rockin’ don’t come knocking 😉
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What an interesting challenge – nicely done.
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Love the sailboat metaphors! There’s one in my poem this week too, actually! There’s an immense sense of openness & freedom associated with being on the open water, & that “naked in the moonbeam” sequence captured that well.
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Love the metaphors you use and after a stormy night we just wish to moor in a Laguna somewhere don’t we?
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I enjoyed the deconstruction and reconstruction. This is a very interesting exercise per se but you have also written a wonderful and meaningful poem filled with great imagery.
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Thanks Gabriella!
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(P.S. — and thank you for the very nice comment you made over at my blog. It made my day! Have a good weekend.)
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Very clever & imaginative rhyme schemes, & kudos for actually improving on Emily’s work. What emerged seems sensual & seaworthy. Congrats on your accolade, on having the energy to be so prolific.
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