Form of the Week 18 – The Folding Mirror

Dr. Marc Lynton Latham sent me this email message yesterday, Saturday, October 6, 2012:

“Hi Lewis, I just published my second poetry collection, which is completely made up of (folding) mirror poems (as featured in your new book of forms) and reflections, with a foreword by Caroline Gill. I've made it available to US universities and libraries via Amazon....” Marc Lynton Latham, U. K.

The entry on the “folding mirror” form from The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition by Lewis Putnam Turco, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com) , 2012 • 384 pp. 3 illus. 5 x 7 1/2" Reference & Bibliography / Poetry 978-1-61168-035-5, paperback, reads,

Marc Latham, inventor of the form, says that the FOLDING MIRROR verse form calls for two halves of a poem to mirror each other in structure and subject either side of a folding middle line.  The number of words in each corresponding line (outer and outer etc) should be the same if possible.  The folding middle line can be used to divide or connect the two halves.” 

HOURGLASS OF TIME

is birth a blank page? or a weighty tome
crammed full of ingrained wisdom
and lesson plans to draw on
as we climb the hill
of learning and
striving until
on the peak
we turn:
a change of
view sliding
down with ease
the relentless decline
grains of truth spill between
our hands until the sands run out
and the tome of life swells with more pages

Claire Knight

 

 ‘THALATTA, THALATTA’

(THE SEA! THE SEA!)

Waves roll in at my window.
The sun sets:
Silence.
The sea is my mirror:
My face is the ocean.
Twilight descends:
Great gulls are swooping.
The storm is brewing:

Turn, Tide, Turn

The storm is abating:
Small terns are soaring.
Daylight approaches:
The ocean is my face.
My mirror is the sea:
Silence.
The dawn breaks:
Waves roll out from my window.

Caroline Gill

 

242 Mirror Poems and Reflections [Kindle Edition]

http://www.amazon.com/242-Mirror-Poems-Reflections-ebook/dp/B0094QWNOW

is Dr. Marc Latham's second poetry collection, after the first one was published by Chipmunka in 2009. The first collection contained poems written by Marc from his youth to the cre-ation of the Folding Mirror form, while this book focuses on the FM form recognised by Lewis Turco in his definitive The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms. 

Caroline Gill, an award-winning poet whose 'Thalatta, Thalatta' Folding Mirror poem was used as an example in 'The Book of Forms' provides an introductory explanation of the Folding Mirror form at the start of this book.

This book contains 121 Folding Mirror poems created in three years by Marc Latham as he tried to make sense of the universe and life's place in it. They are supported by 121 reflections relevant to the poems’ themes.

Marc Latham was born in St. Helier, Jersey during 1965. He grew up in Wales, and became a big heavy rock and metal fan in his youth. Along with Kerouac's 'On The Road' and other counter-culture books, rock music lyrics were a big influence on Marc's desire to write. He hitched from home aged 21, and travelled on a shoestring to all the populated continents between 1987-94. Marc kept a diary along the way, and it was on-the-road thoughts fuelled by rock lyrics that developed into his first poems. After completing his big journeys, a desire for new challenges led Marc to the University of Leeds, starting in 1995. He graduated with a PhD in 2005. The stimulus and stresses of university life and the rave-dance culture of that time provided further inspiration for Marc's poetry. Marc opted to become a freelance writer after graduating from university, and he is still working out of Leeds and the greenygrey.co.uk website.

Marc had his first collection of poetry published by Chipmunka in 2009. It contained over ninety poems from his youth through to his first Folding Mirror (FM) poems. There are now over 200 FM poems on the fmpoetry.wordpress.com website that Marc administrates. This '242' book contains the FM poems created since Marc's first collection was published, together with old and new thoughts and poems. Marc has also had several poems published by independent poetry publications, a Saturn FM poem featured in a musical composition, and the Folding Mirror form was included in Lewis Turco’s definitive 'The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms'.

Comments

[Marc Latham]

Thanks for having the Folding Mirror as form of the week Lewis; also for featuring the excellent poems by Claire and Caroline, and my new book details. And thanks to Caroline for alerting me to it.
Having the Folding Mirror form included in the Book of Forms has been a career highlight, and we have been working towards a classic structure for the form since the publishing of '242'.
Hopefully, the form will continue to improve and grow in the future, inspiring more great poems and interest in poetry.
Have a great week...

[Lewis Turco]

You're Welcome, Marc.