It is almost a whole month since I blogged. And while I cannot blame anything but myself for it, I am going to skip laying layers of guilt and making up excuses or thinking up reasons for ‘why not blogging’ and simply get back to blogging this time around! This week has an interesting date coming up – July 2nd (also my birthday) – which sort of, kind of, is a cleave for the year. Or rather, it splits the year right in the middle with a 182 days on both sides of it most years (and on leap years, it is still one of two days in the middle of the year). This date thus both splits the year in two halves and is the date that combines the two halves of the year in a way, right!?

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Poetic Sundays: The Cleave Cuts Through in the Middle?

Just like July 2nd – the date -the cleave poetic form also both splits two separate poems and joins them as well into one additional poem. So, in simplest terms, the cleave poem is three poems in one.

What is the Cleave Poetic Form?

Dr. Phuoc-Tan Diep created the cleave poetic form as a way to describe his life. Like the contranym cleave which means both to split and to meld, the form also does the same. It is written such that it is two separate poems when read on each side of the page, and a third poem when the lines of those two poems are read across the page.

The Cleave Poetic Form’s Characteristics

So the cleave’s elements are that at its most basic, it is:

• three poems in one
• one poem as you read down the left hand side of the lines;
• a second poem as you read down the right hand side, and
• the third poem as you read it in whole
• free of rules of rhyme and meter, all of which is left to the poet’s discretion

Reference: Cleave Poetry

Tips

• Write two similar sized related poems keeping in mind the end goal for the cleave (to combine the two)
• Now work them together line by line adding/removing/updating words and punctuation as needed so that when we read the two as a whole, it still makes some sense

My Attempt at the Cleave

The words in bold form the second poem; so read the un-bolded words on the left as one poem, the words in bold on the right as another; and then the whole as the third poem.

What She Said
She said no, not now, she repeated
But he didn’t hear the words she spoke
And now her assertions all for naught
Her womb is the one she is the one
To bear it to rear it
~ vidya tiru @ ladyinreadwrites

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Recently

On My Blog

Well, looks like I am still repeating myself. These past few weeks have been spent away from blogging completely, though I have a couple of drafts I attempted to write. But like I mentioned earlier, I have no one else to blame but myself. I had work, yes, but I also lost myself in books and watching TV series with my family, as well as other activities that took up time and energy.

So for recently on my blog, here are the posts from a while ago:

• Sunday Scribblings #110: Repeats of Wonderful Weeks of Nothings
• Great Reads That Comfort And Boost

On the Homefront

End of School Years

My daughter finished her second year of high school (and her first year of high school fully in-person) at the start of the month. A week later, we picked up our son after emptying his dorm room of his belongings as he finished his freshman year of college!

Dance!!

The first thing we all did after my son’s return back home was to attend my daughter’s dance school’s annual show. It was a wonderful event and it has been wonderful watching our daughter blossom into the dancer she is today from the tottering toddler she joined as!

Insta-Worthy Spots

Next up was a trip to beautiful Capitola. I wonder why we never visited before now but now that we have, I know we will return as often as possible. It looks like something straight out of a film set, and the whole town is simply Insta-worthy! I will write more about it in an upcoming travel post.

Celebrations!

Last but not the least, we went to the Warriors Championship Parade in San Francisco, and it was totally infectious fun! While I am not a big fan of sports in general, we went there mainly for the sake of my son and his friend (also our family friend). The two boys are major Warriors and basketball fans and enjoyed every bit of it, despite the fact that we were four rows behind people lined up along Market Street. According to news reports, there were hundreds of thousands (I couldn’t find any article with a more exact number) 🙂

Upcoming

On My Blog & Homefront

I hope to post just a little more often than I did in the past few weeks this coming week. Travel plans might hinder blogging over the next few weeks but I will do my best to post something at least once a week going forward.

Literary Celebrations (close-to-it also!)

• Literary birthdays this week include: E. R. Braithwaite, Teju Cole, Alice McDermott on the 27th; Aimee Bender, Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the 28th; Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Brian Herbert, Shail Chaturvedi, and Charlotte Bingham on the 29th of June; the 30th of June celebrates Adam Roberts and Winston Graham; July starts off with the birthdays of William Strunk and Lisa Scottoline; while I share my birthday (July 2nd) with Hermann Hesse and Wisława Szymborska; July 3rd celebrates the birthdays of Dave Barry, Franz Kafka, Rohinton Mistry, and Matt Haig

Foodie Celebrations

• June 27th is National Ice Cream Cake Day and National Onion Day
• The 29th of June happens to be National Almond Buttercrunch Day
• July starts off with sweet treats with National Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day and National Gingersnap Day on the 1st
• July 2nd is National Anisette Day
• While the 3rd is National Chocolate Wafer Day and National Eat Your Beans Day

Other Celebrations

• International Body Piercing Day on the 28th is followed by
• the International Day of the Tropics as well as National Camera Day on the 29th of June
• While the last day of June happens to be International Asteroid Day and also International Day of Parliamentarism, as well as National Meteor Watch Day and Social Media Day
• The 1st of July celebrates National Postal Worker Day and National U.S. Postage Stamp Day (check out this post)
• I love how this celebration is worded – it is National Compliment Your Mirror Day on the 3rd of July

Cleave and Other Related Reads

Wrapped Up: My Sunday Scribblings

So dear reader, you have reached the end of this Sunday Scribblings! As always, I welcome your thoughts, comments, and suggestions about this post. And do let me know if you plan to celebrate any of these mentioned celebrations this coming week/month?

Linking this to the Sunday Post over at the Caffeinated Reviewer and the Sunday Salon