Monday, January 12, 2009

Cleave Poetry

I recently discovered Cleave Poetry, created by Phuoc-Tan Diep. On that website, he says:

In 2006 I came up with an idea for an experimental poetic form called the Cleave Poem.

One of my aims was to examine how something can be more than the sum of it’s [sic] parts and can be 3 in 1: synergy, fusion, co-operation, dialectics, marriage, interdependence, teamwork and The Trinity.

How to read a Cleave poem?
Simply:

1. Read the left hand poem as a first discrete poem.
2. Read the right hand poem as a second discrete poem.
3. Read the whole as a third integrated poem.


I found the site because there is a Jack Kerouac poem there.

I decided to try my hand at Cleave Poetry and submitted a poem. It was published January 10, 2009. It's called Immortality.

Check out Cleave Poetry and maybe try your hand at writing a cleave poem. It's tougher than it looks!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could someone answer a question for me.
I belong to a poetry forum and without ever having heard of cleave poetry did an experiment of combining forms.
I have written a three formed poem that reads to make a fourth. My question is simple: Is this cleave poetry?... or is this something else as no one on my site seams to know.
(Forms combined Luc Bat, Haiku, Sestina)
Many thanks for reading this.
Very interested to hear back.

Rick Dale, author of The Beat Handbook said...

Anonymous, without seeing your poem it is hard to tell. Does it follow the rules stated in my post above?