Inductive Poem

I'm on the road with little opportunity to connect, and I mean to offer examples of poetry other than my own to illustrate the principles of inductive and deductive poetry, but I have no poetic library with me on the road. It so happened that today, staying at my daughter's, I saw a scene which inspired an inductive poem.

Inductive poems are often "found poems" in the larger sense, not confined to words found in a paper or book and rearranged, but built from a scene actually experienced that lends itself to poetic treatment--though not to the extent that Keats' "Ode to a Grecian Urn" is developed, though strictly one must admit that ode to be an inductive poem, since it was inspired by the Elgin Marbles.

Anyway, here's my poem:


A Touch

A old man in a brown cardigan
held a black Chow by a chain leash
beside the chain-link fence
where children thronged,
reaching their small fingers
like the white flames of stars
through the open diamonds
of the woven steel, crowding
arms on shoulders, shoulders on backs,
chests pressed against the fence,
clamoring for a touch of fur,
the feel of a living thing
behind no barrier
but not beyond its chain.


Thanks for reading, and when I return from my trip around Feb. 1 I'll be able to write more about my new dichotomy for poetry, especially how inductive poetry seems to be in the ascent right now, whereas during the Restoration it was deductive poetry that ruled (Pope, Dryden). I also mean to visit and comment on my favorite poet-bloggers when I come back. Time is restricted at this library near Sacramento.

Oh, and my mood remains improved, glory be to God and new medications!


Thine,

CE