Tag: dante

Roberta Writes – d’Verse: Poetics: Personifying The Abstract #dVerse #poetry #photography

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am currently undertaking a modernised rewrite of Dante’s Inferno. I now have a working title for this poem – Gaia’s Redemption. Anyhow, Mish’s Tuesday prompt was to write a poem including personification. This prompt was perfect for the first twenty lines of my re-write. In Canto II, I have agreed to undertake a journey through the nine levels of the Sixth Mass Extinction with my spirit elephant guide. I have entered the cave that takes us down into the bowels of the spirit world. If you are interested, you can read an analysis of Canto 2 of Dante’s Inferno here: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/inferno/canto-2

I missed the deadline for Mish’s prompt here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/03/25/poetics-personifying-the-abstract/ so I’m sharing it for Open Link Night here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/03/27/open-link-night-381/

CANTO II

A living, breathing creature, this Precambrian era cave

It’s 2.8-billion-year-old skin wrinkled by wear and time

Access defended by minions; entry limited to the brave

Their glowing forms a marriage of dolomite and lime

The monster silently screamed its uncertainty and rage

Spirit elephant paid it no heed, gliding past unchallenged

I drew in a great breath, plunged forward, ducking under

Wall of spear like stalactites from which moisture dripped

Somewhere deep below, a gong sounded like thunder

Death’s hand upon me, I ventured into the stone crypt                                               10

***

“Guide, I am concerned your trust in me is misplaced

I don’t know how to achieve your lofty expectations

What if I disappoint you? It will be a humiliating disgrace

I don’t want to face the environmentalists’ accusations”

My Guide did not pause or speak, just shone a soft light

Which illuminated two formations beneath the Hand of God

Symbolising the visual, the first’s gazed through dark eyes

The other gripped a pen between slender white fingers

Understanding came, pictures held power and told no lies

The written word facilitates communication with thinkers                                          20

My cave is based on the Sudwala Caves in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Here are some photographs from my recent visit to these caves.

Picture caption: Wall of the Sudwala Cave. This is a very ancient cave system, the oldest in the world, and is formed in dolomite
Picture caption: The Screaming Monster
Picture caption: This formation (the two small stalactites), is called Lot and his Wife – I thought the formation above looked like the Hand of God.
Picture caption: This formation is called Kentucky Fried Chicken. It hangs down from the ceiling of the cave

Below is my YouTube short of Somcuba’s Gong inside the Sudwala Caves