General Poetry posted December 3, 2024


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A Grut poem for the club

The Question

by poetwatch

The road is long 

as you walk all day. 

Yet, when your feet find song, 

heaven or hell, which way? 

 




Thanks to Shelly
A grook ("gruk" in Danish) is a form of short aphoristic poem.
It was invented by the Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein.
He wrote over 7,000 of them from 1939 until his death in 1996, mostly in Danish - published in 20 volumes.
Piet Hein was president of the Anti-Nazi Union when the Germans invaded Denmark in 1940. He became an underground passive resister and found a way to encourage resistance through the use of poems - which he called "gruks" ("grooks" in English). He began publishing them in the daily newspaper "Politiken" under the pseudonym "Kumbel Kumbell".
The poems were meant as a spirit-building, yet slightly coded form of passive resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II.
Some say that the name is short for "GRin & sUK" ("laugh & sigh" in Danish), but Piet Hein said he felt that the word had come out of thin air.

Club entry for the "grook (gruk) poem" event in "The Potlatch Poetry Club".  Locate a writing club.
Pays one point and 2 member cents.


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