Sort of “found poetry”, and yet not really true “found poetry”.

What I usually do is, I open a book and try to make a poem out of the words nearest the left margin (or the right margin, or the center of the page, depending on my mood; these are all from the left margin).

I wrote these for April being National Poetry Month.

I.

Considered it,
man compelled at once-
no.

Take her orders and the door.
It closed questioningly.

He felt sick- and yet-
there, beginnings remain.

page 65 of The Morgaine Saga (omnibus edition)
Gate of Ivrel by C.J. Cherryh

II.

There-
deep places
often overgrown
in
passage-
the hills,
born to this land
without sleep and rest,
lag by several lengths
at dusk,
against the
sprawling and untidy
maps.

To learn the names
of the land
where spring flowed,
drink
from her hand,
drinking them.

He nodded,
and
little
came
down.

page 413 of the Omnibus edition The Morgaine Saga
Well of Shiuan by C.J. Cherryh

III.

Song was neither outcry nor sheltering.
Do not Lord now if we help that one left-
only sin and his kinfolk.

The hall was long and restless,
wings making fire at last,
quiet without armor,
the hour very well organized.

Eyes that had lain on wars came. “Is it?”
“Aye. Answered, known, and may it be.”

Fifteen hundred years distressed him.

from page 529 The Morgaine Saga (omnibus edition)
Fires of Azeroth by C.J. Cherryh

(Backdating as I read The Morgaine Saga before I read mulya Pinkerton.)

The Morgaine Saga is science fiction-fantasy, and I do not really read a lot of fantasy, esp given that fantasy heroines tend to be decked out in chain mail bikinis or be token playthings. Morgaine, however, is neither. Course she is thought to be a witch, but that is because she is from a distant, technologically advanced world. The last surviving member of the task force sent out to close interplanetary Gates (portals/wormholes) which are undermining the fabric of the universe, Morgaine is stranded on a planet where feudal rules prevail. She proves quite capable of playing by these rules, even though the odds are much against her and her liegeman, Vanye.

The trilogy could just as well be titled The Vanye Saga, as it is told from Vanye’s point of view and Vanye is a most interesting and sympathetic character. At first he is horrified that he has unwittingly entered into an unconditional allegiance to Morgaine, whom he views as a not-human who wields terrible magic. He is caught in a bind- break his oath to her, which would mean the damnation of his soul for all eternity, or keep his oath to her, which would likely mean the same thing. The situation is not unlike his entire life- such being the lot of a bastard son born of a powerful lord and a very unwilling, equally powerful lady of an enemy house. Cursed and cast out for killing his half brother in self-defense, Vanye choses to see his year commitment to Morgaine as a chance at atonement. Once the year is up, he is a free man with a clean slate- he can actually live a life free of the worst of his stigmas.

During the break-neck, miserable struggle for survival that Morgaine’s mission becomes, however, Vanye becomes aware of the awful burden on her and of the secret she carries that could destroy his world and will most certainly destroy her. He realizes that she is oath-bound to something much larger than he has ever known, something beyond the pale of the medieval powers and alliances and forces that want desperately to have it for themselves. Something that another person from far away has come to gain, as well.

The trilogy’s first book, Gate of Ivrel, is set in Vanye’s world and time. Well of Shiuan follows up events, hundreds of years distant on a quite different world(and yet but a momentary hop for Morgaine and Vanye), which have carried over through the gate and become hopelessly entangled with local politics and a looming natural disaster. This most directly spills over into Fires of Azeroth as thousands flee through the gate into yet another world, seeking to take it and the unlimited, unreliable, and unstable powers of the gates for themselves.

The character development is nicely done if not brilliant, the action fast-paced, the plot believable, and the resolution satisfying. Early Cherryh, she’s still learning, but quite enjoyable.