Category: Wax Poetic

 

Or an ordinary gardener

and her dog named Theo?

My dog is clever.

Not only does he enjoy

poking his nose in the warm

soil as I was plant seedlings,

he is also quite resourceful..

 

Write a poem inspired by your pet. Begin with one singularly detailed sentence. Break your sentence into lines to create a single stanza poem.

/ People who say that fish have no personalities / have never held a fish in their hands / while changing the fishtank water, / feeling the small body flail in such choked / desperation that you suddenly understand / what it means to touch a scream. /

 

Example:

My Fish

People who say that fish have no personalities

have never held a fish in their hands

while changing the fishtank water,

feeling the small body flail in such choked

desperation that you suddenly understand

what it means to touch a scream.

 

Now, write another. Pets make great fodder for writing. Consider writing a poem after . 

-Kim & Constance

Here's another idea: click back to our Pinterest, the Write it… board. Scroll down to the boy flying through the air on the shimmering fish and put on your Poet's Cap.

Imagine that the bony on the flying fish of shimmering shades of orange takes you to a staircase pond of giant carp?

What then? 

Think humorous.

Be humorous.

Take your somewhere imaginative.

Think pun. For example, let’s say that you were to write about the following pun: “I don't trust these stairs because they're always up to something.” What might those stairs be up to? Does it have something to do with the upper floor, or could it be something unrelated?

Sky's the limit when you travel by flying fish.

 

Example:

I Don’t Trust These Stairs

 

I don’t trust these stairs; they’re always up to something.

Apart from fooling around with the well-groomed

second floor, they make a point of tripping me

at least once every day in front of someone I admire,

or stretching themselves to seem higher and longer

during those days when climbing them feels like

scaling the frosty length of Everest: and, in particular,

they seem to find undying pleasure in the task

of making me think that there are more of them,

just when I think that I’ve finished counting the number

of flat heads and sharp shoulders on each flight.

 

 

-Constance

Join the fun on our Pinterest and Write it!

It’s April—National Month of Poetry— let this  be your muse. Write a poem inspired by something that is homemade. The object in question need not be a DIY art project—you could write about homemade food, homemade clothing, homemade furniture. In the abstract, think about what habits are homemade, and which homemade ideas have influenced you significantly.

 

Mother’s Sandwiches

 

They were

Always greasy,

Sticky with lumps of butter,

Subject to lunch-hour teasing, but

They were home.

  

Take inspiration from , which centers on the juxtaposition between the traditional and modern state of China, especially Shanghai. What would it be like if everyone had to visibly drag some part of the past with them, in such enormous amounts? What would you drag with you? What would that part of your past look like? Would you proud or ashamed of it? Would you try to cover it up as you dragged it around?

 

Example:

Red Balloons

 

There is a man

who walks around

the city park

every weekend,

carrying a red

balloon. I’ve heard

people say that

he used to sell

balloons in the

park with his

wife, who always

used to wear

a large apron

that was bright red.

No one knows

what happened

exactly, but eventually

people started to

notice that the man

comes to the park by

himself now,

and sometimes

when he comes early,

the only sound

except for the chattering

of some sparrows

is the quiet squeak

of the red plastic as

he runs his hands over it.

 

-Constance

 

Write a story inspired by this  by Max. Be sure to include a constant undercurrent of apprehension in your tone.

For example, in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, a subtle mood of apprehension and suspense is built when Jackson withholds key details about the lottery from the audience. In “A Game of Chess” from “The Waste Land” by T. S. Eliot, Eliot creates an apprehensive and anxious tone through diction and sound. You can also draw inspiration from musical devices– in Florence + The Machine’s “Breath of Life,” a musical sense of apprehension is built through a prolonged build-up, increasing volume and tempo, and long extensions of notes in a minor key. How might you translate such devices into a simple lyric form such as haiku?

 

Example:

hungry

 

tiny white sailboat

below it, a whale’s black shadow

mouth already open

 

-Constance

And be sure to visit our Pinterest, Write it… board for more inspiration. 

 

Write about an unexpected sliver of nature found in the city. Find inspiration in the dandelion between sidewalk cracks, the butterflies in South Central L.A., rain in the parched corners of downtown.

 

Example:

butterfly in the subway

 

did no one notice how you wandered in,

like that one person at a party

who came late and doesn’t know anyone,

and after tipping his hat at the birthday boy

bobs his fluorescently orange way out?

 

-Constance

On this first day of spring step outside, celebrate the blossoming and craft a haiku greeting.

How to craft haiku:

 

five syllables

s e v e n  s y l l a b l e s

five syllables

 

1. Haiku poems consist of a three-line stanza—16 to 18 syllables total—written in the following pattern:

Line 1: 5 syllables
Line 2: 7 syllables
Line 3: 5 syllables

*Slight variations in syllabication is appropriate as this helps the poet maintain “one thought in three lines”

2. Haiku poems are typically observations of nature (though the form welcomes other topics), often making reference to the seasons.

3. Haiku poems are tiny snapshots capturing moments in time.

 

So, a  “haiku moment” describes a scene that leads the reader to a feeling.

But, remember, your three lines should be woven to a single thought:

 

and I croon in the

scent of Spring’s dotted song, swoon

in her blossoming colors

 

 

In her book Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech repeatedly uses the phrase “trying to catch fish in the air” to mean trying to achieve the impossible, when disillusionment is a much more likely situation. And as a writer with an idea, she doesn't just leave us there, no. Sharon Creech takes this concept of "trying to catch fish in the air" and gives it the form of a picture book (her first) in collaboration with the wonderful art of Chris Raschka. Inside the pages of Fishing in the Air, the world of imagination becomes a place where the similes and metaphors of memory are the storytellers of the mind's eye.  

Now let's write.

Visit our Pinterest Write it board and scroll through until you find a boy flying through the air on a shimmering orange fish. Start imaging. Where is the boy on the fish headed? What might his "fish in the air be"? What impossibility is he trying to make possible? Now, choose one of your personal "fish in the air" and describe it in a poem or vignette. What would happen if you actually caught one of those "fish in the air and rode" it where you pleased? Write about what would happen if you caught your singular fish in the air? What would happen if you caught five of your fish in the air? What kind of day would that be like?

 

Example:

Daydreaming

 

I usually think of it when I’m in line

usually somewhere in the steaming depths

 

of an amusement park in the summer,

somewhere in the crush of bodies slippery

 

with sweat and sunscreen. Or I think

of it somewhere in the musty belly

 

of the library basement, when I look up

from radio static of black words

 

on pallid page, into the one dim bulb

flickering like a sleepy eyelid.

 

When it’s been ten hours driving down

a straight road, and the car’s air

 

is a soup brought to a slow boil,

I shift in my place between the luggage

 

and the door, stare out the window

at particularly inviting cloud,

 

climb its towering pillar as my feet

make deep imprints in its soft stairs,

 

and perch on the very tip, where birds

pass each other with a faint rustle of wings.  

 

 

-Constance

Thanksgiving is a terrific time to connect with friends and family across the miles. But it’s also a perfect time to help young writers creatively communicate thankfullness. Visit our Pinterest page and let the writing begin:

Telephones come in all shapes and sizes.

Imagine a telephone.

Now, imagine a telephone made of cardboard.

Imagine someone trying to make a call, but the only telephone is a telephone of cardboard.

Does this person realize that the telephone is made out of cardboard? Does s/he want it to be made out of cardboard, instead of being fully functional? Why? Does the narrator know why this person is using a cardboard phone? Or is s/he just as confused as the reader? Or, what if the character in the story or poem happens upon the phone, picks up the receiver on a whim, and the cardboard telephone actually works? Who is on the other end? Is that person using a cardboard telephone too, or a standard phone?

Imagine the possibilities and then craft your ideas into a story or poem.

 

Example:

The Girl with The Cardboard Phone

 

There is a girl who talks on a cardboard phone

every day during recess.

 

Past the thwacking of jump rope

on cement, past the many grabbing hands

 

at the monkey bars, below the cracked tube

of the playground slide,

 

you’ll find her clutching the cardboard receiver,

stroking the thin fringe of its ripped edge

 

with a white finger. We used to wonder

what secret messages were being passed

 

into the thick brown strip, soggy with dew

and wet leaves, and whether

 

anyone was replying. We wondered

until one day, we wandered by and caught these words:

 

“I love you too”— accompanied by a smile

like a warm cup of tea on the greyest day.

 

-Constance

 Concrete poetry is not child's play but rather the intersection where typography and poetry meet to play. Sir Ken Robinson reminds us that “…imagination is the source of every form of human achievement.” Concrete poetry is an invitation to imagine possibility.

So how do you begin to craft a shape poem? Of course there are many wonderful resources online, but the best place to begin is to remember that what seperates all poetry from prose is, first and formost, its shape. Each and every poem has a very specific arrangement on the page because white space, to the poet, is an extension of punctuation, directing the reader's eye to pause, move, breathe. Concrete poetry takes shape a step further into the realm of representation. For example, if your poem is about a blooming garden, your poem might be flower shaped. If your poem is about sorrow, it might take the shape of a teardrop. What I love about Constance's poem below is that the simple window shape draws me, the reader, to come near, to peer through the panes and contemplate the complexities of thankfulness with each drop drop drop that fabricates the window frame. 

Concrete poetry is not child's play.

So here's my idea. This week, when I introduce shape poetry to my young writers, I'm going to begin by exploring Constance's poem with them—a single statement with repeated words to form a shape. I'll invite them to meet me at the intersection where typography and poetry play. And together we'll imagine the shape of thanksgiving. Imagine the possibilites.

Why not join the fun? After all, "…'tis the season to be thankful!" We'd love to hear from you. Feel free to post your poems in the comment section of this post.

 

                                     Thanksgiving

 

The first  rain of the year  announces its  presence by every thick

drop                                     drop                                            drop

drop                                     drop                                             drop

drop                                     drop                                             drop

drop                                     drop                                             drop

drop                                     drop                                             drop

drop                                     drop                                             drop

drop                                     drop                                             drop

drop                                     drop                                             drop

on the  glass  drum  of  our  kitchen  window:  a rain that, with kind

drops                                     drops                                         drops

drops                                     drops                                         drops

drops                                     drops                                         drops

drops                                     drops                                         drops

drops                                     drops                                         drops

drops                                     drops                                         drops

drops                                     drops                                         drops

drops                                     drops                                         drops

they say, is  mother to the  stale cracked  skin of godforsaken lands.

 

 

-Kim & Constance