M Christine Delea's Blog, page 47
August 7, 2022
Rhyme (Internal) Time: Poetry Prompt
Today's blog poem by Amy Lowell, "A Little Song," uses end rhyme. When Lowell was writing, end rhyme was the norm. However, this was changing--free verse was starting to become the dominant form. (My end rhyme here was unintentional. I am leaving it in!) Lowell wrote in the old traditional way and the new (ish--this is post-Whitman, et al) unrhymed free verse. Her contemporaries tended to write in one way or the other, but she managed both.
If you want to read one of her free verse poems, look ...
A Little Song by Amy Lowell
A Little Song
by Amy Lowell
When you, my Dear, are away, away,How wearily goes the creeping day.A year drags after morning, and nightStarts another year of candle light.O Pausing Sun and Lingering Moon!Grant me, I beg of you, this boon.
Whirl round the earth as never sunHas his diurnal journey run.And, Moon, slip past the ladders of airIn a single flash, while your streaming hairCatches the stars and pulls them downTo shine on some slumbering Chinese town.O Kindly Sun! Understandin...
August 3, 2022
Tiny Ghost Bundle by Bridget Clawson
Tiny Ghost Bundle
by Bridget Clawson
published in Hobo Camp Review, Winter Issue # 33 -- Featuring a poetry tribute
to Tom Petty
Do you remember the Heartbreaker concert in 1990? It is always with me since you died. Today I arrived at the coroner’s office to collect your death certificate. I told the clerk your name – such a painful sound, my beloved. She asked me if I heard the news that Tom Petty just died, and she wept. Other clerks were discussing a tiny ghost bundle named Baby S...
July 31, 2022
The Weirdest Vegetable: Poetry Prompt
I recently heard someone in a hair salon say, "Asparagus? Now, I feel that is the weirdest vegetable." I had been getting my hair washed, so I missed whatever conversation had come before, and I am not sure that context matters.
The idea of a weirdest vegetable is perfect inspiration for a poem.
This week, you have 2 choices for your prompt.
First, you can write about what you consider the weirdest vegetable. Its weirdness does not have to be part of your piece, although it can be. You can w...
In Praise of Okra by January Gill O'Neil
In Praise of Okra
by January Gill O'Neil
published in her 2009 book, Underlife (CavanKerry Press)
No one believes in youlike I do. I sit you down on the table& they overlook you forfried chicken & grits, crab cakes & hush puppies, black-eyed peas & succotash & sweet potatoes & watermelon.
Your stringy, slippery texturereminds them of the creaturefrom the movie Aliens.
But I tell my friends if they don’t like youthey are cheating themselves; you were brought from Africaas seeds, ...
July 27, 2022
Lower East Side Brucha by Rachel Trousdale
Lower East Side Brucha
by Rachel Trousdale
published in you are here, 2013
Blessed art thou, Lord our God, king of the universe, who
maketh Yiddish-English newspapers. Blessed art thou who
redeemeth the stained brown curtains
in billows out the window. Blessed art thou, for thou makest
the Chinese to run a bus from New York to Toledo, Ohio,
and across the street from the bus stop
thou placest the Jerusalem Yeshiva. Blessed art thou, o God,
for thou hast s...
July 24, 2022
The Reemergence Of The Noose by Patricia Smith
The Reemergence Of The Noose
by Patricia Smith
published in Asheville Poetry Review, Volume 15, Issue 1
Some lamp sputters its dusty light across a
desk. Some hand, in a fever, works the fraying
brown hemp, twisting and knifing, weaving, tugging
tight this bellowing circle. Randy Travis
sings, moans, radio’s steamy twangs and hiccups,
blue notes backing the ritual of drooping
loop. Sweat drips in an awkward hallelujah.
God glares down, but the artist doesn’t waver—
wrists click rhythm, and r...
On the Other Hand: Poetry Prompt
Patricia Smith mentions Randy Travis in her poem, The Reemergence of the Noose, so we will keep it going this week.
Your writing challenge this week is to include a lyric from a Randy Travis song in your piece.
I put some below, but there are more lyrics listed online.
Remember to cite the song facts!
(If none of his lyrics appeal to you, try choice #2: refer to a singer in passing, as Smith does in her poem with Travis)
"I'm dialin' 'cross the radio for a song that I can sing"
from The ...
July 20, 2022
Deathly by Rodney Jones
Deathly
by Rodney Jones
published in his book, Imaginary Logic (2011, Houghton Miffllin)
I am alone, driving through St. Louis,
listening to a ballad by Aimee Mann.
There is a fine romance to listening to loud rock 'n' roll
as you drive a late-model car through a big city late at night:
the ordinary nostalgia, with its useless longing,
and then the clearer nostalgia for what never happened:
Februaries in Rio, blind tropical sweethearts,
the last few treaties of the Gore administration.
It...
July 17, 2022
Pain and Place: Poetry Prompt
In her poem, posted on this very blog, Kari Gunter-Seymour describes her Appalachia, both past and present.
Along with physical descriptions (white oaks, rye grass, moonlight, feathers, etc.), there are personal details--a confession of sorts--and even angel bones. The mix of these details creates the poem's feeling of out-of-reach yearning.
See if you can manage that combination in a poem you write this week. No matter where you grew up, you know things about that place that outsiders do not...
