the character poem

An exercise I like, a variation on the traditional character sketch, is a character poem I adapted from a now forgotten source (sorry source) a couple decades back. (The bookends of the poem are based on the Biblical idea that if a city had even one good person living in it, God would save that city for the sake of that righteous soul.) The exercise appeals to me because it demonstrates how, in only a few words, a character can seem real to the reader. Here's the formula.

Line #1: Surely the...