This was interesting. I’ve written triolets before and I ran into the same issue this time. One feels the repeated lines would be more affecting if the poem were sung; on the page, they can seem a bit like dead wood. Perhaps my approach is too straightforward? At any rate, I decided to write several triolets and play with different approaches. One approach is simple and uncomplicated. It’s lyrical because as I said, this kind of thing feels like it should be sung. The second approach involves the repeated lines… Read more Poetry Challenge 17 Triolet: Post Thy Poems! →
What an interesting theme this has been for me to work with! I’m looking forward to seeing your poems. Post them in the comments below. The Challenge stays open forever.
Apologies for the interrupted schedule, dear friends. The challenge is open now. Post away.
The challenge this time is to use the rhymes Dickinson used in this poem, whether as internal or external rhymes. We may make of them what we will. We need not emulate her style or her vocabulary or syntax, though it’s good to plow up and till our own once in a while. A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period– When March is scarcely here. A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels. It waits upon the… Read more Poet’s Challenge 10: ‘A Light Exists in Spring’ by Emily Dickinson →
I keep meaning to go back and do a first-line challenge again, as we did in our first two poetry challenges. The idea of making a new poem from a… Read more Poetry Challenge 8: Reversion to First-Line Challenge →
I need another week! But challenges are delicate things, and not to be trifled with. What part was hard for you? For me, the anachronisms didn’t really happen. Although I did manage to put my subjects into situations in which we don’t ordinarily think of them. Also, did you find yourself wanting to write about people you like or people you don’t like? I ended up writing about people I mostly like, and I think this may have been a rookie mistake. There’s not much bite in that. (And I’m thinking I… Read more Poetry Challenge 7: Post Your Clerihews! →
Is there something in your life you care so much about that you can’t speak politely on the subject? For me, poetry is that subject. Perhaps that is why I so largely look for virtues rather than defects when I work with individual poets. When you can’t be polite, you must be good, or burn it all down. I am not in favor of burning it all down. But every now and then I must let my feelings out to give the popular poets a good verbal flogging and remind them how… Read more Poetry I Can’t Be Polite About: Also, “Wicked Poets” →
I’ve been reflecting on the fact that several commenters now have opened themselves to the public gaze in a very courageous way: you’ve posted your first attempts, or your first attempts in many years, at writing a poem, here for us to see. In the spirit of reciprocity, I wanted to post my own first poem. I wrote this 22 years ago if my calculations are correct. I still remember the rush of joy, walking through the kitchen, at having that really poetic idea burgeoning in my mind – the… Read more Putting Ourselves “Out There” →
Slow Literature 