I'm tired of coming up with poem ideas, so this week I read a book: April Galleons by John Asberry. I'm not usually a big fan of Ashberry, (just don't get it) but I did enjoy the book a lot more than I thought I would. Interesting thing: anyone who remembers the Roethke exercise that involves a bank of words and a lot of rules--every one of these poems has one of those words in it. Gotcha Ashberry! And you thought you could just sneak 'tarmac' in there and no one would think anything of it.
I went through the poems and pulled out some words I like, which I plan on using in a few poems this week. I was like, ruffle!! I love ruffle.
Then I typed a bunch of them into polyvore to make a collage. Here are the words I used:
plum, ruffle, spot, sleek, proper, ribbon, and clean.
April Galleons by parrotflower
a huge list of Ashberry words follows:
vetiver smudges fishhook sleek mood sawdust hat bank plum taste thin floor sharp stick scrub door shave shake tactics ship ruffle fit cloak tilt tag crunch fatal bottom strive ask spot sink lost ribbon rust proper plug fresh quiet rich bound wander nourish kind riot wrist find tease canvas jug wisp honey forget fragile burnt pave balloon burst fetching cabbage shut slow moist calm mode lock cash claw simple fakes settle faint judge thistle clean tip lavish stir blind step shy stack stalk whisper
Note: Yes, in the original post I said Rilke instead of Roethke. Oops. To make up for it, the exercise, pulled from The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo, is as follows.
Use five nouns, verbs, and adjectives from the above lists and write a poem as follows:
1. Four beats to the line
2. six lines to the stanza
4. At least two internal and one external slant rhyme per stanza
5. maximum two end stops per stanza
6. clear English grammatical sentences, must make sense.
Nouns: tamarack throat belief rock frog dog slag eye cloud mud
Verbs: to kiss to curve to swing to ruin to bite to cut to surprise to bruise to hug to say
Adjectives: blue hot soft tough important wavering sharp cool red leather
I went through the poems and pulled out some words I like, which I plan on using in a few poems this week. I was like, ruffle!! I love ruffle.
Then I typed a bunch of them into polyvore to make a collage. Here are the words I used:
plum, ruffle, spot, sleek, proper, ribbon, and clean.
April Galleons by parrotflower
a huge list of Ashberry words follows:
vetiver smudges fishhook sleek mood sawdust hat bank plum taste thin floor sharp stick scrub door shave shake tactics ship ruffle fit cloak tilt tag crunch fatal bottom strive ask spot sink lost ribbon rust proper plug fresh quiet rich bound wander nourish kind riot wrist find tease canvas jug wisp honey forget fragile burnt pave balloon burst fetching cabbage shut slow moist calm mode lock cash claw simple fakes settle faint judge thistle clean tip lavish stir blind step shy stack stalk whisper
Note: Yes, in the original post I said Rilke instead of Roethke. Oops. To make up for it, the exercise, pulled from The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo, is as follows.
Use five nouns, verbs, and adjectives from the above lists and write a poem as follows:
1. Four beats to the line
2. six lines to the stanza
4. At least two internal and one external slant rhyme per stanza
5. maximum two end stops per stanza
6. clear English grammatical sentences, must make sense.
Nouns: tamarack throat belief rock frog dog slag eye cloud mud
Verbs: to kiss to curve to swing to ruin to bite to cut to surprise to bruise to hug to say
Adjectives: blue hot soft tough important wavering sharp cool red leather
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