Our challenge this penultimate April Sunday, is to write a poem informed by musical phrasing or melody, that employs some form of sound play (rhyme, meter, assonance, alliteration). One way to approach this is to think of a song we know and then basically write new lyrics that fit the original song’s rhythm/phrasing. I watchedContinue reading “Paul called”
Tag Archives: 2025
Billy left me for Tasmania
Today, we were asked to write a poem that tells a story in the style of a blues song or ballad. I will return to this another day. The love of a young boyIs the most tender of thingsIt’s a summer of pure joyA wonderous butterfly wing. For the love of a young boyIs aContinue reading “Billy left me for Tasmania”
Lisa’s song
Today’s optional prompt is to craft a poem that recounts an experience of driving/riding and singing, incorporating a song lyric. Today’s resource took us on a virtual visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where I found out about a still unsolved robbery in 1990, when a dozen invaluable works of art were stolen. IContinue reading “Lisa’s song”
Breakfast for two
Today we are challenged to write a poem themed around friendship, with imagery or other ideas taken from a painting by Leonora Carrington, and a painting by Remedios Varo. Both artists belong (in part) to the surrealist school which I normally love, but I struggled to find anything to spark me with Carrington’s work. WhenContinue reading “Breakfast for two”
Velvet Alleyway
Today’s gauntlet takes the form of writing a poem that imposes a particular song on a place. We are to describe the interaction between the place and the music using references to a plant and, if possible, incorporate a quotation – there will be bonus points for using a piece of everyday, overheard language. IContinue reading “Velvet Alleyway”
Kia Hora Te Marino
Our challenge today is to write a six-line poem that has the same qualities as (from 60’s rock band MC5) Brother J.C.’s warm-up and Jane Kenyon’s poem The Shirt. Both are informed by repetition, simple language, and they express enthusiasm. They have a sermon/prayer-like quality and then end with a bang. Today’s resource took meContinue reading “Kia Hora Te Marino”
Symphony of the Glen
Today we are asked to try writing a poem that describes a place, particularly in terms of the animals, plants or other natural phenomena there. We should sink into the sound of our location and use a conversational tone, incorporating slant rhymes (near or off-rhymes, like “angle” and “flamenco”) into our poem. For an extraContinue reading “Symphony of the Glen”
What do you see?
Our prompt for today is to use Donald Justice’s poem, “There is a gold light in certain old paintings,” which plays with both art and music, and uses an interesting and possibly self-invented form. His six-line stanzas use lines of twelve syllables, and while they don’t use rhyme, they repeat end words. Specifically, the secondContinue reading “What do you see?”
Diamond Island
April 11. Eleven days in and we are asked to work up a Villanelle using lines from songs. I took my inspiration from Dylan Thomas, Simon and Garfunkel and Pink Floyd. Sometimes, you just need to hear your own voice say, it’s going to be OK. I am a rock; I am an island.When wildContinue reading “Diamond Island”
Eye Per Bowl
April 10. Today’s task? To tenderise our texts with titillation and alliteration and punning and see if we can work in references to at least one word we have trouble spelling, and one that we’ve never quite been able to perfectly understand. I don’t think I fully met the brief, but then again, when didContinue reading “Eye Per Bowl”
Missives & Musings 