Yesterday, I set forth the rules for a somewhat reductive poetry exercise for the inspirationally-challenged. (https://manicddaily.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/for-the-inspirationally-challenged-writing-exercise-for-harried-poets/)
The exercise mandates the writing of a poem which is really an extended metaphor; the tension in the poem comes from using a set of physically- charged, action verbs. These are verbs which describe tasks performed in a particular occupation or craft (and are listed as Column B) . The poem is put together from a list of these Column B verbs, and a random list of unrelated nouns (Column A). The poem is put together by making lines which use a word selected from Column A and a word selected from Column B (and, of course, other words.)
Here is a a poem (a connected pair of poems) which I did a few years ago using this exercise. Unfortunately, despite spending some time looking through my very disorganized notebooks, I have not been able to find the full Columns A and B that I used; however, I know that the chosen occupation was “sailor.” (I’m not sure of the nouns except to be certain that “gutter”, “mother”, and, I believe, “burlap”, and “brick” were among them.)
The “sailor” words went fairly far afield from those that you might at first associate with sailor–they included words like “weigh” (as in weigh anchor), “spy”, “navigate,” “haul,” “scrub” (as in scrub the deck), “run” (as in run up a flag), “tack”, “man” (as in man the deck), “cast”, “seek”, “spy”, among others. (If you are doing this exercise, feel free to be similarly wide-ranging in your choices.)
The poem has been edited since the first iteration. I’m posting it because I like it even though I’m not sure it’s the best illustration of the exercise. (Tomorrow, I’ll post a less edited poem, that may be a better illustration.) Still, I hope it gives a taste of how a “set” of verbs chosen as part of an exercise can direct your ideas if you are someone, like me, who is frequently “at sea.”
At Sea
I. Brother
The boy hauled the roses like burlap sacking
that scrubbed his arms with prickle.
Navigating the bunch through kitchen door which he kicked
to the side for noise value,
he hated his mother. What he wanted was to man
the road, casting his day by the side
of the long green wood where he
could lurk and spy and brick up
hideouts with clods of dirt and brush and never lean
to any whim or wish except
of sky and guttering stream
to whose wills he’d willingly tack
his whole young life.
II. Sister
The girl rigged her skirt to
the base of her hips,
tacking the elastic waist
to her pelvis, a convenient gutter
for fabric that would run its own course.
Bottling lips into an appraising O,
she weighed her chances, spying out
navel and the smooth flat skin of her belly
like the long sought shore, distant
yet within reach.
All rights reserved. Karin Gustafson
ManicDDaily 
Recent Comments