Day #2
This was prompt was created by Bear Toffoli, who often graces the stage of the WordParty with his poetry!
For National Poetry Month I thought we could all try the time honored tradition of writing a poem about poetry. To help get the ball rolling, here is a selection of beginnings of poems all about poems/poetry I have gathered. Take one of these and start your own poem about poetry with it. Or for a real challenge you can try to end your poem with one of these lines. Origins of the lines and their poets are listed below.
1. I'm working on a poem that's so true, I can't show it to anyone
2. Poetry is the supreme fiction, Madame.
3. Writing poems about writing poems
is like rolling bales of hay in Texas.
4. There once was a love poem
5. The plum without the snow isn’t very special
The snow without the poem is simply commonplace
6. The form of the poem subsided. It enters another poem.
7. The trouble with poetry, I realized
8. In a poem, one line may hide another line.
9. When a poem
speaks by itself,
it has a spark
10. In the old days a poet once said
11. The great poems
of our elders in many
tongues we struggled
12. “What mighty strong poems.” He said.
Credits:
1. Lloyd Schwartz from “A True Poem”
2. Wallace Stevens from “The High-Toned Old Christian Woman”
3. Ruth Stone from “Always On The Train”
4. Jane Hirshfield from “There Once Was A Love Poem”
5. Lu-Mei P’o from “The Snow And The Plum –II”
6. Barbara Guest from “The Past”
7. Billy Collins from “The Trouble With Poetry: A Poem Of Explanation”
8. Kenneth Koch from “One Train May Hide Another”
9. Elaine Equi from “National Poetry Month”
10. Ko Un from “In The Old Days A Poet Once Said”
11. Hayden Carruth from “Endnote”
12. Ellen Bass from “Mighty Strong Poems”
