geekyI am participating in National Poetry Writing Month, where the goal is to write one poem a day for 30 days. During the month of April, I will be using the writing prompts at ReadWritePoem.org and posting the results.
Day thirteen prompt (words, words, words)
Try to incorporate as many (or as few) of the below words into a poem.
Acute, green, briny, room, pool, changeling, singularity, jubilant, impugn, hotel
To this I added my sister's list of 50 words and used them ALL.
| 1. blue 2. star 3. flow 4. ecstatic 5. universe 6. truth 8. commitment 10. sparkling 11. river | 12. radiant 13. gift 14. wild 15. animal 17. verdant 18. sylvan 19. self 20. reassure 21. companion | 22. educate | 32. crimson 33. fire 34. rustle 35. assess 36. innocence 37. rescue 38. collaboration 39. feather 40. soft 41. shadow | 42. meaning 43. forty- three 44. sea 45. meadow 46. elementary 47. knowledge 48. whisper 49. bang 50. golden |
Yes, she did skip No. 9, but I more than made up for it by including the words from ReadWritePoem.org.
There is Nothing Good nor Bad But Thinking Makes it So
The red "V" on my forehead, my mom said,
indicated I was a changeling. Armed
with this knowledge, as others rustled
paper in elementary rooms, I contemplated
my own truth: a blue-star world of
feathered meadows and wild gifts. I
wandered, as my sylvan self, through
books tucked between pages of homework.
I sought to educate myself on my
lush familial home, with faeries as
radiant companions, romping in golden shadow.
I rode an ecstatic wave, destined to break
into briny pools. How was I to know
it was only a sparkling hotel of my making?
My animal friends flowed with me
across whisper seas of soft green velvet;
rescued me from forty-three months
of acute school boredom. How was I to know
this shining, jubilant journey, which had
reassured me in my innocence, that peaceful,
verdant world, would be robbed
of meaning, impugned
by a crimson singularity?
A collaboration of fire, words
that assessed my commitment: Hey,
nerd, what are you reading? And thus,
my elven universe
collapsed with a bang.
My sister sent me this list for the 50-word prompt earlier this month, but I didn't get in time to use it then. While that exercise called for us to use only the words that really spoke to us, in this case, I decided to challenge myself and use them all. Since my sister sent me very evocative, lyrical words, I thought immediately of a childhood books on faerieland, from which this poem stems.
Moral:
Borrowed words lead to fresh ways of thinking.
