Creative
Writing Genres for the Gloucester Project 2013
(On Friday June 14, 2013
you will pass in at least three poems adding up to at least seventy-five lines. I'm not very worried about these limits, but I want to make sure you produce substantial work. The poems will be proofread and typed,
as well as imaginative, insightful, engaging, daring, vivid.)
Poetry
Go Inside a Photograph by Hoa Nguyen
“For this exercise, you will
need a photograph. This can be a photo of yourself, family members, or
strangers. I find it most generative if there is some temporal distance between
yourself and the subject of the photograph i.e.: an archival or historical photo
for which you have no direct memory.
Study your photo in detail.
Imagine what is just beyond the borders of the frame. If it is in black and
white, imagine it in color. Assign it smells, textures, sounds. Imagine that
you can step inside the frame and walk around, experiencing that moment in
time.
Now begin to write. Include
as much sensory detail as possible; make up other detail, speculate. Be sure to
pay attention to the rhythm and sound of your lines as you lay them down. If
you get stuck, try repeating a word or phrase. Read your text out loud and
strike out any awkward sounding lines. Arrange the lines on the page, give it a
title and call it a poem.”
Spontaneous Poem based on an exercise by Rita Dove
To
activate your subconscious mind, do the following:
·
Free write about
your topic for five minutes. (This is stream of consciousness writing.)
·
Pick ten vivid,
interesting, revealing words from your stream of consciousness free-write.
·
In five minutes
write a ten-line poem in which each line contains at least one of the ten words
and in which each of the ten words is used at least once.
·
Make a title
using a phrase from your stream of consciousness free-write.
·
The point of this
poem is to emphasize spontaneity, whimsy, seeming randomness, linguistic
daring, absurdity, surreality, etc.
Metaphor Poem
·
Start with your
topic. Brainstorm aspects of the topic (for example, Fitz Henry Lane=schooners,
house atop Harbor Loop, oil paint, crutches, apple-peru, etc.) as well as
feelings and concepts associated with the topic (for example, Fitz Henry
Lane=luminism, beauty, realism, observation, etc.)
·
Then create
metaphors for items in either list. (From the F.H. Lane list of concepts: Luminism is a painting with a light bulb
inside. Or, a bit more vivid: The sky
in the painting swallowed a light bulb. From the F.H. Lane list of objects: Crutches are legs Lane shed to sit and paint.
·
String the
metaphors together. Edit them. Revise them. Expand them. Contract them. Use
your ear, your mind’s eye, and your sense of the language of images to guide
your revision.
Ekphrastic Poem
·
Choose an object
or work of art (a photograph, statue, song, film, poem, story, painting, etc.)
related to your topic.
·
Write a poem in
which you respond to the work of art as if you were speaking directly to it, or
as if you were an outsider (a newcomer, a tourist, a foreigner, an alien)
seeing it for the first time without context, or as if you were inside the art,
or as if you were the art/object.
·
In the title of
the poem let the reader know what object or work of art you are responding to
and from what perspective you are responding to it.
·
Many students
like to write ekphrastic poems using a poetic form. (See below.)
Poem-based-on-another-Cape-Ann-poem Poem Write a poem in response to one of the poems in the
Cape Ann poet packet. (In the poem, in the title, or in a note, let the reader
know to what poem you are responding.)
Visual-Found poem using your research
- Take sentences directly from your research and/or
from anything you’ve already written for the Gloucester Project.
- Make the sentences into a poem by using a title,
arrangement, line breaks, spacing, and font size and type. The purpose of
this activity is to emphasize the visual aspect of poetry.
- Create a title.
Erasure poem using
your research
- Take sentences directly from your research and/or
from anything you’ve already written for the Gloucester Project.
- Make a poem by eliminating words in the
sentences, by adding linebreaks, by adding spacing, and/or by playing with
font size and type.
- Create a title.
Found vocabulary poem using your research
- Take a passage from your research
- Write a poem using only words from the passage.
- Don’t forget a title.
Traditional Form Poem (Italian sonnet, English sonnet, villanelle, sestina,
tanka): Write a poem about your topic using a traditional poetry form*. (Forms are posted below.)
Combine
any of the poetry exercises with a particular poet form. Or try the same prompt
using different forms.
********************************************************************************************
Traditional* Forms of Poetry
Sestina
Length: 39 lines (six
six-line stanzas with a final stanza of three lines)
Rhyme scheme: none
Rhythm: varied
Other: 123456, then the words
ending the second stanza's lines appear in the order 615243, then 364125, then
532614, then 451362, and finally 246531. These six words then appear in the
final tercet as well, with the tercet's first line usually containing 1 and 2,
its second 3 and 4, and its third 5 and 6.
Italian Sonnet (in
English)
Length: 14 lines
Rhyme scheme: ABBAABBA CDECDE
Meter (rhythm): iambic
pentameter
Other: volta
(shift) at line nine
English Sonnet
Length: 14 lines
Rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF
GG
Rhythm: iambic pentameter
Other: volta
at line nine, couplet provides closure or resolution or twist.
Ballad
Length: varies
Rhyme scheme: usually ABCB
Rhythm: four-beat line
followed by three-beat line, etc. (Beat=stressed syllable)
Other: ballads tell a story
Villanelle
Length: nineteen lines
Rhyme scheme: ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA
Rhythm: usually tetrameter or
pentameter
Other: The first and third
line in the first stanza are repeated in several places. The first line is
repeated at the end of the second and forth stanzas and in the third line of
the last stanza. The third line is repeated at the end of the third and fifth
stanzas and in the very last line of the poem. Here’s the scheme: A1bA2
abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2.
Limerick
Length: five lines
Rhyme scheme: AABBA
Rhythm:
anapestic (unstressed,
unstressed, stressed syllables: da, da, DUM)
or amphibrachic (unstressed,
stressed, unstressed syllables trimeter: da, DUM, da)
with three stressed syllables
in lines 1, 2, and 5; and
two stressed syllables in
lines 3 and 4.
Other: Limerick’s
are usually playful, often absurd.
Haiku
Length: three lines
Rhyme scheme: none
Rhythm: five syllable, seven
syllables, five syllables
Other: traditional haiku
refer to the seasons directly or indirectly (kigo), and include a “cutting word,” a break in the text (kireji).
Tanka is a variation with the following syllable pattern:
5-7-5-7-7.
Renga is linked “tanka” 5-7-5, 7-7; 5-7-5, 7-7; etc.;
finishing with an additional 7-7.
Less
Traditional Poetic forms that might help you create your own form
Acrostic variations:
end-acrostic, double acrostic, mesostic
Anaphora (repetition of line
or sentence beginnings), epistrophe (repetition of line or sentence endings)
Kerouac’s book of blues: one
page poem
Olson’s projective verse
(composition by field): treat the page like a musical score and/or artist’s
canvas
Oulipo Experiments:
N+7:
where each substantive or noun in a given text, such as a poem, is
systematically replaced by the noun to be found seven places away in a chosen
dictionary.
George
Perec’s La Disparition (A Void in
English): no words in the work include the letter “e”
Create-Your-Own-Form
·
Choose a form
(tanka, haiku, acrostic, mesostic, double acrostic, sonnet, villanelle,
limerick, sestina, etc.) and revise the
rules so there are at least three constraints* (rules), or invent a form of
your own with at least three constraints (rules).
·
Use the
constraints to write a poem in response to your topic or some aspect of the
topic.
·
In a note below
the poem write down the three rules.
* Constraints
can refer to rhythm and sound: rhyme scheme, alliteration, syllable count,
stressed syllable count, etc. Constraints can refer to words and concepts: a
particular word has to be in each line or stanza, a particular word cannot be
used, a particular type of word (a color, a season, a name, etc.) must be used,
etc. Other constraints: no words with the letter “e” or every line must have
one word than the line previous or the words on the page must be arranged to
look like the object being described.
Someone Else’s Form Write a poem using a form one of your classmates created.
