• About Christine Cochrane
  • Blogs
  • Home Page
  • Links
  • Publications
  • Reviews

Harping On

~ A Writing Journey

Harping On

Monthly Archives: April 2015

Prompt 12 – recipe for an easy poem

12 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

NaPoWriMo

Apparently everyone found yesterday’s prompt really difficult, so NaPoWriMo are giving us an easy one today!

Describe in great detail your favorite room, place, meal, day, or person. You can do this in paragraph form.  Now cut unnecessary words like articles and determiners (a, the, that) and anything that isn’t really necessary for content; leave mainly nouns, verbs, a few adjectives.  Cut the lines where you see fit and, VOILA! A poem!

I like being high up in the mountains and this poem was inspired by a favourite scene in the Alps during the ski season. The title ‘tang of height’ comes from Nan Shepherd’s book ‘The Living Mountain’ about her walks in the Cairngorms.  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-30277488

Tang of height

Live in blue and white
clutch safety netting
look afar, up and down;
see peaks stab thin air
below afternoon-blue sky
crossed by vapour trails
of travellers.

Touch sun, a misted lamp
whose light dusts glacier
in cold, crinkling air;
Hear creak of crevasses:
beneath white pillows
and snow blankets
glacier never rests.

Prompt 11 – a poem in Saphhics

11 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

NaPoWriMo, sapphics

Another day, another prompt from NaPoWriMo:

Today, rather than being casual, I challenge you to get rather classically formal, and compose a poem in Sapphics. These are quatrains whose first three lines have eleven syllables, and the fourth, just five. There is also a very strict meter that alternates trochees (a two-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed, and the second unstressed) and dactyls (a three-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed and the remainder unstressed). The first three lines consist of two trochees, a dactyl, and two more trochees. The fourth line is a dactyl, followed by a trochee.

It may be easier to hear the meter than to think about it – try reading a poem in Sapphics aloud to yourself, and you’ll see what an oracular tone it produces – the stressed beginnings of the lines produce a feeling of importance, while the unstressed syllables of the trochees keep the pace measured. Rhyming is optional, and if you begin to bridle at the strict meter, feel free to loosen it up!

This was quite a challenge, and I’m not sure if I’ve captured the ‘oracular tone’! Dactyls, trochees etc are a distant memory from the Latin classroom, but I’ve not really used them in English. It was an interesting exercise, a bit like a jigsaw or sudoku, and quite satisfying when I got the last piece to click. The poem is an adaptation of an earlier one I did which was inspired by Bruegel’s ‘Hunters in the Snow’.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunters_in_the_Snow

Sapphic Hunters in the Snow

In the snows of January we go hunting
under chalk green skies and the crow-black branches
where the lake glints mirror-hard in low sunlight
as the day closes.

We return low-spirited, heads down, empty
handed with no meat to fill those who hunger,
and our dogs slink, sniffing the iron-cold footpath
where there is no food.

Yet there is frail warmth where the people gather;
skaters glide and crunch on the frozen rivers;
those who gather wood for the fireside embers
welcome us home now.

Prompt 10 – an abecedarian poem

10 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

abecedarian, NaPoWriMo

Today I challenge you to write an abecedarian poem – a poem with a structure derived from the alphabet. There are a couple of ways of doing this. You could write a poem of 26 words, in which each word begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. You could write a poem of 26 lines, where each line begins with a successive letter. Or finally, if you’d prefer to narrow your focus, perhaps you could write a poem which focuses on a few letters, using words that repeat them.

I opted for the 26 word version.  Somehow I found myself in the garden for this wacky little poem – perhaps that’s something to do with the usefulness of flowers at the end of the alphabet!

Garden tips for birds

all birds can
dig every fertile
garden in June
kick leaf mould
near October ponds
quietly rake soil
turning up violets,
xeranthemums,
yellow zinnias.

Prompt 8 – a palinode

09 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

NaPoWriMo

Today I challenge you to write a palinode. And what’s that? It’s a poem in which the poet retracts a statement made in an earlier poem. You could take that route or, if you don’t have an actual poetically-expressed statement you want to retract, maybe you could write a poem in which you explain your reasons for changing your mind about something. It could be anything from how you decided that you like anchovies after all to how you decided that annoying girl was actually cool enough that you married her.

For this prompt I looked through some of my earlier poem drafts to find a statement to retract.  The  poem I chose was also written to a prompt, which was to write about a well-known work of art I didn’t much like.  My choice was Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.  I read about the story of the painting on the National Gallery’s website and wrote this.

To Van Gogh

Sunflowers, symbol of happiness
painted in a rare period of optimism
while you awaited your hero Gaugin,
now reproduced on cards, posters,
mugs, stationery, scarves. And yet
to me the painting is two-dimensional,
the yellow flat, dull, mustard,
hinting at future misery and failed friendship;
these sunflowers will turn from the sun.

For my palinode, I decided not to judge this painting, but to capture the joy of Van Gogh’s anticipation of Gaugin’s visit and give no hint of the misery to come. In this version, Van Gogh speaks – the line about the Marseillais eating bouillabaisse is his own!

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/vincent-van-gogh-sunflowers

For Gaugin’s room

Sunflowers, whorls of happiness,
tints of chrome yellow, ochre,
pigments of ultramarine, viridian:
I paint sunflowers with the energy
of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse,
touch the shades of their life cycle,
live in hope of joy, ideas shared
with Gaugin; mellow, russet days
in the yellow house of optimism.

Prompt 7 – a poem about money

07 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

NaPoWriMo

And now our prompt: Wallace Stevens famously wrote that “money is a kind of poetry.” So today, I challenge you to write about money! It could be about not having enough, having too much (a nice kind of problem to have), the smell, or feel, or sensory aspects of money. It could also just be a poem about how we decide what has value or worth.

This was my take on a money poem:

Sides of a coin

Shell it out
spend it like water
have a good run for it
and see it as no object.

Spend it on old rope
pour it down a drain
fail to grow it on trees
and part a fool from it.

Spend an arm and a leg
put it where your mouth is
keep an eye on it
and pay through the nose.

Be made of it
have more of it than sense
bet your bottom dollar
it will burn a hole in your pocket.

Prompt 6 – an aubade

06 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

NaPoWriMo

Today’s prompt springs from the form known as the aubade. These are morning poems about dawn and daybreak. Many aubades take the form of lovers’ morning farewells, but . . . today is Monday. So why not try a particularly Mondayish aubade – perhaps you could write it while listening to the Bangles’ iconic Manic Monday? Or maybe you could take in Phillip Larkin’s grim Aubade for inspiration (though it may just make you want to go back to bed). Your Monday aubade could incorporate lovey-dovey aspects, or it could opt to forego them until you’ve had your coffee.

This poem started life as a long, thin, one.  Then I decided a potentially crowded day would be better expressed in longer lines with no punctuation.  Working Mondays are a memory for me now, but it’s still easy to feel overwhelmed by the rest of the stuff.  Choices have to be made …

Aubade – Dawn Chorus

You could get up spring clean dust wipe polish

check voicemail email texts bank balance

tweet post facebook status instagram selfie

watch news hear headlines read straplines

call friends make breakfast feed family

commute negotiate contribute to the team

or …

you could turn over and listen to the dawn chorus.

Prompt 5 – reworking an Emily Dickinson poem

06 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Emily Dickinson, NaPoWriMo

Today’s prompt is a variation on a teaching exercise that the poet Anne Boyer uses with students studying the work of Emily Dickinson. As you may know, although Dickinson is now considered one of the most original and finest poets the United States has produced, she was not recognized in her own time. One reason her poems took a while to gain a favorable reception is their slippery, dash-filled lines. Those dashes baffled her readers so much that the 1924 edition of her complete poems replaced some with commas, and did away with others completely. Today’s exercise asks you to do something similar, but in the interests of creativity, rather than ill-conceived “correction.” Find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read – and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of it!

The poem I selected for today’s prompt is ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’
My rejigging, which had several phases, resulted in a long, thin, spare version of the original.

Hope
with feathers
perches in my soul
sings the tune
without words
never stops at all.
Hope
in the gale heard:
sore the storm
that could abash
the bird that kept
me warm.
Hope
in chillest lands
on strangest sea
that never
in extremity
asked a crumb
of me.
Hope

Here’s the original, dashes and all –

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Prompt 4 – a ‘loveless’ love poem

04 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

NaPoWriMo

So, here’s today’s prompt from http://www.napowrimo.net/

Love poems are a staple of the poetry scene. It’s pretty hard to be a poet and not write a few – or a dozen – or maybe six books’ worth. But because so many love poems have been written, there are lots of clichés. Fill your poems with robins and hearts and flowers, and you’ll sound more like a greeting card than a bard. So today, I challenge you to write a “loveless” love poem. Don’t use the word love! And avoid the flowers and rainbows. And if you’re not in the mood for love? Well, the flip-side of the love poem – the break-up poem – is another staple of the poet’s repertoire. If that’s more your speed at present, try writing one of those, but again, avoid thunder, rain, and lines beginning with a plaintive “why”? Try to write a poem that expresses the feeling of love or lovelorn-ness without the traditional trappings you associate with the subject matter.

Here’s a quick poem of the day. I’ve used the word ‘love’, but not in the romantic sense, so I guess that’s all right …

Game

you made the first move
fifteen love
I made it fifteen all

one more step each:
we stand together
at thirty all

then locked at deuce
we wait for the advantage
and the game

Prompt 3 – a ‘fourteener’

03 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

NaPoWriMo

Today’s challenge is to write a fourteener. Fourteeners can be have any number of lines, but each line should have fourteen syllables. Traditionally, each line consisted of seven iambic feet (i.e., an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, times seven), but non-iambic fourteeners also exist. The fourteener was popular in 16th and 17th century England, where it was particular common in ballads, but it also is the form in which “Casey at the Bat” is written. The form is versatile enough to encompass any subject matter, but as the example of “Casey at the Bat” shows us, it is particularly useful in narrative poetry, due to the long line and the step-like sense of progression created by the iambs.

I thought of doing a narrative poem based on last night’s political debate, but opted instead for a quick Easter fourteener.  The trouble with this sort of thing is that it begins to sound like a greetings-card rhyme …

Easter

Season of yellow greetings cards, a time to cook and bake,

the roasted lamb, the hot cross buns, symbolic simnel cake

a time of sunlit daffodils, of tulips pink and bright,

a time to gorge on chocolate eggs from morning until night.

 

And queues build up on motorways, and train lines have delays,

and we all try to cram too much into these precious days.

A visit to a garden centre makes a great day out

but not many people really know what Easter is about.

Prompt 2 – stargazing

02 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

NaPoWriMo, stars

Today the challenge is to take your gaze upward, and write a poem about the stars. You may find inspiration in this website that lists constellations, while also providing information on the myths associated with each one, as well as other salient information. Your poem could be informed by those myths or historical details, by the shapes or names of the constellations, or by childhood memories of seeing them. Any form or style will do.

For this challenge I decided to play around with the Latin constellations named after animals, exploring the rhythm of the words.

Latin in the sky with diamonds

camelopardus, centaurus,
lacerta, lupus, pavo,
serpens, apus, delphinus
hydra, taurus, draco.

piscis austrinus, aquila,
canis, lupus, agnus,
ursa minor, tucana,
columba, equus, corvus.

Luminescent animals
plotted on dark canvas,
Latin in the blue-black sky,
in the sky with diamonds.

← Older posts
Newer posts →

Pages

  • About Christine Cochrane
  • Blogs
  • Home Page
  • Links
  • Publications
  • Reviews

Categories

  • Blogging on
  • Cancer challenge
  • Musical notes
  • NaPoWriMo 30 Poems for April 2015
  • NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016
  • Writing News

Recent Posts

  • From Glasgow to Germany – Ships that Pass
  • 18 July 2019
  • This Place I Know – knitting a poem
  • The Poetry Cure
  • Ways of meeting

Archives

  • July 2019
  • November 2018
  • August 2017
  • February 2017
  • September 2016
  • June 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • July 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Harping On
    • Join 117 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Harping On
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar