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Monday, June 29, 2009

Monday Poetry Stretch - Acrostics

Last week when writing abecedarian poems Laura Purdie Salas mentioned she liked them because they reminded her of one big acrostic to solve. This sentiment resonated with me, so I thought it might be fun to write acrostic poems this week.

During the April Poetry Makers series a few folks weighed in on the acrostic form. Steven Schnur said "Though some have called my acrostic books poetry, I think of them as word play, as solutions to problems of verbal geometry." Avis Harley shared a number of acrostic poems. One example was from her new book African Acrostics: A Word in Edgeways.
ABOVE ALL

Celebrate these
Long-standing giraffes,
Opening
Up clouds and eaves-
Dropping on the wind!

Far
Removed
In airy
Elegance,
Nibbling on high, they
Decorate the
Sky.

Poem ©Avis Harley
This is a fine example, far removed from the school-assigned poems to write an acrostic using your first name, or some vocabulary word being studied. What kind of acrostic will you write this week? Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

13 comments:

  1. Undertaker

    Victim look up.
    Under a low and
    Lowering sky, the vulture comes
    To carry your particulars
    Up to a bleak, black heaven.
    Read the set of his wings, the cruel beak, the hooded eyes. This is no
    Easing into eternity but a short, sharp shock.

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  2. Tricia, I really have to thank you for getting me in a poetry mood each week with your Stretches. Here's my contribution. I'd post it over at The Drift Record but I just posted something else there tonight and want it up for awhile. Hope the longer lines don't wrap - that would be fairly pointless for an acrostic!

    Green

    Squash and tomatoes
    Up, white clematis vining, cherries done,
    Me down on my knees
    Minding the weeds.
    Each year, I hear their green
    Rebellion

    All around. And by the time I stand
    Up again, another season’s come
    To nudge me along. There, in the back yard,
    Under the bare maple’s red leaves, I see
    Myself on my knees again, and next to me
    Narcissus bulbs – named Polar Whites -

    Waiting for their dark dirt.
    I turn, I turn, the year turns with me.
    Now it’s time for the person I am
    To go inside, out of the snow, tuck
    Everyone I love into bed,
    Read them stories. What could be

    Simpler or warmer? Later, I see someone
    Putting small seeds in their trays.
    Rain does its job, too, and the sun comes.
    I hear the year’s green complications.
    Now, the season whispers, go ahead.
    Go ahead. Grow.

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  3. P.S. Meant to say, as usual but even more so this week, Jane, nice poem! Love that low/lowering, and the bleak, black heaven, and ouch, those "particulars."

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  4. Ah, there's a typo. The name of the narcissus is Polar Ice, not Polar White. If poets weren't obsessive/compulsive, I could let it go, but I can't. And I don't like the line that says "the bare maple's red leaves." Strike the red leaves. Just "under the bare maple."

    I know, you really need people posting revisions, right? I read once that Pierre Bonnard asked his friend and fellow painter Edward Vuillard to distract the guards at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris while he retouched one of his paintings from tubes of paint he had smuggled in!

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  5. Lovely, lovely, Julie--
    green rebellion YES!

    Speaking of revisions (isn't it hard to let go?):

    Undertaker


    Victim look up.
    Under a low and
    Lowering sky, the undertaker comes
    To carry your particulars
    Up to a bleak, black heaven.
    Read the set of wings, cruel beak, hooded eyes. This is no
    Easing into eternity but a short, sharp shock.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Some sense have their own symptoms.
    You may experience or
    Not experience
    A sense perception that switches.
    Even
    Senses that are
    Tactile such as your hand, You Hear it, right?
    Estuaries can
    Slide sideways suddenly
    Into intuitive structures,into
    Almost anything -- your lip!


    Ha, ha... this changed drastically due to the "wrapping effect." Major editing was done so I don't know if anything holds.

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  7. One more try....

    Senses have their own symptoms.
    You may experience or
    Not experience
    A sense perception that switches.
    Even
    Senses that are
    Tactile such as your
    hand, you may just hear it.
    Estuaries can
    Slide sideways suddenly
    Into intuitive structures,into
    Almost anything -- your salted lip!

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  8. And I got interested in Jane's poem, so I reposted it with an image... here

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. Love the poems so far! The "bleak, black heaven" in Jane's, the "Each year, I hear their green rebellion" in Julie's, and "Senses have their own symptoms" in Tess' are some of my favorite lines.

    Here's my try. I was going to post a previously written one, but felt too guilty, so here's a new one--today's daily poem:>)

    Dry Sea Skin

    Bumps--clinging, crusty bits--knit
    Across rock, a crackling white rash of
    Roughness
    Nestled,
    Attached,
    Cemented. No soothing
    Lotion of ocean waves can
    Ease the dryness, smooth the
    Slicing shells of salt-water skin.
    --Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

    Huh. Think the line wraps will kill it. Oh well--you get the idea:>)

    Thanks, Tricia!

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  11. Almost forgot--I did a quick one yesterday, too:

    The Best Place to Be…

    Lost
    Inside
    Books,
    Reaching,
    Asking,
    Reading,
    Immersed in
    Every
    Story

    --Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

    ReplyDelete