The challenge this month was to write a wordplay poem. Laura set this challenge based on one offered up by Nikki Grimes in May 2015 at Today's Little Ditty. Here's an excerpt:
When I first began to write poetry at age six, it was the result of wordplay. So try this wordplay exercise and create your own free verse poem.
When I talk about wordplay, I'm talking about studying a word from top to bottom, and inside out, considering every aspect of the word: What it looks like, sounds like, feels like. What it does, how it's used, etc. The idea is to bring all of your senses into the act. The poem you create may end up being complex and sophisticated, or very simple. But whether you're writing a nursery rhyme, or a complex prose poem for adults, wordplay is a valuable skill in the process of creating dynamic, original, poetry, or lyrical prose.
Last year when we wrote hippo poems, I wrote in this form. I really love that poem, so I was a bit intimidated to try this again. It took a while to find a topic I liked, but I'm surprisingly happy with this draft about lemons.
Lemon is a sour word
that makes you purse your lips
squinch your face
shiver at its taste
Lemon is a disappointing word
turn the key in a new-to-you
used car as it sputters
and chokes
Lemon is sunny word
recalling hot summer days
money-making schemes
grandma’s depression glass pitcher
Lemon is a scurvy word
eat the wedge
peel and all
daily dose of Vitamin C
Lemon is a chef’s word
brightening every dish
a zestful ingredient
unheralded secret weapon
Lemon makes that spot on my jaw just in front of my ear hurt just reading it! Well done! ("Scurvy word" is still my favorite part!)
ReplyDeleteYour lemon poem does such a good job of showing the different sides of lemons - I can smell and taste and feel them all. And I love your migration poem. Beautiful images wrapping so many directions... a wandering word. Keep working on that one and let us know how it goes!
ReplyDeleteOh, zestful -- both of these! The lemon of a used car was just perfect, and all that wandering in migration... beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI love how thoroughly you explore lemons here, Tricia! And how it goes from sour to a zestful secret weapon! Also--live is lived in motion. That is so lovely and so true.
ReplyDeleteI love both poems. I wonder if migration as travel isn't the way in to human migration, even though it's there for the birds and such?
ReplyDeleteMan, I just -- scurvy!! Who even would think anyone still needed lemon drills!? I'm still agog! And you couldn't make a face! Were y'all timed, or something!? I think "zestful" is such a fun word here. And I REALLY love the unfinished second one - migration - a word that just living in motion, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI am delighted with your lemons, such a beauty of a fruit with parts I know about yet may have never put them in, like with scurvy. And the migration, maybe it was your intro, but your opening, "a traveling word" put people in my mind, too. When I see crowds all over our earth on the move, I sympathize with their hardships, wonder how it feels never to just "be there". You've opened up some thoughts with both, Tricia. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteTricia, I like your take on this form, focusing less on the structure of the word and more on the shades of meaning. I too, love the scurvy stanza! And look how nicely your migration poem sits alongside my travel one...
ReplyDeleteHa! I forgot that lemon is a bad used car until you popped that in there. I love how your poem covers all the bases, from sour to sweet. Lovely!
ReplyDeleteI could feel my lips purse as I read the first line of "Lemon"--excellent details of facial reactions! I enjoyed the alliteration in "Migration" (whale or wildebeest / bird or butterfly...wandering word). Have fun playing with it!
ReplyDeleteI love these lines in the lemon poem
ReplyDelete"a zestful ingredient
unheralded secret weapon"
I love the unexpectedness of the language "secret weapon."
Thanks for sharing these and for the invitation to the next challenge!
You have provided us with the many sides of lemons but when I read scurvy word I had to pause and laugh. As for your migration poem I think it is shaping up so nicely. I could not help but think that adding a stanza on immigrants or refugees would be a beautiful thought. Perhaps you can use the thought human migration as a prompt when trying to craft your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThe migration poem resonated with me. I like the third stanza.
ReplyDelete