Friday, February 26, 2021

Poetry Sisters Write Metaphor Poems

This month's challenge was to write a metaphor poem using metaphor dice

This year we are meeting once a month on Zoom to write together. It's a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. This time around, Laura rolled metaphor dice for each of us. For me she rolled "the mind is a silent sideshow."

Before we met I decided I wanted to write a triolet. I like the form and find the repetition challenging. Once I had my metaphor, I generated rhyming words for show and then wrote the last two lines of the triolet. (I always begin at the end because I feel it makes the poem more cohesive.) Once I had the A line, I generated rhyming words for head. I usually begin with words off the top of my head, then I do a quick search at RhymeZone. When we were discussing process at the end of the session, Kelly shared the site Rhymer, which was new to me. It generated a really nice list of words, so I'll be trying it our for sure.

A triolet is an 8-line poem that uses only two rhymes used throughout. Additionally, the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines, while the second line is repeated in the final line. Because of this, only five different poetic lines are written.  The rhyme scheme for a triolet is ABaAabAB (where capital letters stand for repeated lines). Here's my triolet.

Hearing Voices
Voices inside your head
are a personal, silent sideshow
fill you with wonder and dread
the voices inside your head
demand to be coddled and fed
poke holes in the truth that you know
Damn voices inside your head
the mind is a silent sideshow

After I wrote this I tried a free verse poem, but it didn't really go anywhere. I couldn't get away from the idea of the unquiet mind and was reminded of a meme a friend shared on Twitter from the webcomic Are You Going to Sleep

In this exploitable comic, users insert their own thoughts about what is keeping them awake. All these thoughts led me to write a poem with rhyming couplets about my brain at night.

Sideshow Mind
dark grows
brain knows
no lows
sideshow overthrows
sleep

internal chatter
thoughts scatter
subject matter?
     stomach flatter
     paint splatter
     cake batter
     mad hatter
wake up!

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2021. All rights reserved.

You can read the pieces written by my Poetry Sisters at the links below. 
Would you like to try the next challenge? Next month we are writing Dizains. This form consists of one 10-line stanza with 10 syllables per line. The rhyme scheme is a/b/a/b/b/c/c/d/c/d. You can read more about the form at Robert Lee Brewer's site at the Writer's Digest. Share your poem on March 26th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Karen Edmisten. Happy poetry Friday friends!