Your topic is recapturing childhood.
Your form is: one free writing stanza with no punctuation only extra spaces.
Your topic is sombrero.
Your form is: Triplet.
For the poetry writers.
Your topic is: healing hands
Your form is: narrative
For the poetry writers.
Your topic is: razors
Your form is: pleiades
For the poetry writers.
Your topic is: Darwin
Your form is: haiku
Form layout:
Line One – Five Syllables
Line Two – Seven Syllables
Line Three – Five Syllables
For the poetry writers.
Your topic is: loss of power
Your form is: cinquain
Form layout:
Line One – Two Syllables
Line Two – Four Syllables
Line Three – Six Syllables
Line Four – Eight Syllables
Line Five – Two Syllables
Example by Adelaide Crapsey
Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.
Form reference: Handbook of Poetic Forms
For the poetry writers.
Your topic is: dewy mornings
Your form is: conversational poem, 3 stanzas, have the person who starts the conversation end it
Example:
Like Day and Night
Did you know it’s been dewy every morning?
No, is that a problem?
It’s not that it’s a problem. Really, it’s quite beautiful.
Ah, the beauty of nature in the morning.
Yes, exactly. Every day is a new beginning.
I suppose that is why they call morning.
You think?
No, I was being cranky, I’m sorry.
Perhaps you could come with me tomorrow.
Perhaps. Or you can come with me tonight.
Tonight?
Yes, the moon is equally beautiful.
I’m more of a morning person.
Yes. And I’m the night owl.
I guess that’s why we’re friends and not lovers.
For the poetry writers.
Your topic is: little girls in pink frills
Your form is: Villanelle (see form layout below)
Form Layout:
Line One
Line Two
Line Three
Line Four Rhymes with Line One
Line Five Rhymes with Line Two
Line Six Same as Line One
Line Seven Rhymes with Line One
Line Eight Rhymes with Line Two
Line Nine Same as Line Three
Line Ten Rhymes with Line One
Line Eleven Rhymes with Line Two
Line Twelve Same as Line One
Line Thirteen Rhymes with Line One
Line Fourteen Rhymes with Line Two
Line Fifteen Same as Line Three
Line Sixteen Rhymes with Line One
Line Seventeen Rhymes with Line Two
Line Eighteen Same as Line One
Line Nineteen Same as Line Two
Example: The Waking by Theodore Roethke
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Form reference: Handbook of Poetic Forms
For the poetry writers.
Your topic is: the ring
Your form is: Pantoum (see form below)
Ex:
Line One
Line Two
Line Three
Line Four
Line Five same as Line Two
Line Six
Line Seven same as Line Four
Line Eight
Line Nine same as Line Six
Line Ten
Line Eleven same as Line Eight
Line Twelve
Line Thirteen same as Line Ten
Line Fourteen
Line Fifteen same as Line Twelve
Line Sixteen
Line Seventeen
Line Eighteen same as Line Three
Line Nineteen
Line Twenty same as Line One
Randomly rip a sheet out of an old magazine (a text page, not an image page) cut it into 20 strips lengthwise and then gather the strips together and cut across thirty times. Put the pieces in a cup. Pull out 15 pieces and lay them in front of you so the text is upright. With a marker quickly circle a word on each piece of paper without giving much thought to their choice.
When you are done write the words on a work sheet (or you can glue or tape them on the page if you like). Write a poem using the words. If a topic doesn’t immediately come to you while you are looking at the words use the topic of “lovebirds”.
If you haven’t attached the pieces to your work sheet then save the pieces and use them again another day.
For the poetry writers.
Your topic is: first meeting
Your form is: free writing
For the poetry writers.
Your topic is: long eyelashes
Your form is: Lune (the English alternative to the Japanese Haiku)
Brief description: 13 syllable (5 / 3 / 5) with no capitals or punctuation. Topic is not limited to nature.
ex:
they are given to
hold close, not
air, not each other
* reference: Handbook of Poetic Forms
Your topic is: a French maid looking out a window
Your form is: Ballad
