Poetry Challenge #267-The Brave Bold Catalogue of ___
Want to toss a wet blanket over a group of boisterous adults (“adults” meaning literate and over 30…or precocious teen) all one need do is mention Sylvia Plath. Immediately one of three things will happen:
Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, written under the pen name Victoria Lucas will spring to mind.
Conversation will switch to discussion of suicide and mental illness and the party scene will turn into round table ala The Voice.
A vision of coed Sylvia pedaling along in pink pops into your mind as you begin silently humming Gabriel Yared’s haunting theme from the stunning, moody 2003 movie Sylvia starring Gwyneth Paltrow—or make a beeline for your Sylvia Plath finger-puppet-refrigerator-magnet.
YES! You too could have one of your very own Sylvia Plath finger-puppet-refrigerator-magnet.
One of the rare snaps of Sylvia smiling—the way I imagined her when she was writing The Bed Book.
Why Sylvia Plath? Why today?
Because: on this day, Oct 27th, in 1932, Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
Because: by the time of her death at 30, Plath had accomplished more than many of us scribblers will in a lifetime.
Because: she was a remarkable, gifted novelist, poet, short story writer Joyce Carol Oates described in the NY Time Book Review as “one of the most celebrated and controversial of postwar poets writing in English.”
Yeah-yeah-yeah we all know this! We study Plath in high school literature and for many of us The Bell Jar was required reading thus Plath+death+sadness+poetry are linked in our minds.
But what we are not taught and so, what many of us never knew existed is the playful, imaginative rhyming poet Sylvia Plath, who in 1959, also wrote—gasp—a picture book!
The Bed Book by Sylvia Plath, is actually a rhyming catalogue of different kinds of beds, including a submarine bed, snack bed, and flying bed and many delightful others.
The original English version, published in 1976, is illustrated by Quintin Blake; the American version features art by Emily Arnold McCully. Treat yourself to either or both-delight filled!
Poetry Challenge #267
The Brave Bold Catalogue of __________
Let’s say “Happy Birthday Sylvia!” by creating a rhyming catalogue poem of our own. (Below are two of Plath’s rhymes from The Bed Book.)
Think of an ordinary everyday object. Something that is so common and common place one hardly notices it at all. Plath’s Bed for example, but not a bed, something different.
Now imagine all the various models or styles that object could come in. For example, might it, as Plath’s beds do, become a submarine or spaceship? Or???
Write a rhyming poem describing one or more versions of that object.
Let that object be brave! Be bold! Let it do what no such object has ever done before!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just Imagine IT!
And just because, here’s the opening scene from Sylvia:
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #266-Kiss'd Me-Kiss'd Me
Leigh Hunt, who was born on October 19, 1784, is known for introducing many famous poets of the time to the public: Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Robert Browning, and Alfred Tennyson.
Hunt was a critic, an essayist, and a poet. Below is a short poem he wrote that is quite well-known.
Poetry Challenge #266
Kiss’d Me-Kiss’d Me
Write a poem that is circular, in the style of Leigh Hunt’s poem “Jenny Kiss’d Me.”
As did Hunt, begin and end with 3 words: ___________, __________, me…
a name an action
Make your poem rhyme in the abab pattern.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do It!
For inspiration, click over to this video of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song “Shut Up and Kiss Me!”
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #265-Eugenio Montale's Eyes
It's Italian poet Eugenio Montale's birthday, born 10/12/1896. As well as being a poet, Montale worked as an accountant and loved to study literature, languages, and music. He was studying to be a baritone in operas when WWI began. After serving in the war, he became a journalist and wrote many articles about literature, music, and art for the largest paper in Italy, as well as writing his own poetry and essays and translating the works of others, including T.S. Eliot.
In 1928, Montale became the director of a library but was fired ten years later because he refused to support the fascist regime during WWII. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.
Below is Montale’s poem, “Bring Me the Sunflower” translated by Charles Wright. As in this example, his poems usually dealt with nature. He often addressed someone who wasn’t there. He was a fan of writing in café’s and of the objective correlative—an object that carries meaning.
Poetry Challenge #265
Through Montale’s Eyes
To honor Montale, write a poem to another person without saying who the person is. Explain something to that person. Include nature and an object that holds some special meaning or a memory or feeling.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just write It!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #264-Judith Kerman by Definition
October 5th is bling-ringed on my calendar—in metallic pens with sparkles—and always has been as it’s my big brother Joe’s birthday and my recently departed mother-in-law, Adele’s birthday. Add to that BIL Paul, SIL Ryan, on the 6th & 7th respectively, and Grandboy Jack on the 11th. Libras all—born under the “idealistic Air Sign.” It’s written, and is true of them all, that “you will hardly come across a Libra who is anything but nice.”
“For me, poetry is at least partly a visual and musical art form. Or at least, it comes out of those parts of my mind.”
Poet and Artist, Judith Kerman, born under a Libran sun, also on Oct 5th, is likewise probably very “nice.” (I’ve just “met” her through poems and Google-search). Judith was born in Bayside, NY and still lives in NY. Her favorite authors include Mary Oliver, Robert Haas, Umberto Eco, Herman Melville and Ursula LeGuin; she identifies as “Disabled, Feminist, Jewish;” and has published at least 10 Chap Books as well as translated several volumes of Spanish Caribbean poetry and fiction by women.
Poetry Challenge #264
As Defined By
Judith Kerman poems are totally “Libra” in that they explore fairness, social justice, meanings of things in a “nice” way.
What’s a “Nice” way? Instead of telling us what to feel, they offer definitions of a word and so let/invite/lead readers to draw our own conclusions as in her poem “air.”
Ala Judith Kerman, choose a word, any word and define that word in a poem. You might choose a more abstract word, as Judith did in “Air” or you might choose a concrete word as in her poem, “Elephant.” (Scroll down for the YouTube of Judith reading “Elephant.”)
Include as many possible definitions of the word as possible—feel free to use a dictionary. And bust out with your own definitions of the word.
Form-wise you might choose to simply list definitions ala Webster, as in “Air,” or shape them into Free Verse as in “Elephant,” or choose some other poetic form.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just Define It!
Find out more about Judith Kerman at her Facebook page.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #263-Upside-Down, Backwards, Sideways Shel
We’re shaking things up the week so we can celebrate Shel Silverstein’s Birthday, September 25, 1930…1931...1932…some year around then (at some point Shel refused to give more interviews and forbade his publishers—and everyone else—from revealing more personal info.) That alone is worth celebrating, right? What we do know is that Shel Silverstein, known most-well to us as an author, playwright, and poet, a self-proclaimed lousy baseball player, former Comiskey Park hot dog vendor, started out drawing comics for Playboy Magazine and writing country songs, one of which, “Boy Named Sue,” is Johnny Cash’s all-time best-selling single! Shel Silverstein passed away in 1999, but through his poems, stories, songs, lives on.
Poetry Challenge #263
Upside-Down, Backwards, Sideways Shel
Here is one of Shel Silverstein’s poems from his collection A Light in the Attic, called “Backwards Bill”. While reading it, can’t you practically see how the alliterative BBs in that name “Backwards Bill” was the driving force behind that poem. But why stop there?
In honor of this rule breaking, risk taking, rhyme making poet, let’s push alliteration as far as we can go by crafting a Tautogram! A quick search didn’t turn up any of Shel Silverstein’s tautograms but can’t imagine he never tried his pen at one. So…This one’s for you Shel!
What’s a Tautogram you ask?
Tautogram, from the Greek words, “tauto” meaning same and “gramma” meaning letter, is a puzzle of a poem in which every word starts with the same letter.
That’s it! That’s the only rule!
Variations on a tautogram include: creating a poem where each line or stanza starts with the same letter and that letter changes from line to line or stanza to stanza.
Tautograms are not meant to be “serious” literature, they are written for fun. So have at it and have fun!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Reward Time: Click over to listen to Shel Silverstein on the Johnny Cash Show!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #262-State of Mind
It seems like every week there’s a National “State” Day. With 50 States in these United States, not to mention all the other geographically defined states in the world, it makes sense! There are lots to states to celebrate. This National State Day , Sept 22, 2022 . But which state you ask?
It could be a physical “state” but… it could also be the “state of denial” or the “state of unrest” or maybe the “state of disarray”… it all depends on your state of mind. we dare to ask the tough question: Which state? It could be the “state of denial” or the “state of unrest” or maybe the “state of disarray”…sometimes it all depends on your state of mind. . .
Poetry Challenge #262
State of Mind
Today let’s honor the state you live in.
Make a list of things you like best about your state.
They might be products your state is known for or facts about your state, or they might be special things only you notice.
Write a postcard poem, inviting people to visit the best state.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
In the spirit of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” try setting your state poem to music!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #261-Kidding Around
It’s National Parents’ Day Off (Sept 14th)! Can you imagine how excited your parents are today?
National Parent’s Day Off was established in 2021, but EPIC! A digital library. Why? “Parenting can be challenging and messy; that’s why parents should get ready for an EPIC BREAK!”
While that is absolutely true, what’s happens to the kids? Enter that Cat in the Hat!
Poetry Challenge #261
Kidding Around!
Imagine your parents really take the day off. What doesn’t get done? What happens because of that? What would you miss the most?
Write a poem about one of the things your parents wouldn’t do. Or write a list poem of all the things.
Try to include how these missing tasks would make you feel.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #260-Grandma Moses Me Anytime!
If anyone ever calls me a “Grandma Moses” I won’t bop them on the head with a broom. No way! I’ll smile and say, “Thank you, kindly!”
Anna Mary Robertson Moses, aka “Grandma Moses” spent all of her 101 years tootling around in the same few square miles called Eagle Bridge, New York.
But, to paraphrase George Baily, folks did a lot of living and dying in her corner of Washington County and at is aptly called “ripe” age of 78, Grandma Moses began seriously painting what she saw…her way!
Happy Grandma Moses Day (Sept 7th)!
Before we rush into our prompt, Here’s more from Bennington Museum, which houses the largest publicly owned collection of Grandma Moses’ work.
Poetry Challenge #260
Just Like Grandma Moses
Take a good long gander at one of Grandma Moses paintings below. Take a moment and transport yourself into the painting, to that time, that place…into Grandma Moses’ world.
Write a poem inspired by that painting.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Luckily Grandma Moses’s spirit is preserved in interviews like these. Click on!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .