Poetry Challenge #278-Bayard Taylor
Our poet of the week, Bayard Taylor, deserves a round of applause—and danged if he didn’t get them back in his day.
Bayard was born January 11, 1825, in Pennsylvania. He was a journalist for the New York Tribune and a travel writer. As a poet, he was very popular. It is said that a crowd of over 4000 once attended one of his poetry readings. That was a record that stood for 85 years!
You can find many poems written by Bayard Taylor at Poem Hunter.
One of Bayard Taylor’s poems I particularly enjoyed is called Storm Song. I’ve posted it here for your your reading pleasure. Feel the foam flying free…
Poetry Challenge #279
Foam Flying Free
Bayard Taylor’s poems generally rhymed and dealt with current events and people he knew.
Think of an event you have recently attended (a class, a lecture, a party, a dinner, etc.) and write a rhyming poem about the event.
The image of Bayard Taylor above is his standard-issue author/journalist photo. The image below is of a portrait painted of him—I can see hoards coming to listen to him posed like this!
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Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, write it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2400+ 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 #277-The Prophet
Today, we celebrate Khalil Gibran (1883-1931). You know the author of that dog-eared bent spined paperback entitled The Prophet? The one so oft quoted at weddings? Who hasn’t read, owned, or at least seen copy? Apparently no one ANYWHERE! Poetry Foundation called Gibran “the best-selling American poet of the twentieth century.”
“He was one of those rare writers who actually transcend the barrier between East and West, and could justifiably call himself – though a Lebanese and a patriot – a citizen of the world.”
Khalil Gibran (also spelled Kahil) considered himself an artist first, a writer second. He was born Jubran Khalil Jubran on January 6, 1883, in Bsharri, Lebanon. In 1895, when he was 12, Gibran immigrated to the U.S., along with his mother and sibling. Their surname Jubran was Americanized to “Gibran.”
Gibran early works, published in Arabic newspapers, were sketches, short stories, and poems written in a conversational style about Middle Eastern immigrant’s experience in the U.S. Gibran’s work, both art and writing, were not critical successes. Nevertheless, his plain though poetic language style made his work, especially The Prophet, hugely popular--one of the best-selling books of all time it’s been translated into more than 100 languages. Here’s a selection of the “Love” chapter:
Poetry Challenge #277
On the topic of . . .
Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet is really a collection of poetic essays divided into chapters during which “The Prophet” extols “truths” of various topics: love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.
For today’s prompt, as an homage to Gibran, choose a topic, either from the list above or otherwise, and explore its many aspects in a poetic essay. As Gibran did in “Love” and the chapter on “Children” (excerpted below*) include the “dos and do nots” of the topic.
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Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Write It!
*For inspiration, here is a selection from the chapter on “Children.”
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2400+ 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 #276-Just So Kipling
Rudyard Kipling wrote many books you might recognize: The Jungle Book, Just-So Stories, Captains Courageous.
His playful, imaginative stories belie his miserable childhood. Kipling was born in Mumbai, India on December 30, 1865. When he was barely six, his parents took him to England and left him at a foster home at Southsea. After five years there, he was shipped off to a boarding school, a rough one, with lousy food, teasing, bullying, beating and other cruelties. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.
Kipling also wrote lots of poetry: If, Gunga Din, and Mandalay. His poetry often told a story using rhyming couplets and have been set to music many times over the years showing up in jazz, ragtime, swing, pop, folk, and country music. Frank Sinatra adapted and performed the poem Mandalay.
Poetry Challenge #276
Just So Kipling
Write a narrative poem—one that tells a story—using rhyming couplets. Think of a famous person, place, or historical event and tell a story about it.
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Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, WRITE IT!
Below is your reward—a Video of Frank Sinatra singing Mandalay (the version of which was evidently banned in England because Kipling’s relatives objected to it.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2500+ 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 #275-Unfettered and Alive
I want to be free! Free to be! Born Free! or, if you live in New Hampshire, Live Free or Die! And thanks to Gustave Kahn, we can write free…verse!
Gustave Kahn (born Dec. 21, 1859, Metz, France—died Sept. 5, 1936, Paris), was a French poet and literary theorist who claimed to be the inventor of vers libre “free verse”.
“Vive vers libre!”
French poetry at the time had very rigid rules including the number of syllables on a line and the way the poem needed to rhyme.
Kahn’s free verse poetry however, used phrases as the basic unit to measure a line which meant the number of words or syllables could be different on each line. Each verse was a complete sentence, and the use of rhyme was optional. Here is one of Gustave Kahn’s poems entitled Three Girls on the Sea-Shore:
Poetry Challenge #275
Unfettered and Alive!
For today’s poem throw off those poetic shackles, because thanks to Gustave Kahn we can, and write freely about . . .
Freedom!
Think back on a time when you were totally and completely free—unfettered and alive a Joni put it in the song I Was a Free Man in Paris. What does that freedom feel like, taste like, smell like?
Write a free verse poem about Freedom.
Each line should contain a phrase or two and use one complete sentence for each verse. You can rhyme or not, as you choose.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Write It!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2400+ 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 #274-Carolyn Rogers, Gave this World
Today we celebrate poet Carolyn Marie Rodgers, born in 1940 in Chicago. Rogers, who died from cancer in April 2010, often performed her poetry in coffeehouses—dramatic, passionate readings (I’ve included a video below so you can see and hear her yourself, after). The themes of her work included feminism, the role of Black women, relationships, and love.
In her early career, Rogers studied with Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovanni. She wrote many books of poetry and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1976 for how I got ovah: New and Selected Poems (1975).
“Between 1968 and 1978 I never believed that any female or male poet was any more crafted or gifted as Carolyn Rodgers. That is a fact.”
Here is the first section of Carolyn Rogers’ poem entitled Affirmation
Poetry Challenge #274
I Gave This World . . .
Affirmations are recognizing the good things, being supporting or encouraging.
A monologue is a long speech by one person.
Now, write an affirmation monologue of your own. If you want, begin the way Carolyn Rodgers did:
I gave this world…
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, WRITE IT!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2400+ 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 #273-Akiko Yosano
There are days when I do not want to write a poem—because I don’t want to do the thinking that goes into choosing a topic or form or emotion or or or…Those days Haiku is our default. Haiku is one of the first poetry forms students learn because it’s short: 3 lines, rules are specific: 17 syllables 5-7-5, and the topic preset: nature. Even better, as Cindy taught me: singing the beginning of Moonlight in Vermont sets the Haiku rhythm.
Before Haiku there was the Tanka. A tanka is a 5-line 31-sylable poem that is actually 2 poems. The first being a complete haiku—in which the “nature” is often more human based. The second poem portion of a tanka is a response or reflection on the first.
“snow and stars shine on her disheveled hair; ginkgo leaves scatter in the sunset; the nightingale sleeps with doubled-up jeweled claws.””
Tanka are more nuanced in ways that are unique to Japanese and difficult to discuss in English terms, for that reason, many of those published in English are translations from Japanese, especially the works of Akiko Yosano whose tanka incorporate vivid, sensual images and frank freshness that were startling—for their time, and especially coming from a woman—and still surprising and evocative today.
Akiko Yosano, born on Dec. 7, 1878, is the pen name of this Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer. Her real name was Yosano Shiyo, “Ho Sho.” Akiko began writing poetry in high school and published her first volume of poetry in her early 20s, entitled Midaregami (Tangled Hair), the collection included 400 tanka poems. Before her death in 1942, Akiko published about 20 volumes of Tanka. Here are translations of a few of her poems:
Poetry Challenge #273
Tanka Like Akiko
In honor of Akiko Yosano, let’s try our pens at creating a tanka with a theme of love, passion, life.
Tanka are five-lines long with a set number of syllables in each line: 5-7-5-7-7. They consist of 2 parts that are actually more like two separate poems. The first poem is a 3-lines of 17 syllables, with 5 syllables in the 1st line, 7 in the second and 5 in the third. The 2nd poem has two 7 syllable lines.
Begin by creating the first poem incorporating nature to create a metaphor or simile to describe a human or human trait.
The last 2 line poem respond to/reflect upon the first part.
Once the two poems are created, complete the poem by rework the 3rd line of the haiku to include engo (en-goh): words act as a binder between the upper and lower poem to help connect the two parts and complete the tanka.
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Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Tanka!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2400+ 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 #272-John McRae's Legacy
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow…”
The red poppy is the symbol of remembrance worn to honor fallen soldiers because of a poem written by John McCrae, a Canadian doctor and poet born on November 30, 1872.
During World War 1, McCrae served as brigade-surgeon to the First Brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery which, in April 1915, was involved in the Second Battle of Ypres, a horrifically bloody fight during which about 87,000 people lost their lives.
The following day, McCrae noticed the wild poppies blooming in the fields of makeshift graves and was moved to write the poem “In Flanders Field,” written from the point of view of the fallen soldiers.
The poem, published in Punch Magazine, that Dec 1915, was hugely popular and very soon therein, the red poppy was adopted as the memorial flower.
Poetry Challenge #272
Leave Taking
Imagine someone is leaving.
Write a poem from that person’s point of view. In the poem, discuss what might happen after they are gone.
Focus on one specific thing they will miss about the place. Or perhaps that will not be missed.
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 #271-As Defined By...poet Gayl Jones
This time, because it’s her birthday and we can, let’s celebrate the write, poet, activist whom author Calvin Baker called "The Best American Novelist Whose Name You May Not Know.”
Happy Birthday Gayl Jones!
Gayl Jones has always known who she is and where she’s from. By seven, she was writing her own stories…or maybe channeling is a better word for it. At 26 Jones first novel, Corregidora was published. In a 2015 interview Toni Morrison told the NY Times “… no novel about any black woman could ever be the same after this.”
Jones was born Nov 23, 1949, in Lexington, Kentucky. Her father Franklin worked as a cook, and her mother Lucille was a homemaker, storyteller, and writer who wanted more for her daughter, granddaughter, great granddaughter of storytellers. So, DNA! Jones’ style of writing, it’s said, “had to have been influenced by the stories her mother and grandmother told her.”
Voted, one of AALBC.com’s 50 Favorite Authors of the 20th Century & 2022 National Book Award Finalist for The Birdcatcher, Jones is also a poet with several published collections including Song of Anninho. Her AALBC write-up states that Jones tells “…a painful truth of the past, present and hopefully not the future.”
In a 1982 interview, Gayl Jones said that just like most people, she felt “connections to home territory-connections that go into one’s ideas of language, personality, landscape.”
Poetry Challenge #271
As Defined By
Using Jones’ poem Circle for inspiration, capture one moment, one incident, one action or interaction with a significant person in your life in a poem.
Include a few lines of dialogue that round-out that person’s personality.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just Define 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 . . .