Today's guest judge at Poetic Asides is Hélène Cardona, a French poet, actress, and Facebook friend, who also acted in one of my favorite movies, Chocolat. She is, I daresay, perhaps the prettiest judge of the month.
Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo:
(1) Make a title out of one or more words from a list of Shakespeare "coinages", and
(2) Write a "persona"poem.
William Shakespeare is credited with inventing more than 1700 words and phrases in English, but that number is probably inflated. While a man of his creative genius probably did coin many words and phrases, it's also likely that he may have been just the first to publish some of them in English. He may not have even the first to commit some of them to print, as there were many publications by other authors of the time that were not preserved over the years. In any event, we have him to thank for at least introducing them to us. The list that Robert Brewer provided as a link, which is just a partial list of Shakespearean "inventions", can be found here. I challenged myself to include as many of these words in a poem as I could, so it was my "word bank" for the day. I got 17 of them into my poem.
As to the "persona" poem, it's a favorite device of mine, and I've written a number of them over the years, some from unusual points of view, like a conjoined twin, the planet Mars, and a middle-aged female crossing guard. But when someone tells me "write a persona poem", I get somewhat stumped, like today. It took a while to come up with this, which really feels more like an exercise to me than a good poem. Here it is, for what it's worth. (I underlined the "Shakespearean" words.)
Mountaineer
You may watch in amazement
as I free-climb the sheer face
of this wall, feeling invulnerable.
Nothing will impede my progress
to the summit. I am dauntless -
nothing will dishearten me
from achieving this monumental feat.
I will be the unequivocal champion
when I reach the top and peer out
on a majestic Olympian view.
I know what seems like a mountain
to me is just a bump to you,
and as I am vaulting to my goal,
your single finger flick
dashes my aspirations.
As I fall to the lower depths,
all my efforts seem worthless,
and the savagery of your foot
crushes my hopes into the floor.
1 comment:
Well done! The words and topic you chose seem to flow easily together.
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