Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "form" and/or "anti-form" poem, and (2) [after citing an introduction to the rock band The MC5 and a short poem by Jane Kenyon as examples] "While Brother J.C.’s warm-up and Kenyon’s poem might seem very different at first, they’re both informed by repetition, simple language, and they express enthusiasm. They have a sermon/prayer-like quality, and then end with a bang. Your challenge is to write a six-line poem that has these same qualities."
I hope you'll pardon me for being a bit more political than usual this month, but the turn our country has taken in the last few months has me truly more worried than I ever have been for the future of our country, and I have lived through the terms of fourteen presidents. For my "form," I used the one allegedly invented by Donald Justice from Day 13 (six lines of twelve syllables preferably in iambic, with repreated words at the end of lines 2 and 4, and lines 5 and 6.)
Manifesto
It’s past the time for lying down, for sitting still,
For standing frozen, disbelieving. Time to march,
Time to fill the streets and write your favorite sign
of protest. Don’t allow this vile regime to march
with heavy boots
over laws and decent people.
It starts the
contract they’ve torn up: WE THE PEOPLE.
1 comment:
Very well done, Bruce. Quiet but strong.
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