First, I'd like to thank Maureen Thorson for citing my full-length poetry collection, The Bungalow of Colorful Aging, on her blog today. I estimate that at least half of the 54 poems in my book were inspired by her April prompts over the years. (Robert's Write Better Poetry prompts were instrumental too, of course.) See the link on the right for more information if you would like a copy. (As of this writing, it's available at Amazon.com for 53% off the cover price.)
Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem with the title "You Are ______," and (2) write an "index" poem, either using "found" language from the index of a book, or creating your own index.
I remember doing this NaPoWriMo prompt a few years ago and creating my own index for an imaginary book about Donald Trump. This time I took an actual book: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson. This voluminous edition has two indexes - one for first lines and one for topics in her poems. I used the topic of "heart" and listed all the subtopics in that category, then used them as a sort of "word bank" for my poem. I tried not to read the poems themselves so I wouldn't "steal" any other text of ideas from them, but I did peek a few times. This poem, in her most famous cadence and form, contains about 25 words and phrases found in the index.
It was a gift, yet full of meat
this Largest Woman's heart,
and popular, but broken too,
with over-eager art.
her heart its capital.
The mob within knocked at closed doors
imperial and full.
it tossed ships of all sort,
until the pirates of its chambers
anchored in its port.
forsaken in its care.
The tune too red, it sang along
but found no answers there.
it had vast sympathy
to poor and torn and little hearts
in need of remedy.
and full of joy and tears.
almost two hundred years.
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