Poetry Challenge #81-I’m Feeling List-Less
According to Psychology Today, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Let me count the ways”…wasn’t just pie-eyed, moonstruck rambling. It was good old-fashioned self care.
Make it stand out
According to Robert R. Kraft, PH.D in
“10 Benefits of Making a List”
Lists “help memory and focus our daily lives.”
HOW?????
“1. Lists document what we ordinarily forget.
2. Help us remember across context.
3. Act as a retrieval cue for other items.
4. The linear layout of a list is friendly to our serial processing.
...and the list goes on!”
List from Life Without Pants blog—add it to your list!
Poetry Challenge #81
Make a List
List making is not a new concept in organizing, in procrastinating, or in poetry.
Soooooo many poems are list poems: The Bill of Rights, Barrett’s “Sonnet 43,” Billy Collins’ “Bread and Knife,” Shel Silverstein’s “Eighteen Flavors” to name a few.
In a list poem, you can list things you like (animals, colors, kinds of cars, playground games), signs of a season, tasks you have to do, items in a category, or what you’re going to do today.
Today, try you pen at a list poem.
Begin with your plans for the day today. Or start with a list inspired by one of the ideas above.
Once you have your list, play with the order.
Choose better words that sound the same (maybe rhyme, or use alliteration).
Can you make the poem sound like it has an ending?
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 3200-ish days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry 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 #201-If Billy Can, Then I Can too!
Hey, if Billy Can do it…
Today, in case you need an excuse—or permission—is National Junk Food Day (July 21st). However…contrary to what the good child in you is thinking, this is not a day set aside to “raise awareness” of junk food so we’ll stop eating so much.
Absolutely not! Much perhaps, to Michael Jacobsen’s chagrin. This day, and every July 21st, is unabashedly set aside for the sole purpose of cramming as much junk food into our already junk-filled bodies as we possibly can.
Chips! Soda! Candy-candy-candy here I come!
Poetry Challenge #201
If Billy Can, So Can We!
Billy Collins is a thief! Yes, the former U.S Poet Laureate freely and openly admits that he steals poem by taking the first two lines of someone else’s poem and “rewrite it for them.” So while we’re gleefully breaking all the nutrition laws by indulging in “junk porn” (another of Jacobsen’s terms), let’s add theft to our list of crimes.
For “Litany,” a love poem of metaphors comparing the person of affection with food and more, Billy Collins stole the first two lines of Jacques Crickillon’s untitled poem:
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon
For our poem let’s spatter, smother, cover Litany with junk food metaphors. But rather than leaving those first lines intact as Collins did, let’s follow Maria’s advice from The Sound of Music. Let the junk feast begin at “the very best place to start” The Beginning! Fill in the blanks and then slather it on:
You are the ___________ and the ___________
The _______________ and the ____________
. . . and so on and so forth . . .
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Now that you’re cravings for junk food are sated—or maybe while indulging—treat yourself to Billy Collins reading “Litany”!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. This is INCREDIBLE NUMBER 201! 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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All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
