Prompt #189 – SummerScapes

Today marks the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Every year on the solstice, I read some or all of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and think about the time I visited Stonehenge to watch the sun rise on Midsummer morning. After the severe winter we had here in the northeastern U.S., this spring and summer couldn’t come quickly enough, and now that summer is here, it seems a good time to celebrate with a poem that’s light, lovely, or filled with a sense of summer fun. With that in mind, our prompt this week is to simply write a poem about the solstice, midsummer night, summer, or any aspect of summer that makes you feel good. 

Guidelines:

1. Make a list of happy summer memories and select one memory from your list to write about.

2. Write a funny summer poem.

3. Write a poem about any character from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Titania, Oberon, Puck). Or write a poem from the perspective of one of the characters.

The entire play may be read here: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/full.html

A list of characters from the play: http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/msnd/characters.html

4. Do a stream of consciousness poem about summer. Think about summer and just start writing. Write for about 10 minutes and see where your thoughts have lead you.

5. Using your five senses as inspiration, create a “SummerScape” that includes summer’s sights, sounds, scents, tastes, and touches.

6. Write something "magical" (or a summer fantasy) in a poem about the summer solstice.

Tips:

1. Make your poem a kind of celebration. Have fun with it. Think warmth, bright skies, sunshine, flowers, leafy trees, children playing outdoors, swimming pools, sailboats, lazy days, vacations—think fullness and abundance.

2.  Use sound (alliteration, assonance, anaphora) to give your poem a sense of summer.

3. Keep your tone light.

4. Use line and stanza breaks that enhance your content.

5. Remember: nothing superfluous—no extra words, lines, phrases, images. Don’t include anything that your poem doesn’t absolutely need.

Examples:

"After Reading Tu Fu, I Go Outside to the Dwarf Orchard" by Charles Wright

"In Summer" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

"June LIght" by Richard Wilbur

"Summer Night, Riverside" by Sara Teasdale

"Wildflower" by Stanley Plumly

Happy Summer solstice, dear blog readers!

"Then followed that beautiful season... Summer.... Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape Lay as if new created 

in all the freshness of childhood." 

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

May this summer bring you the "freshness of childhood" and much joy!