When Elizabeth Barrett Browning
published Poems in 1850, I doubt if
she would have imagined that a sonnet in that collection (“How Do I Love Thee?”
Sonnet 43) would become world famous or that its title would be the source for
a prompt topic on a 21st century blog. But here it is …
Lest you begin to think that our
prompt this week is cupid-driven, let me assure you that we’re not going to
write love poems—we’re just using a certain spin on a famous love poem as a prompt
title to jump-start our writing.
Here’s the idea: Adopt the
persona of one of your neighbors and write a poem that tells how that neighbor
sees (thinks about) you. You may prefer to be serious with this or you may go
for a lighter, humorous tone.
This week, pay special attention to sound (the music in your poem) through use of alliteration, assonance, dissonance, anaphora, and internal and scattered rhymes.
Some Things to Think About:
1. What does the neighbor think
of you? Why?
2. What does the neighbor believe
about you? Why?
3. What does the neighbor hear
through your open windows?
4. What does the neighbor see or
hear of your personal life?
5. What does the neighbor think
he or she knows about you (correctly or incorrectly)?
6. Can you use the famous line
from Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” (“Good neighbors make good fences”) as an
epigraph or to enhance meaning within your poem? "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost
7. On the flip side, what don’t your neighbors “see” about you and
your life?
8. An alternative idea is to write a poem about a neighbor (or neighbors); and a second alternative is to write a poem about the image at the top.
Examples:
Alas, I wasn’t able to find any
example poems that quite fit this prompt, but I did find one “neighbor” poem
that you might enjoy: "The Good Neighbour" by John Burnside
