This week’s prompt asks you to
think back to a relationship from your past (parent, friend, romantic, work, May-December,
toxic, love/hate, abusive). If you think hard you’ll be
able to define several. Focus on one and think about one word that describes or
relates to that relationship. Can you write a poem about the relationship that
uses the word just once for maximum effect (in the title and/or text of the
poem)?
Guidelines:
1. Think about your past
relationships—don’t limit the kind of relationships you remember, and keep in
mind that this must be a past relationship, not one in which you’re currently
involved.
2. Choose one of your past
relationships as the subject for your poem.
3. Think of a word that relates,
directly or indirectly, to that relationship. Just one word, so make it a
strong one!
4. Begin writing your poem (about
the relationship) and include the word (in the title and/or within the poem).
BUT …. here’s the challenge: you can only
use the word once. Synonyms (as many as you like) are allowed, though.
Tips:
1. Because you’re focused on two
things in this poem (the relationship and the word), work toward incorporating
them through imagery and content.
2. Try writing beyond your last
line, then go back and find the real last line hidden in what you’ve written.
3. Don’t undercut your poem’s
“authority” by ending with trivia or a “so what” line that doesn’t make your
readers gasp.
4. Leave your reader something to
reflect upon.
5. Point toward something broader
than the body of the poem.
Example:
Take a look at the poem below,
“Red Bud,” from Nancy Lubarski’s book, Tattoos
(Finishing Line Press, 2014, Copyright © 2014).
Although the poem wasn’t written
for this prompt, it’s still a perfect example of what you might do with your own
poem this week. In “Red Bud,” Nancy deals with the relationship between parents
and children, loved ones, and losses. There are several relationships at work
in this poem. The tree that fell in a storm might well be a metaphor for other
kinds of loss. Notice how Nancy’s
poem is image-based and written with absolute economy of words. This poem tells
a story, but it’s not merely anecdotal—it does more than simply relate
something that happened, it goes beyond the obvious and suggests something more
than the loss of a tree. As I've noted often before, the best poems have more than one subject: their obvious subjects (of course) and one or more "inner" subjects as well. Think about how you can achieve this in your own work.
Which word in the poem do you think is the defining
word in "Red Bud," articulated only once? (Scroll
down for the answer.)
Red
Bud
When you planted it years
ago, it was to teach our two
sons about care and tending.
They helped you trim the
branches each spring to
ease its growth upward.
I wish the storm had spared
that Red Bud—the single
gust that ripped the roots
and toppled it. Now, there will
be no more flowers. The boys
are older; they didn’t notice
that the tree was gone.
(Reprinted
by permission of the author.)
You can order Tattoos (I recommend it highly!) directly from the publisher.
(Answer: The defining word in "Red Bud" is “gone,”
effectively placed as the last word in the poem.)
