You’ve all probably heard of “selfies,”
pictures we take of ourselves and then post on smartphones or social media such
as Facebook. Some of these are funny. I even posted a close-up of my dog’s face
on Facebook and noted that it was his own selfie. In a more literary/poetic
mode, I recently re-read part of Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and got to thinking
about “selfie poems” (poems that poets have written to be specifically “definitions”
of themselves). There certainly are a lot of them, but I thought that, perhaps,
a “selfie poem” with a slight twist might be interesting to try. So … this
week, the challenge is to write a poem in which your past self talks to your present
self.
Think in terms of who you were
and who you are right now.
Guidelines:
Begin by jotting down some character
traits and experiences from your past (list, scribble).
Then, do the same thing and jot
down some current character traits and experiences.
Think about what made you who you
were and what makes you who you are.
Think about how you define
yourself. What things define you?
After you’ve gotten some ideas, you
might try writing in a dialogue format, going back and forth between “past” and
“present.” (Of course, any form with
which you’re comfortable is fine.)
Tips:
Try using a few questions as a
technique for expressing content and holding reader interest.
Experiment with sound—try to
create a sense of music in your poem through alliteration, assonance, consonance,
internal rhymes, off rhyme (also called slant rhyme and near rhyme), and
anaphora. Use auditory imagery: give an impression of how something sounds
though images.
Be sure to use concrete rather
than abstract images. Change abstract words into concrete words when you
revise.
Subvert the ordinary: see and
show things in a new, exciting way. Take something ordinary and turn it upside
down (subvert it).
Don’t overwrite—remember that
less can be more.
Examples:
"Song of Myself" By Walt Whitman
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174745
"Self Portrait" By Robert Creeley
http://www.poetryinvoice.com/poems/self-portrait
"A Dialogue of Self and Soul"
http://allpoetry.com/A-Dialogue-Of-Self-And-Soul
