Saturday, August 15, 2015

Summer Rerun #6 – Color Your Poems


Originally Posted, Saturday, August 21, 2010


For your color poem:

Begin by taking a “color inventory” of your life. What colors do you like to live with? If you had to live with a single color what would it be? What is your favorite color? What colors do you associate with the best or worst times of your life? What colors do you associate with people, places, experiences? Following are ten possibilities for color poems:

1. Write a poem about a color without naming the color and without using one of its synonyms (for example, don’t use “crimson” in place of “red” or “azure” in place of “blue”).

2. What color is your life? Write a poem about your life’s color(s). 

3. Write about an experience using colors to set the “tone.”

4. Compare a relationship to a color.

5. Compare a person to a color. 

6. Compare your job (or creative work) to a color.

7. What is your life’s “rainbow?” 

8. Write a poem about a place (scene, landscape) and use colors to highlight descriptions and details.

9. Think about implied colors as in Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” Wordsworth only mentions “golden” once, but the sense of “yellow” is strongly present throughout the poem. Try this in a poem of your  own. Click Here to Read Wordsworth's Poem

10. As an alternative to color, write a poem about something colorless. 
 


11 comments:

  1. Very nice, Adele! The Wordsworth poem you mention is one of my favourites!

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    1. Thanks, Jamie! The Wordsworth poem was my mom's favorite.

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  2. I love this prompt. Colour can be the inspiration for so many unexpected ideas, I'm still jotting them down. Thank you, Adele.

    ~ ~ ~

    Light Reflected

    Framed by a sunny afternoon window
    mothers watercolour arrangement of flowers
    brought in from the garden and carefully placed
    in a Japanese vase
    where children under a cherry tree
    point at the dragon on the roof of a bamboo tea-house
    she never had the chance to visit
    only to paint on fine-grained paper
    with respect to light reflected.


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    1. So glad you like this prompt, Lewis! And, as always, thank you for sharing your poem! Wonderful "dismount."

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    2. From the second line, I have removed the word 'watercolour' and placed it on the eighth. Along with a few corrections.


      Light Reflected

      Framed by a sunny afternoon window
      mother's arrangement of flowers
      brought in from the garden and carefully placed
      in a Japanese vase
      where children under a cherry tree
      point at the dragon on the roof of a bamboo tea-house
      she never had the chance to visit
      only to paint on fine-grain watercolour paper
      with respect to light reflected.

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    3. good calls on your part! So interesting to see the process of revision. Thanks for sharing this with us, Lewis!

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  3. I really like this prompt and am finding it very relaxing to listen and write. Thanks!

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  4. Red Dawn

    all my troubles melt
    with another day's dawning
    perhaps it will rain

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    Replies
    1. Love this, Risa! So much nuance created by the last line! Thank you for sharing this with us.

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    2. Wow! Risa,

      "perhaps it will rain", spellbinding.

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