Saturday, February 13, 2016

Prompt #246 – At the Touch of Love

 
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

— Plato


Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and, although the idea may seem just a bit trite, this is always a good time of year to read and write love poems.

To get inspired, there’s a great site selection of love poems on the Poetry Foundation’s website, which you can access by CLICKING HERE.

Of course, the prompt this week is exactly what you might expect: write a love poem.


Guidelines:

1. Think about different kinds of love that you’ve experienced personally (romantic, familial, love of nature or animals, friendship, platonic), and choose one that signifies a powerful emotional experience for you.

2. Start with a freewrite (and remember that freewriting can take place any time during drafting and, editing, and revising).

3. Try several ideas for love poems and keep the ideas that are keepers.

4. Experiment with stanza breaks but not too early in the writing process. Stanzas can help expose weak spots as well as wordiness and unnecessary repetitions.


Tips:

1. Often, love poems get a “bad rap” because some have been written that are overly sentimental, “mushy,” too personal, too confessional, or grossly overwritten. The challenge for you this week is to write a poem that involves love in some form or another and to observe the following:
  • Strive for uniqueness (not the typical “How Do I Love Thee?” fare). Find ways to distinguish between the individual and the common.
  • Create a sense of revelation without being overtly revealing. Remember the old poetry adage, “show don’t tell.”
  • Remember that one of the biggest difficulties in writing love poems isn’t writing about love but, rather, writing about the feelings that underlie the love we feel and our attempts to recreate those feelings in ways that are understandable and believable.
  • If you choose to write a romantic love poem, make sure you write between the lines and go beyond the first blush of romance.


Happy Valentine's Day! 




15 comments:

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Sharing

      wordless unspoken love
      his little hands insistent
      arms raised
      offering the raisin to his mother
      not eating one until she ate
      a testament of true caring
      and I a humble witness

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    3. Risa, the moment is beautifully 'captured'. :)

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    4. Beautifully visual with a wonderful last line! thanks so much for sharing, Risa!

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    1. Lewis, What happened to your poem? Did the most current version not come through or did I mix it up with the deletions? Please send it again!!!!

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    2. I don't have a copy of the most recent poem or any of the other versions of it. The latest has not appeared in the comment section. As you say it may have been accidentally deleted in all the confusion — it is entirely my own fault. I have tried to recreate it from memory but am unable to do so. Please let me know if there are no copies in your deleted's and I will try to write another version and post it in its place. Adele, sorry for having littered this week's blog post with all these deleted comments.:)

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    3. Thank you, Adele, for finding a copy of my poem. :)

      ~ ~ ~

      For The Love Of

      The silence in the mirror —
      the hostess and her guests have left
      the dining room —
      the venetian blinds shafts of light across
      a silver forearm —
      its knuckle less hand without a thumb or
      rings on the fingers and
      an absence of a heart line —
      the palm of a fork that lies on a plate
      perched on the table's edge.

      ~ ~ ~

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    4. So glad we were able to retrieve this one, Lewis!

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  5. This is great, Adele! Interestingly, it's not difficult to get the older students to write love poems!

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    1. Thanks, Rich! I've found the same thing to be true: high school students seem to be more willing to write poems about love than middle school students. Hope this one works with your students.

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  6. Risa and Lewis: thanks for sharing your poems with us. It's always a pleasure to read your work!

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