Prompt #283 – In the Good Old Summertime

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, 
just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life 
was beginning over again with the summer.”

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
 

Summer is the season of abundance. Also abundant are our memories of summers past. This week, pick one summer and one specific memory (something happy and upbeat), and write about that summer and that special time.

Guidelines:
 

1. Think about what makes summertime so special.

2. Go back in time to a summer that stands out in your memor

3. Re-create the feeling of that time through written language. Show (don’t tell) how you felt.

4. Convey mood and tone with just enough detail (don’t overdo).

5. Appeal to the senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell.

6. Incorporate things that are season-specific. Here are a few examples:

barbecues

baseball and stickball

birdsong

building sandcastles

butterflies

camping out

catching fireflies

cicadas

daylight saving time

diving into waves

eating ice cream

going barefoot

grasshoppers

perspiring

picking wildflowers

sipping iced tea or lemonade

summer camp

sunflowers

swimming pools

tending your garden

the ocean

vacationing

walking in a park

willow trees

7.  Recreate who you were and what happened to make that summer so special. 

Tips: 

 

1. Start with a free write to get things started (you might want to jumpstart the process by looking through a old photo album or two).

2. Write in a comfortable place (whether that means outdoors or in an air conditioned indoor space), that’s conducive to reflection and writing.

3. If you’re writing, for example, about summer’s heat, give examples rather than simply stating that it was hot. If you’re writing about the ocean, use words to conjure up imagery that “speaks” of the ocean’s sounds, smells, etc.

4.  Always be specific, avoid general terms, phrases, and statements, abstractions, and philosophical musings. 

5. Watch out for clichés.

6. Create a sense of sound (music) through alliteration, assonance, anaphora, and rhythm.

7. Remember what Robert Lowell said: “A poem is an event, not the record of an event.” Make your poem a summer event!

 

Examples: 

“Midsummer, Tobago” by Derek Walcott

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/derek_walcott/poems/11262.html
 

“I See the Boys of Summer” by Dylan Thomas

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/i-see-boys-summer
 

“My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer” by Mark Strand

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/my-mother-evening-late-summer
 

“Summer Night, Riverside” by Sara Teasdale

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/summer-night-riverside    


And just for fun—the old song that "prompted" this prompt's title.

Prompt #189 – SummerScapes

Today marks the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Every year on the solstice, I read some or all of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and think about the time I visited Stonehenge to watch the sun rise on Midsummer morning. After the severe winter we had here in the northeastern U.S., this spring and summer couldn’t come quickly enough, and now that summer is here, it seems a good time to celebrate with a poem that’s light, lovely, or filled with a sense of summer fun. With that in mind, our prompt this week is to simply write a poem about the solstice, midsummer night, summer, or any aspect of summer that makes you feel good. 

Guidelines:

1. Make a list of happy summer memories and select one memory from your list to write about.

2. Write a funny summer poem.

3. Write a poem about any character from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Titania, Oberon, Puck). Or write a poem from the perspective of one of the characters.

The entire play may be read here: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/full.html

A list of characters from the play: http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/msnd/characters.html

4. Do a stream of consciousness poem about summer. Think about summer and just start writing. Write for about 10 minutes and see where your thoughts have lead you.

5. Using your five senses as inspiration, create a “SummerScape” that includes summer’s sights, sounds, scents, tastes, and touches.

6. Write something "magical" (or a summer fantasy) in a poem about the summer solstice.

Tips:

1. Make your poem a kind of celebration. Have fun with it. Think warmth, bright skies, sunshine, flowers, leafy trees, children playing outdoors, swimming pools, sailboats, lazy days, vacations—think fullness and abundance.

2.  Use sound (alliteration, assonance, anaphora) to give your poem a sense of summer.

3. Keep your tone light.

4. Use line and stanza breaks that enhance your content.

5. Remember: nothing superfluous—no extra words, lines, phrases, images. Don’t include anything that your poem doesn’t absolutely need.

Examples:

"After Reading Tu Fu, I Go Outside to the Dwarf Orchard" by Charles Wright

"In Summer" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

"June LIght" by Richard Wilbur

"Summer Night, Riverside" by Sara Teasdale

"Wildflower" by Stanley Plumly

Happy Summer solstice, dear blog readers!

"Then followed that beautiful season... Summer.... Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape Lay as if new created 

in all the freshness of childhood." 

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

May this summer bring you the "freshness of childhood" and much joy!