Monday, May 14, 2007
List Poem
Write a poem that uses a listsuch as in the following:Cell phone contacts, including every ex; significant others; mothers, brothers, sisters, and misters; best friends, worst enemies, classes in a day, favorite months from June to May; how you spend your evening hours; archetypes from Fools to Towers; the best advice, the worst advice, your fears like those of spiders and mice; your hopes and dreams; the days you were falling apart at the seams.Or take a group and practice using a semi-colon when one or more items in the list requires a comma. Write about your mom, who cooked the best food but always came up from the laundry room in a bad mood;and then your dad, when you saw him dance the Tsamiko at a big fat Greek wedding and you had no idea;or your brother, who played Eddie Van Halen both live and on the record, day and night.Or list numbers you've deleted from your phone . . .such as Hummer, who simply burned too much of your fuel;or Gollum, who loved and loathed the ring of power even as he loved and loathed himself;or Grendel, who grinds his teeth;or Cindy Brady, who whined too much;or those exes with the same name and you forgot which number was whose.And if these examples and directions aren't enough of a list poem for you,try cataloging all those positive and negative traits,using the words from the personality profiles.You might say you're sarcastic but sincere, or sincerely sarcastic; you might say you wish you were more adroit but it's quite a shame you're just a spastic; you might say you jump to the worst possible conclusion, assuming the most drastic, causing confusion. Or are you mercurial, enterprising, assertive, or do you keep it real?List poems usually match in parts of speech, which is a whole other lesson to teach: nouns in a row or verbs in tow, adjectives lined up like feathers, sometimes joined with or or whether, using commas to list them together.Depend on what you know and the rest should flow. You do not have to rhyme all the time, but don't be boring; it's specificity I'm adoring! What's that? You're ignoring my advice? Go back and read this twice, or thrice if that's what it takes. You can always fix mistakes, but if you do not even try, then why on earth did I?
Write a poem that uses a listsuch as in the following:Cell phone contacts, including every ex; significant others; mothers, brothers, sisters, and misters; best friends, worst enemies, classes in a day, favorite months from June to May; how you spend your evening hours; archetypes from Fools to Towers; the best advice, the worst advice, your fears like those of spiders and mice; your hopes and dreams; the days you were falling apart at the seams.Or take a group and practice using a semi-colon when one or more items in the list requires a comma. Write about your mom, who cooked the best food but always came up from the laundry room in a bad mood;and then your dad, when you saw him dance the Tsamiko at a big fat Greek wedding and you had no idea;or your brother, who played Eddie Van Halen both live and on the record, day and night.Or list numbers you've deleted from your phone . . .such as Hummer, who simply burned too much of your fuel;or Gollum, who loved and loathed the ring of power even as he loved and loathed himself;or Grendel, who grinds his teeth;or Cindy Brady, who whined too much;or those exes with the same name and you forgot which number was whose.And if these examples and directions aren't enough of a list poem for you,try cataloging all those positive and negative traits,using the words from the personality profiles.You might say you're sarcastic but sincere, or sincerely sarcastic; you might say you wish you were more adroit but it's quite a shame you're just a spastic; you might say you jump to the worst possible conclusion, assuming the most drastic, causing confusion. Or are you mercurial, enterprising, assertive, or do you keep it real?List poems usually match in parts of speech, which is a whole other lesson to teach: nouns in a row or verbs in tow, adjectives lined up like feathers, sometimes joined with or or whether, using commas to list them together.Depend on what you know and the rest should flow. You do not have to rhyme all the time, but don't be boring; it's specificity I'm adoring! What's that? You're ignoring my advice? Go back and read this twice, or thrice if that's what it takes. You can always fix mistakes, but if you do not even try, then why on earth did I?
