Composing Poems

 We have to write one poem from each folder, so a total of two poems. Please make sure to follow the guidelines contained in the files attached below. There are several prompts from which you have to choose one and compose poem according to it. 

G
ra

m
m

a
r

297

Grammar

Student Samples
Phrase Poetry

Wild eyes glancing every which way
Uncanny ears listening to every small squeak,
Brain thinking of wondrous ways to catch its prey

the owl hunted
in the sky
on the ground
in the dark
in the hope
of catching his supper (Michael Delong, Grade 6)

His cloak billowing in the biting wind,
his eyes dry from the frigid temperature,
his boots crunching over the new snow,

he marched to the battlefield
sword drawn,
muscles tensed
ears cocked
focus narrowed
with fire in his eyes. (Whit Shaw, Grade 6)

His blue sail tightening in the wind,
his mouth salty like the sea,
his legs shivering like a person’s bare hand on ice,

the sailor watched
in his boat
in the harbor
in the fear
in the mind
of the sailor. (Charlie Goodman, Grade 6)

G
ra
m
m
a
r

298

Her beautiful wings noiselessly flapping,
her eyes shining brightly
her feathers ruffling with the light wind,

the dove slipped swiftly through the night sky
in the dark
with only the light of the moon to guide her
the ground rushing by
the clouds way up high
on the way to her loved ones. (Andrew Pansick, Grade 6)

The engine smoking with anxiety,
its ports firing with might,
its driveshaft ready for action

the engine screamed
on the track
in the moonlight
in the glory
in the grief
for the love of his owner
for one last race. (Beau Falgout, Grade 6)

Her burning dress tasting the air,
Her feet jumping like cross country runners’
Her arms tensed like after a fencing match

She ran down the path
in the woods
in the sunset
in the dark
on the ground
of her loneliness. (Andrew Harris, Grade 6)

His head sweating
His mouth dry
His heart racing with every step he took,

the gladiator walked
into the arena
to the tigers

to the lions
to his adversaries
to his death. (Brian Cummisky, Grade 6)

His forest green cloak sticking to his fur,
his sweat burning his eyes,
his sword glistening in the moonlight,

Matthias the Mouse struck
with the sword
of the warrior Martin
in the dead of night
in the rain
for the love of his home. (Adam Genecov, Grade 6)

His hands throbbing
his legs shaking
his fingers tingling,

the boy walked into the castle
on Halloween
in the dark
by himself
with no protection
from his fears. (Jeff Scovell, Grade 6)

Her silky dog hair blowing in the wind,
her bloodshot eyes burning like flames of a fire,
her head bobbing like a ship at sea,

the dog walked quickly
in the woods
in the dark
in the light of the moon
in the heat of the fire
of her anger. (Justin Utay, Grade 6)

G
ra
m
m
a
r

299

Grammar

G
ra
m
m
a
r

300

The Poetry of Phrases
Foundation Lesson

Using the “Phrase Toolbox” as a resource, try writing poems that have the following
grammatical structures. Choose a different subject each time you write one.

Pattern #1
absolute phrase
absolute phrase
absolute phrase

independent clause
prepositional phrase
prepositional phrase
prepositional phrase
prepositional phrase
prepositional phrase

Example:
His glowing fur ruffling in the breeze
his eyes burning like coals
his muscles rippling like ocean waves

the tiger paced
in the cage
in the night
in the gloom
in the fire
of his rage.

Pattern #2
gerund phrase as the subject

finish the sentence with a rhyme.

gerund phrase as the subject

finish the sentence with a rhyme
gerund phrase as the subject

finish the sentence with a rhyme.
gerund phrase as the subject
finish the sentence with a rhyme.

G
ra
m
m
a
r

301

Grammar

Example:
Toasting in the hot sun

is a lot of fun.
Dipping in the crystal fountain

seems better than climbing a mountain.
Sipping on an icy drink

lets you hear the sound of a refreshing clink.
Relaxing with good friends

is the way a summer day ends.

Pattern #3
independent clause with an appositive phrase in it

participial phrase
participial phrase
participial phrase
participial phrase
participial phrase

Example:
The sky, a dark cauldron full of storm clouds, boils and bubbles,

sparkling with lightening
glittering with glimpses of stars
shrouded in fog
crackling with electricity
waiting for the storm to burst.

Pattern #4
a subordinate clause
an independent clause
an infinitive phrase and a prepositional phrase
an infinitive phrase and a prepositional phrase
an infinitive phrase and a prepositional phrase
an infinitive phrase and a prepositional phrase
a final independent clause.

Example:
When I grow up
I want
To dance over a rainbow
To climb above the clouds
To soar beside the birds
To sail with the stars

These are the dreams of my heart.

G
ra
m
m
a
r

302

Phrase Toolbox

Phrases are groups of words that do not contain both a subject and a verb. Collectively,
the words in the phrases function as a single part of speech.

Prepositional phrase
A preposition plus its object and modifiers.

Prepositions
To, around, under, over, like, as, behind, with, outside, etc.

Prepositional phrases may function as adjectives or as adverbs.

Adjective prepositional phrase
Adjective prepositional phrases tell which one, what kind, how many, and how much, or give
other information about a noun, a pronoun, a noun phrase or a noun clause.

The store around the corner is painted green. (Which store is it? The store around
the corner.)
The girl with the blue hair is angry.

Adverb prepositional phrase
Adverb prepositional phrases tell how, when, where, why, to what extent, or under what
condition about a verb, an adjective, an adverb, an adverb phrase, or an adverb clause.

Oscar is painting his house with the help of his friends. (How is he painting his house?
With the help of his friends.)
Sally is coloring outside the lines.

Infinitive phrase
The word “to” plus a verb. Infinitive phrases can function as adjectives, adverbs, or nouns.

To dance gracefully is my ambition. (subject of sentence)
Her plan to become a millionaire fell through when the stock market crashed. (modifies
plan; functions as an adjective)
She wanted to become a veterinarian. (noun – direct object of “wanted”)
John went to college to study engineering. (tells why he went, so it’s an adverb)

Appositive phrase
Renames, or identifies, a noun or pronoun. When it adds information that is nonessential, it is
set off by commas.

My teacher, a woman with curly hair, is very fat.
Bowser, the dog with the sharp teeth, is coming around the corner.

G
ra
m
m
a
r

303

Grammar

Participial phrase
A participle is a verb form (past or present) functioning like an adjective. The phrase is the
participle plus its modifiers.

Blinded by the light, Sarah walked into the concert hall.
Swimming for his life, John crossed the English Channel.

A gerund is an “-ing” verb form functioning as a noun. The phrase is the gerund plus
its complements and modifiers.

Walking in the moonlight is a romantic way to end a date. (subject of a sentence)
He particularly enjoyed walking in the moonlight with his girlfriend. (direct object)
He wrote a poem about walking in the moonlight. (object of the preposition)
Walking the dog is not my favorite task. (subject)

An absolute phrase (also called a nominative absolute) is a group of words consisting
of a noun or pronoun, an “ing” or “ed” verb form, and any related modifiers. Absolute phrases
modify the whole sentence rather than a particular part of it. They are always set off from the
rest of the sentence with a comma or pair of commas (or dashes) because they are parenthetical
elements. An absolute phrase, very simply put, contains a noun or pronoun followed by a
participle. Absolute phrases are valuable in constructing concise, layered sentences.

Their minds whirling from the avalanche of information provided by their teacher, the
students made their way thoughtfully to the parking lot.
His head pounding, his hands shaking, his heart filled with trepidation, the young man
knelt and proposed marriage to his sweetheart.
The two lovers walked through the garden, their faces reflecting the moonlight, their arms
twined about each other, their footsteps echoing in the stillness of the night.

Note: An independent clause has a subject and a verb and can stand alone as a sentence.
A dependent, or subordinate, clause, has a subject and a verb but does not express
a complete thought. It often begins with a subordinating conjunction such as when,
because, although, while, since, etc.

Writing Assignments: Poetry

1) Write a poem of at least 10 lines using at least five items from your
“character list.”

2) Write a poem in a voice not your own. You might choose to write in the
voice of some historical figure, in the voice of someone you know, or in
the voice of a made-up character (perhaps someone from your story).

3) Write a poem in a traditional form (sonnet, villanelle, sestina), or with a
set syllabic count, or make up a form of your own.

4) Write a poem with a controlling metaphor (the likeness or connection
between two things—ie., life and baseball—should be carried through-
out the poem) or with at least three metaphors from the same context.

5) Write a poem in imitation of another published poem. If you choose a
poem that’s not in our textbook, please make copies for the rest of the
class and hand the copies in along with your imitation poem. When
preparing the “imitation poem,” try to decide what is essential to the
“original poem.” Is it rhyme scheme, meter, imagery, subject, language,
tone? Several of the above, or something else? Write a poem of your
own that includes those essential elements (it should be similar in form
and length to the original, but it doesn’t have to be exactly the same).
Turn in the poem as usual; by your name, put “Imitation of ‘(Title of
Poem)’ by (Author).”

6) Write about a domestic task, such as knitting, doing dishes, installing an
air-conditioner, or watering plants, OR about a ceremony, such as bap-
tism, transferring a car title, or being graduated. At last once in the
poem, contradict received wisdom. Dare to contradict your own beliefs,
if you wish. Ten line minimum. (Kevin Bath, EH 200)

7) Write about a game you played as a child—preferably a folk game, such
as

kick-the-can, capture-the-flag, scissors-paper-stone, hopscotch, or jump
rope, and not a commercial game like Monopoly or Space Invaers. Use
at least two figures of speech, but make sure they’re not clichés. This
poem must be in blank verse or in a fixed form (sonnet, ballad stanzas,
heroic couplets, terza rima, etc.) (Kevin Bath, EH 200)

Creating a 14-er

Compose a poem in which the lines end with the words below in the order
given. Find possible connections between the words, so that your poem gives a
sensible or logical account of something specific. We haven’t discussed rhythm
(syllable count) or accents (meter) yet, so use any rhythm you want to; but if
you make your lines 10 syllables each, you will have written a Shakespearean
sonnet.

Give your poem a title:
_____________________________________________quiet
_____________________________________________kiss
_____________________________________________riot
_____________________________________________abyss
_____________________________________________trees
_____________________________________________June
_____________________________________________peas
_____________________________________________prune
_____________________________________________crystal
_____________________________________________bar
_____________________________________________pistol
_____________________________________________guitar
_____________________________________________brooded
_____________________________________________concluded

—Dan Waterman

Journey to Nowhere

Write a poem in which you undertake a journey to an unknown destination.
The poem does not necessarily have to have a formal plot, but it does have
to leave you, at the end of the journey, in a wholly unexpected place: either
in the midst of a strange landscape (mental and/or physical) or in the midst
of a threatening or exciting discovery. Along the way, you must use at least
two similes and at least two metaphors. (Try to let metaphor and simile
suggest related or resonant images, both real and figurative. In other words,
let them help lead you forward).

Begin the poem with a predicament: the speaker of the poem is lost, or is
looking for someone or something, or is being propelled forward against her
will, or is on a seemingly ordinary journey (going to the grocery store, for
example) that turns weird.

The poem should be at least one page long (longer is fine). You must also
use a more or less regular line length. Try to stay within 8 to 12 syllables
per line.

Good vs. Bad Poetry

Reading: Excerpt from Chapter 11 (“Judging a Poem”) of Poems:
Wadsworth Handbook and Anthology, by C.F. Main and Peter J. Seng.

I had my students read the chapter on “judging a poem” before they
wrote any poetry. The chapter provides a down to earth, respectful discus-
sion of the topic of “good versus bad poetry.” The bad poem examples are
hilarious and, thus, memorable, and their inclusion lets the instructor off the
hook; he or she doesn’t have to point to awkward student drafts to discuss
what makes a poem “bad.”

The chapter covers the following subtopics: “Good and Bad Poems,”
“Kinds of Bad Poems,” and “Liking Versus Judging Poems.” The poems in
between the subtopics are out of date, so I skipped most of them, but the
accompanying text is intelligent and persuasive.

After discussing the reading in class, I had my students write a bad poem
according to the textbook definition on pages 280 and 284-5. At first, they
seemed surprised, but they soon got into the exercise. When they’d finished
writing, I picked up all the poems and told them to get into groups of two.
Then I redistributed the poems. I told them to read the poems to each other
and discuss what was “bad” about them. As soon as they began to read, they
burst into laughter. After they discussed the poems with their partner, I had
each group read the poem out loud and discuss it.

The goal of this exercise was to get my students to apply what they’d just
learned about bad poetry, in a memorable way, so that they could, hopefully,
avoid pitfalls in their own writing. I also wanted to give students the psy-
chological relief of doing what writers fear most—writing a bad poem—and
seeing that it’s actually kind of fun. This exercise had the added bonus of
breaking the ice between students. —Melissa Huseman

An Experiment in Comparison

Text: Andre Breton’s “Free Union”

In Andre Breton’s poem “Free Union,” the speaker freely associates the parts
of his lover with a wide range of images. He compares her tongue, for instance,
to glass, stone, a doll, and the communion host. He makes these comparisons
using simile, a comparison which uses “like” or “as,” (“a tongue like a stabbed
communion host”). He also uses metaphor, a comparison which does not use
“like” or “as” (“a tongue of rubbed amber and glass” or “matchstick wrists”).
Some of the comparisons make immediate sense (“thoughts like flashes of heat
lightning”) and others are more mysterious (“feet of initials”).

For next week, write a piece in which every line or sentence makes a compari-
son. You can write about a person (my friend with eyes of…..or the man with
legs like…), a place (my city with streets of, buildings like, etc.), an animal, or
whatever you like.

Like Breton, you might choose to compare various parts of your subject to
three or four different things; the last 6 lines, for instance, compare the
woman’s eyes to (at least) six different things. Try adding details to your origi-
nal comparison (“Woman of mine with champagne shoulders like a fountain of
dolphin heads under ice,” “Woman of mine with belly unfolding like the fan of
days”) and making “free unions,” comparisons that might not make sense at
first glance. To create some free or mysterious comparisons, you might try
writing very quickly, putting down whatever leaps into your mind, without
questioning it. You may construct your piece in lines, as Breton did, or as
prose. Finally, have fun. The point is not to produce a finished product, but
experiment with as wide a range of comparisons as possible.

—Meier/ 200-003

Poetry for Special Occasions

Valentine’s Day Assignment:

Write a love poem. Don’t be sentimental. Complementary Read-
ings: Sexton’s “Us,” Amachai’s “A Pity. We Were Such a Good
Invention,” Lorca’s “Somnambule Ballad,” Sakanoe’s “Love’s
Complaint,” Catullus’s “We should live, my Lesbia, and love,”
Tsvetayeva’s “An Attempt at Jealousy,” and Verlaine’s “Sentimen-
tal Dialogue.” (Robin Behn, EH 504)

April Fools Assignment:

Write a poem which tries to do something radical, something you
have never attempted before, in form, content, or both. Anything
goes, especially self-indulgence, as long as we like it (or aren’t too
embarrassed for you). (Thomas Rabbitt, EH 504)

Halloween Assignment:

Resurrect and assume a persona, but do not directly reveal the
identity of your possessor.
(Thomas Rabbitt, EH 504)20 Advanced Poetry Assignments

These assignments, designed for advanced undergraduate students and for
graduate students, should be accompanied by complementary readings (sug-
gested here or devised by you), in-class discussion of techniques, and (possi-
bly) journal assignments.

1) The Uses of Narrative:
Assignment: Write a poem in which you tell a story or a fragment of a
story, or in which a story “off the page” is referred to or influences how
the poem is spoken. Choose your point of view thoughtfully. Try to
write a title and a first line or two that will make us want to keep on
reading. In your poem, use at least two deliberate enjambments and one
fully end-stopped line. Also use at least one example of either inverted
syntax with colloquial speech or balanced syntax. Try not to plan out
what you will say before you write the poem. Keep writing until you
surprise yourself. Try not to end with a “conclusion.”

Complementary Readings: Frost’s “Out, Out—,” Stafford’s “Traveling
Through the Dark,” Millay’s “Recuerdo,” Akhmatova’s “Requiem,”
Forche’s “The Memory of Elena,” and Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room.”
(Robin Behn, EH 504)

2) Dramatic Monologue:
Assignment: Write a poem spoken in the voice of someone other than
yourself. Be sure to have this voice establish his or her situation, cir-
cumstances, and/or reason(s) for speaking. Use at least one metaphor,
and write at least thirty lines. If you like, have this voice speak directly
to or about another character.

Complementary Readings: Pound’s “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A
Letter,” and Gallagher’s “The Kidnapper.” (Robin Behn, EH 504)

3) Lyric Poetry:
Assignment: Write a poem that includes at least one fragment or image
from a dream and/or from a partial memory of childhood. Somewhere
in the poem, ask a question or ask for something. Do something out of
the ordinary with syntax.

Complementary Readings: Merwin’s “When you go away,” Thomas’s
“Fern Hill,” Simpson’s “My father in the night commanding no,”
Levine’s “Starlight,” Lawrence’s “The Piano,” and Celan’s “The Fugue
of Death.” (Robin Behn, EH 504)

4) The Mind in the Act
Assignment: Poems as a model of consciousness. Write a poem in
which the reader can observe the speaker’s mind moving. Begin
with an observation or an abstraction, and feel free to wander from
mode to mode as you continue, employing, perhaps, a bit of narra-
tive, an allusion to another text, a direct address to someone, some
description, shift of time or place, etc. Have a reason to begin
speaking, and see where it leads you. Minimum of 40 lines.

Complementary Readings: Hass’s “Meditation at Lagunitas,”
Graham’s “Mind,” and Larkin’s “Church Going.” (Robin Behn,
EH 504)

5) Ode/Elegy
Assignment: Write an ode or an elegy. Somewhere in the poem,
use anaphora.

Complementary Readings: Neruda’s “Ode to My Socks,” Keats’s
“Ode on Melancholy,” Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” and
Roethke’s “Elegy for Jane.” (Robin Behn, EH 504)

6) Animal Poem
Assignment: Write a poem about an animal, or that mentions an
animal. Include at least one fact about the animal most readers
wouldn’t know. Look up the derivation of the animal’s name in the
OED.

Complementary Readings: Digges’s “Tartarchos,” Rilke’s “The
Panther,” Hardy’s “The Oxen,” Dickinson’s “A Narrow Fellow,”
Williams’s “The Sparrow,” Kinnell’s “St. Francis and the Sow,”
Hollander’s “Adam’s Task,” Plath’s “Black Rook in Rainy
Weather,” Montale’s “The Eel.” (Robin Behn, EH 504)

7) Find the most mawkish rhyme/verse/poem you can (e.g. Kilmer’s
“Trees” or a Hallmark card). Write a poem in which you try to
transform the original objectionable sentimentality into honest
emotion. Identifying which is which, reproduce both pieces. (Tho-
mas Rabbitt, EH 504)

8) Write a poem which begins with an ordinary thing, such as an
apple or a sewer grate, and ends with a metonym of that thing, but
which is not about that thing. (Thomas Rabbitt, EH 504)

9) Transform the lyrics of any popular song (any genre) of the last
three

or four decades into a poem. Don’t stick so close to the original
that you might be accused of theft, but don’t get so far away that
any relationship is spurious. Reproduce both song and poem for
the worksheet. (Thomas Rabbitt, EH 504).

10) Write a poem which uses an actual current headline (including
publication and date) for its title (e.g., Frozen ears found in doctor’s
office, The Tuscaloosa News, August 15, 1984). Your poem will
employ a regular pattern of syllable count and a parallel pattern of true
rhyme. (Thomas Rabbitt, EH 504)

11) Write a poem in which you transform a myth (not necessarily
Greco-

Roman) into a contemporary parable. Your poem will incorporate a
regular pattern of stress count and a parallel pattern of mostly slant
rhyme. (Thomas Rabbitt, EH 504)

12) While someone from the South Bronx might find rural Alabama,
its

cows, kudzu, snakes and shack, strange and frightening, someone
from Gordo could find in the northern reaches of the Jersey Turn-
pike the ultimate industrial nightmare. Write a poem which ex-
plores, perhaps symbolically, what is surreal in an environment
alien to you, but which you have actually visited, if only to pass
through. (Hugo, of course.) Your poem should employ repetition
as its major device. You may work in any form, received or in-
vented. (Thomas Rabbitt, EH 504)

13) Write an unambiguous poem which explores the sound—indeed
noisy—possibilities of ambiguity, as in puns and homonyms, as
well as the tenuous ambiguities of sounds, as in onomatopoeia and
assonance. (Thomas Rabbitt, EH 504)

14) Write a serious poem based upon a joke. Identifying which is
which,

reproduce both poem and joke to turn in. (Thomas Rabbitt, EH 504)

15) The Poet as Observer (techniques: hypotaxis and parataxis)
Assignment: Write a poem that begins by describing a place or
scene. Take your time with the description. See if you can use
description as a method for discovery—not just noting down what
you had in mind to say about the scene but using the language to
lead you to notice new things. Write until the language itself be-
comes interesting to you, then use that sense of voice, wording,
language-play to suggest ways to continue the poem. As you begin
describing, favor either a paratactic or a hypotactic mode of sen-
tence-making. The poem might begin and end with description, or
you might vary the mode after a while, or at a particular point,
stepping out of description and into some other way of talking or
being in the poem. As the poem continues, can you keep to the
method of sentence and phrase-connecting—paratactic or
hypotactic—, or must you evolve into the other method at certain
moments as you either continue or vary from the descriptive im-
pulse?

Give the poem a title that indicates the place or scene or that does
some other important work for the poem. Write at least 30 lines.

(Robin Behn, EH
404)

16) The Poet as Image-Worker (technique: kinds of metaphor)

Assignment: Choose one of the following:
a. Include in your poem a situation or an image-fragment from

a dream. Imagine that the reader is also in a dream-like state,
and will accept anything you say as truth.

b. Adapt Tadeusz Rozewicz’s title and method (“Homework
Assignment on the Subject of Angels”) for your own purposes.
Pick an object or entity and describe it at length, making ample
use of metaphor as you go. Another poem that shares this

method is David St. John’s “Dolls.”
c. Like Shu Ting, write a poem that is made up of “Bits of

Reminiscence.”
d. Write a poem like David St. John’s “Iris” in which the tenor

and vehicle of the metaphor become, finally, indistinguish-
able.

(Robin Behn, EH
404)

17) The Self among Images (technique: thinking about the line)

Assignment: Think of an event or moment from your life, or from
the life of an invented character, that is unforgettable but hard to
describe. It might be a moment you remember, but don’t know
why you remember it. It might be an event that was pivotal, such
that things after this moment were different from things before this
moment. Or it might be a moment in which time seemed to pass in
a different way—more slowly, or more quickly than usual, or in
which different moments or sense of time coincided or collided.
Now enter this moment by referring only to things, images, sensa-
tions. Include actions—parts of the story—as fragments, as when
Justice says, “Long after the future./ When the umbrella had been
closed forever.”

(Robin Behn, EH
404)

18) The Poet as Storyteller, Tale-teller, Balladier: The Narrative Im-
pulse

(techniques: representing and/or manipulating time in a poem,
paying attention to beginnings and endings)

Assignment: Choose one of the following:
a. Write a narrative poem based in a historical event or time.

See Robert Hayden.
b. Write a poem like C.D. Wright’s “Woman Looking

Through a Viewfinder” in which someone is “looking
through a viewfinder,” literally or figuratively, at a story.

c. Write a narrative poem that covers a great deal of time,
perhaps a whole life. See Justice’s “A Dancer’s Life” and

Sexton’s “The Rowing.”
d. Write a narrative poem with an unreliable narrator. See

Jarrell’s “Seele Im Raum.”
e. Write a narrative poem of any kind.

(Robin Behn, EH
404)

19) The Poet as Storehouse of Inventor of Memory (technique: explor-
ing
kinds and uses of rhymes)

Assignment: Write a poem that deals with childhood in some way.
Feel free to use any of these poems to suggest an approach. In
your poem, make use of at least three different kinds of rhyme.
You might employ them in a regular pattern, or you might include
them as “occasional” rhyme, here and there throughout the poem
in the middle of lines or at line ends.

Complementary Readings:
Bishop, Elizabeth—“Sestina,” “First Death in Nova Scotia,” “In
the

Waiting Room”
Jarrell, Randall—“Protocols”
Rukeyser, Muriel—“from Eight Elegy. Children’s Elegy,” “Chil-

dren,
The Sandbar, That Summer”

Stafford, William—“School Days”
Justice, Donald—“Sonatina in Yellow”
Sexton, Anne—“What’s That?,” “The Fury of Overshoes”
Atwood, Margaret—“Game After Supper”
Strand, Mark—“Where are the Waters of Childhood?”
Jensen, Laura—“Kite”

(Robin Behn, EH
404)

20) The Poet as Prophet, Priest, Visionary (technique: figures of
speech)

Assignment: Choose one:
a. Write a poem that mixes formal with very informal dictions,

and that allows wit and language play to have free reign. Or
write a poem using a diction you don’t usually associate with
poetry.

b. Write a poem in which you create an interesting dance of
words on the page without trying to create an underlying
meaning that makes “sense” in the usual way. Assume that art
and experience are two different things. Use the language not
as an expression of other things it refers to, but as a thing in
and of itself. Focus on your excitement about language,
rather than creating something the reader can “follow.”

c. Write a poem in which the events described and the time it
take to read the poem are the same.

d. Write an ars poetica. (Robin Behn, EH
404)