ENG 205: Intro to Creative Writing – Fiction & Poetry
Professor Yelena Kajevic Bailey-Kirby
POETRY ASSIGNMENT CRITERIA
AND MIDTERM PORTFOLIO REVISION GUIDELINES
***[Note: For each poetry assignment, remember to use a legible font like Calibri or Times New Roman (font size 11-12) and please include YOUR NAME and the TITLE OF YOUR WORK at the top of the page.]***
CRITERIA FOR THE FIRST POEM: OBJECT POEM
Follow the guidelines for the assignment below, and most importantly, remember your poem must be a minimum of SEVEN LINES and ALWAYS PROVIDE A TITLE FOR YOUR POEMS. Of course, you can exceed seven lines, and in fact, you are encouraged to exceed this minimum. You also want to avoid forced rhyme, cliché terms, artificial flowery wordiness, or unoriginal phrases like “roses are red…” and maintain showing, not just telling, even in poetry by using significant, concrete details as well as figurative language (metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, etc.). For example, you may want to apply the five senses, but do not try to sound poetic. Instead, write with honesty. With honesty, you will move your readers as well as elicit a powerful emotion in them.
For your first poem, you will be writing an Object Poem, or in other words, your poem will be about an inanimate object, such as a vehicle, toy, tool, kitchen utensil, an article of clothing, furniture, football, etc. or any object that you select outside of this list. It may give us a fresh look at something ordinary, or it may transform a strange object into something familiar. We will be looking at two examples of object poems below. Notice the sensory details and figurative language (i.e. simile) that both poets use.
The term is a translation of the German Dinggedicht, or “thing poem,” and some of the best object poems are by Rainer Maria Rilke, including his “Archaic Torso of Apollo.” Don Bogen has written object poems such as “Card Catalog,” “Salver,” “Necklace,” “Among Appliances,” and “Bullhorn” (which he calls “A gun / for the mouth”). Charles Simic’s “Fork,” has two companion poems, “Knife” and “The Spoon” that you can look up if you are interested in them.
Keep in mind, do not write about a person. The object you write about should be an inanimate "thing," not a person or an animal, especially a "domestic" animal. Pets are not options to write about because like people, they lend themselves tosentimentality,and part of the goal of this poem is to practice avoiding sentimentality. Other object poems that you may want to read include the following: “Cobweb” by Raymond Carver,” “Beer Bottle” by Ted Kooser, and “Another White Room” by Darin Zimpel. (There are links on my website for those three poems.)
TWO EXAMPLE POEMS:A NAVAJO BLANKET / May Swenson
Eye-dazzlers the Indians weave. Three colors
are paths that pull you in, and pin you
to the maze. Brightness makes your eyes jump,
surveying the geometric field. Alight, and enter
any of the gates—of Blue, of Red, of Black.
Be calmed and hooded, a hawk brought down,
glad to fasten to the forearm of a Chief.
You can sleep at the center,
attended by Sun that never fades, by Moon
that cools. Then, slipping free of zigzag
and hypnotic diamond, find your way out
by the spirit trail, a faint Green thread that
secretly crosses the border, where your mind
Is rinsed and returned to you like a white cup. / FORK / Charles Simic
This strange thing must have crept
Right out of hell.
It resembles a bird’s foot
Worn around the cannibal’s neck.
As you hold it in your hand,
As you stab with it into a piece of meat,
It is possible to imagine the rest of the bird:
Its head which like your fist
Is large, bald, beakless and blind.
PRE-WRITING PROMPT FOR WRITING POEM #1:
Remember: Before you can create a good poem, you must brainstorm, so please follow the directions below carefully. You will be including this pre-writing prompt with your midterm portfolio revision of this poem.
1. Select an object to write about. Consider objects that are very familiar to you. Choose an object with sentimental value, unusual shape or texture, or one that simply interests you. Try to think of something that no one else will write about. It can be a very simple object. Write the object you have chosen on your paper for number 1.
2. Write a list of sensory, descriptive words and phrases about the object. Describe what the object looks like, such as general shape or surface patterns. Jot down how the object sounds, tastes, feels and smells.
3. Describe the object's environment (where it is; what surrounds it) using detailed lists of adjectives. Ask yourself if it stands alone or next to other objects.
4. Make a list of verbs and adverbs to describe an action related to the object, such as "sways gently" or "stands forlorn" for a dandelion. Does the object act upon something else or is acted upon or used in some manner? How can you personify?
5. Relate to the object. Look for connections between yourself and the object on a non-literal level. Seek resemblances between the actions of the object and your own actions, and jot down your motivations. Question what you can learn from the object. Ask yourself if the object reminds you of an interaction between people, a universal desire or spiritual truth. What would the object say if it could talk?
6. Introduce your object at the start of the poem. The title of your poem will be the name of the object. Write your first few lines with a detailed description of the object to introduce it to the reader. That may be a stanza of approximately 3-4 lines.
7. Develop the body of your object poem in the second stanza or another 3-4 lines. Include the object's environment and actions performed by or upon the object in the second stanza. What would you do or say if you were the object? What does it feel?
8. Write a closing for your poem with a third stanza or the last 3-4 lines of your poem. Use a metaphor or simile in the final stanza/last few lines to relate yourself or humanity in general to the object's attributes or actions.
CRITERIA FOR THE SECOND POEM: EMOTION POEM
Follow the guidelines for the assignment below, and most importantly, remember your poem must be a minimum of SEVEN LINES and ALWAYS PROVIDE A TITLE FOR YOUR POEMS. Of course, you can exceed seven lines, and in fact, you are encouraged to exceed this minimum. You also want to avoid forced rhyme, cliché terms, artificial flowery wordiness, or unoriginal phrases like “roses are red…” and maintain showing, not just telling, even in poetry by using significant, concrete details as well as figurative language (metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, etc.). For example, you may want to apply the five senses, but do not try to sound poetic. Instead, write with honesty. With honesty, you will move your readers as well as elicit a powerful emotion in them.
Good poetry, William Wordsworth wrote, is "the spontaneous overflow of feelings" originating from "emotion recollected in tranquility". With this second poem, you will be capturing an emotion experienced in a significant event in your life, whereas in reality, our feelings may be concealed even from ourselves within untouched memories—they may be tugging at us just below consciousness, they may be intentionally hidden from public scrutiny, or they may be flowing freely with every word and gesture. Two example poems are listed below, so carefully consider how the poets express emotion as they capture a significant event/experience.
You will choose one emotion from your prewriting prompt below, and, without just telling the emotion, describe in detail, show with lots of concrete images, a specific time when you experienced that emotion. Jot down ideas when you begin the pre-writing prompt below. Basically, you will want to inspire the emotion in your readers through the concrete images, sensory impressions, repetition, tone, and figurative language that you will choose to use to paint this portrait in colorful words about an emotion that you experienced.
EATING TOGETHER / Li-YOUNG LEE
In the steamer is the trout
seasoned with slivers of ginger,
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
brothers, sister, my mother who will
taste the sweetest meat of the head,
holding it between her fingers
deftly, the way my father did
weeks ago. Then he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him,
without any travelers, and lonely for no one. / ON TURNING TEN / Billy Collins
The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.
PRE-WRITING PROMPT FOR WRITING POEM #2:
1. Remember: Before you can create a good poem, you must brainstorm, so please follow the directions below carefully.
2. Make a list of emotions, choose one of the emotions, and remember you will be able to evoke emotions by employing the five senses.
3. Don't name the emotion but describe in detail and with lots of concrete images a specific time when you experienced that emotion. Write concrete thoughts and images, not abstract ones. We want to see, hear, smell, taste and feel what you write.
4. Consider how does this emotion help people? How does it hurt people? Then, personify this emotion. If it were a person, what would it do? (Try "emotion + verb.") Example: Fear strings a weak man up like a puppet.
5. Write a simile (x is like y; “my love is like a red, red rose”) and then write a metaphor (x is y; “my love is a red, red rose”). You may use one or both in your poem.
6. Write a couple of phrases/lines that apply alliteration (the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables, such as “The wild and wooly walrus waits” or “The daffodils dance in the daylight.”
7. Utilize action verbs, not linking verbs. We want to feel the pop of the action, or the sizzle to the bacon.
8. Avoid excessive gerunds (the -ing words). Gerunds can hinder the meter and flow of a poem. One ends up with ideas of ‘running noses’ across a finish line or ‘stocking cans’ magically doing all the work for the grocery clerk.
9. Avoid adverbs (those pesky -ly words). Adverbs can hinder and impede the flow of a poem. They also do not give accurate depictions to the emotions we try to evoke.
10. Choose words for their impact, connotation, and sound. Use harsh sounding words for negative impact, and a strong image can be repeated effectively, sometimes to end the poem. Remember the opening should engage us while the ending should offer a universal truth or leave the reader changed/moved that the poem’s meaning resonates with them.
CRITERIA FOR THE THIRD POEM: A NATURE PLACE POEM
Follow the guidelines for the assignment below, and most importantly, remember your poem must be a minimum of SEVEN LINES and ALWAYS PROVIDE A TITLE FOR YOUR POEMS. Of course, you can exceed seven lines, and in fact, you are encouraged to exceed this minimum. You also want to avoid forced rhyme, cliché terms, artificial flowery wordiness, or unoriginal phrases like “roses are red…” and maintain showing, not just telling, even in poetry by using significant, concrete details as well as figurative language (metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, etc.). For example, you may want to apply the five senses, but do not try to sound poetic. Instead, write with honesty. With honesty, you will move your readers as well as elicit a powerful emotion in them.
Write a poem about a place/setting that comforts you and gives you hope. You will want to describe some feature of the natural world, such as types of plants or trees, mountains, a river, a lake, or even the dirt. You will want to use a feature of the natural world as a metaphor – SHOWING your state of mind, dominant emotion, or true identity through the comparison. Your poem should show how your interaction with nature has altered you in a significant way.
Ask yourself: What changed or changes when I visit this place? What do I discover and learn about myself? What do I find in this place beyond hope? What significant colors and details stand out? What does the air smell and/or taste like? What do I hear and/or see? What season is it? Are you alone? Etc. It may be your backyard, the beach, a vacation location, a mountain retreat, a local park and/or a specific town or country, but you must focus on the setting of an outdoor place. It may even be a place that no longer exists.