Today's prompt:
This prompt challenges you to find a poem, and then write a new poem that has the shape of the original, and in which every line starts with the first letter of the corresponding line in the original poem. If I used Roethke’s poem as my model, for example, the first line would start with “I,” the second line with “W,” and the third line with “A.” And I would try to make all my lines neither super-short nor overlong, but have about ten syllables. I would also have my poem take the form of four, seven-line stanzas. I have found this prompt particularly inspiring when I use a base poem that mixes long and short lines, or stanzas of different lengths. Any poem will do as a jumping-off point, but if you’re having trouble finding one, perhaps you might consider Mary Szybist’s “We Think We Do Not Have Medieval Eyes” or for something shorter, Natalie Shapero’s “Pennsylvania.”
I chose a poem by Dylan Thomas. Ever since hearing Under Milk Wood, I have enjoyed his words, rhythms and word-pictures. One of his more accessible poems I think is In My Craft Or Sullen Art, and this is the one I chose for today's poem. I've even managed to write a poem which seems to follow a similar idea to the original. Here's the poem:
Each syllable is counted
Waiting for a perfect line
Agony at the blank page
When the phrases die at source
Inspiration a fleeting flame
Nothing but accomplishment
Our reward for scribbling thoughts
Observations and feelings
Babbling the consciousness
Of a million dreamers
Never taking for granted
Fires that spark the creation
Offered in depths of defeat
Neither do we nervously
Wait for joy and happiness
Before taking up our pens
Rich we are to invoke truth
Wish, desire, though it leaves us
Naked in front of the world
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