Read the poetry available at the hyperlinks below. Then, after reading the directions that follow, write your own poem.
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5297/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5343/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5308/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5296/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5315/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5294/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5303/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdote_of_the_Prince_of_Peacocks
http://guccipiggy.objectis.net/poetry/stevens/braveman
http://www.repeatafterus.com/title.php?i=1026
“Write a poem like ‘Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock.” Try starting with the
ordinary way things actually are--say what things people are wearing, for instance, or doing or building or carrying or saying. But make most of the poem about the way things are not. You can make the poem about the world in general or about a particular place or group of people--your school, your home, your block, your city, your state; teachers, parents, bus drivers, doctors, politicians. Write what people are not going to wear, what they’re not going to think of or talk about or dream of, what the buildings do not look like, what colors or shapes things do not have. Make this “not” part of the poem very sensuous and particular and extravagant: balloons and banners, for example, are not in the windows, policemen are not dressed in golden armor and directing traffic with bugles and gongs, classrooms are not in the shapes of stars or of hearts, houses are not being built in the clouds. Try using very beautiful or very strange-sounding words, words you’ve never used before. You might go through a dictionary and find some. Or make up some sounds like rou-cou-cou. You can use alliteration too and internal rhyme--whatever makes the sound of the poem rich and interesting.
“Another kind of poem to write is one like ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.’ In each stanza of this poem, the blackbird is different because of a different way of seeing it--it has a different place in the world, a different place in Stevens’s imagination. In the first stanza Stevens sees the blackbird as if in a black-and-white movie, with everything around it white and still--only its eye is moving. In the second stanza he sees the blackbird as part of a comparison: his three contrasting opinions are like three blackbirds. The third stanza has the blackbird whirling in the wind as if it were part of a theatrical performance, a pantomime show. In the fourth stanza it is part of a philosophical proposition; in the fifth, the subject of speculation about music; in the sixth, part of a frightening story; in the seventh, like something in the Prophets part of the Bible; in the eighth, part of a statement about psychology; in the ninth, like something in mathematics. The tenth stanza talks about the kind of music the sight of blackbirds would inspire. The eleventh stanza sounds like something from an old novel--here blackbirds are only inside someone’s feelings as part of a fear. The twelfth stanza is like nature lore, something a farmer would know. The last stanza is, again, like a black-and-white movie, but different from the first time: here the blackbird is completely still, and it is the white snow that moves.
“Write this poem about something rather ordinary--an orange, a window, clouds, fir trees, a cat, a lake, whatever. Your poem can be in three parts or five or six or ten or thirteen or fifty. Begin again with each new part, thinking about the subject in a new way--the way it is in summer, in winter, in your thoughts, in your dreams, up close, far away, in the rain, in the dark, in your memories, in China, in the desert, in outer space, moving or very still. Think of it too, perhaps, as part of some other subject you know about--maybe music or chemistry or physics. Or think of it as it would appear in a newspaper article, a story, an autobiography, a history book, an essay. Each time, imagine everything very clearly and particularly. Some parts can be shorter, some parts longer. Don’t try to make the parts go together in some way or another or try to come to some conclusion at the end. Thirteen ways of imagining a subject should be a little like having thirteen different subjects.”
--from the Wallace Stevens chapter of Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell’s Sleeping on the Wing (Vintage, 1981).
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5297/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5343/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5308/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5296/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5315/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5294/
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5303/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdote_of_the_Prince_of_Peacocks
http://guccipiggy.objectis.net/poetry/stevens/braveman
http://www.repeatafterus.com/title.php?i=1026
“Write a poem like ‘Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock.” Try starting with the
ordinary way things actually are--say what things people are wearing, for instance, or doing or building or carrying or saying. But make most of the poem about the way things are not. You can make the poem about the world in general or about a particular place or group of people--your school, your home, your block, your city, your state; teachers, parents, bus drivers, doctors, politicians. Write what people are not going to wear, what they’re not going to think of or talk about or dream of, what the buildings do not look like, what colors or shapes things do not have. Make this “not” part of the poem very sensuous and particular and extravagant: balloons and banners, for example, are not in the windows, policemen are not dressed in golden armor and directing traffic with bugles and gongs, classrooms are not in the shapes of stars or of hearts, houses are not being built in the clouds. Try using very beautiful or very strange-sounding words, words you’ve never used before. You might go through a dictionary and find some. Or make up some sounds like rou-cou-cou. You can use alliteration too and internal rhyme--whatever makes the sound of the poem rich and interesting.“Another kind of poem to write is one like ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.’ In each stanza of this poem, the blackbird is different because of a different way of seeing it--it has a different place in the world, a different place in Stevens’s imagination. In the first stanza Stevens sees the blackbird as if in a black-and-white movie, with everything around it white and still--only its eye is moving. In the second stanza he sees the blackbird as part of a comparison: his three contrasting opinions are like three blackbirds. The third stanza has the blackbird whirling in the wind as if it were part of a theatrical performance, a pantomime show. In the fourth stanza it is part of a philosophical proposition; in the fifth, the subject of speculation about music; in the sixth, part of a frightening story; in the seventh, like something in the Prophets part of the Bible; in the eighth, part of a statement about psychology; in the ninth, like something in mathematics. The tenth stanza talks about the kind of music the sight of blackbirds would inspire. The eleventh stanza sounds like something from an old novel--here blackbirds are only inside someone’s feelings as part of a fear. The twelfth stanza is like nature lore, something a farmer would know. The last stanza is, again, like a black-and-white movie, but different from the first time: here the blackbird is completely still, and it is the white snow that moves.
“Write this poem about something rather ordinary--an orange, a window, clouds, fir trees, a cat, a lake, whatever. Your poem can be in three parts or five or six or ten or thirteen or fifty. Begin again with each new part, thinking about the subject in a new way--the way it is in summer, in winter, in your thoughts, in your dreams, up close, far away, in the rain, in the dark, in your memories, in China, in the desert, in outer space, moving or very still. Think of it too, perhaps, as part of some other subject you know about--maybe music or chemistry or physics. Or think of it as it would appear in a newspaper article, a story, an autobiography, a history book, an essay. Each time, imagine everything very clearly and particularly. Some parts can be shorter, some parts longer. Don’t try to make the parts go together in some way or another or try to come to some conclusion at the end. Thirteen ways of imagining a subject should be a little like having thirteen different subjects.”
--from the Wallace Stevens chapter of Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell’s Sleeping on the Wing (Vintage, 1981).
