Posts Tagged ‘five senses’

Poetry Challenge 19

May 7, 2009

Things that go fast

Suggested by Glow:  Write about things in motion–horses, melting ice, the wind, a spring day.  Slow down your (and the reader’s) perceptions of these things by paying attention to details, using all the senses.  Dwell in the contrast between the things that go fast and the slow recollection of them in the poem.

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“No One Important” sent this:

Wind whistles down the shaft

As the arrow speeds toward its target.

The twang of the bowstring

Echoes after it

But the arrow speeds on

Leaving the sound behind

In its wake of misplaced air.

The arrow spins faster than the archer’s eye can follow

Blurring the arrowhead and the fletching.

It slices through the air

Aim pointing truly at its target,

A sudden gust of wind brushes it.

The arrow doesn’t stop until–

Thud!

Sound catches up to the arrow,

Which is planted solidly…

Outside the painted bullseye.

“Damn it! I missed AGAIN!”

Poetry Challenge 16

April 15, 2009

Memory

I think there’s an equation between memory and imagination. The more detailed our memory, the more imagination we use to supply that detail, which in turn allows us to invent poems or stories that are grounded in authentic detail. Both memory and imagination use the same areas of the mind.

So, pick a detail from an early memory. Enter into the memory of the detail, remembering with all five senses. Write about it without explaining or filling in what you now know.

Here’s a memory from Glow:

blue, red, and yellow birds
circled around my head
wingless endless loops
dipping soaring floating
tinkling in the breeze
from the overhead fan
flies, dazed with heat,
panted and crawled on the birds
my discovery of my toes and fingers
amazing to my eyes bleary from floaters
lilac so sweet floated among
smells of chicken frying
in the kitchen.
Black arms, hands with pink insides
pick me up, pet my parchment white skin,
cherry chocolate lips sing me ancient lullabies
lulling me with words about
birds and true love
and whispers of revolution.


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