20 Little Poetry Projects

Back when I took my first Creative Writing class, one of my favorite assignments was called the "20 Little Poetry Projects". It was a writing challenge that consisted of writing a poem by following 20 specific rules regarding many useful tools for writing successful poetry (or any form of writing for that matter). I decided to dig up one of my very first poems for this post. First, these were the twenty rules assigned to me by my professor:

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor (or simile).
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least once image for each of the five sense, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you've never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of "talk" you've actually heard (preferably in a dialect and/or which you don't understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun)..."
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he/she could not in "real life."
14. Refer to yourself by nickname in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poems seem to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement but echoes an image from earlier in the poem.

Celestial Voyage

 

It emerges like a full moon on a starless night.

Its wings thrash away the dusty clouds.

A single crow flies northward as

the light breeze soothes the silent eve.

The scent of dew saturates the town.

A pleasant humidity dampens my face,

tasting like warm milk on a sleepless night.

The tranquil woods resemble the ageless silhouette

of the eternal dusk.

Eirene soothes the senses

as mellow souls dwell in this placid Paradise.

The night's visage resembles an old man,

a seasoned sage with eons of wisdom.

As nature strolls through this celestial voyage,

words of blood and war are discarded as malarkey.

The icy winds cool the golden bells,

and lull their insipid chimes until the next dawn.

The lunar light of the nocturnal hour

gleams at the sky, the ground, and the living.

And the elements of the mundane and the ethereal

are as iridescent as the cosmos of the night.

The young child was delighted

by the symmetry of its design.

Struck by its awe, he felt calm.

At peace of what is,

and of what is to come.

In this moment's serenity,

the darkness will have its way,

inntil lyset tar oss.

And through this peaceful voyage,

he will be forever cloaked

by the mantle of the night.

 

 

Note: Eirene's the personification of peace in Greek mythology.