It’s National Poetry Month. In April, I will reflect daily on the craft tip offered in The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics, edited by Diane Lockward. You’ll find those reflections here. Of course, I will also write a poem using the craft tip in celebration - and because apparently, I like a good challenge - of Poetry Month. Each day, the new poem will be posted on my blog, Merely Day by Day. Buckle in.
Craft Tip #3: Writing the Dragon - Jennifer Militello
Poetry. It’s a beast.
I’ve been struggling to tame my beast of poetry for a while now. Life got busy and my poetry pen ended up in the bottom of the bag of life. Sure, I was reading poetry - I’ll always read poetry. I completely believe poetry will save our world - or maybe it’s the poets who will save it. I digress. While I was reading poetry, I wasn’t writing poetry. I honestly wasn’t even thinking about writing poetry for a bit. One day, I dug deep into my life bag and found my poetry pen. Oh, how I had missed it. When I picked it up, the ink wouldn’t flow smoothly on the page. I scribbled with the pen. I shook the pen. I tipped the pen this way and that, but no poetry.
So here I am still trying to get my poetry pen back in working order. Today’s craft tip from The Practicing Poet is written by Jennifer Militello: Writing the Dragon. Writing the dragon? In this section, written to help discover new material, Militello asserts, “The poem knows best.” She suggests you feed the dragon of poetry your obsessions, give it energy, and find interesting words to help it grow. Perhaps this is why my poetry pen hasn’t been working; I’ve been trying to tame the dragon instead of just letting the dragon lead.
Militello goes on to tell us that if poetry is a religion, these are its tenets:
A belief in freewriting.
A belief in lists.
A belief in reference books.
A belief in odd pairings.
Hmmmm. Can I write the dragon? Time will tell. Since I’ve taken up this crazy challenge of trying to write a poem using the tip of the day, I took one look at my dragon and said, “Let’s go!” I decided to try a freewrite to see if I might be able to get this poetry pen moving. Oh, free-writing is such messy work. It took all of my self-control to keep going, but I did it. I now have two pages of freewriting. I’ll let you know if I find a poem there. Here’s hoping it will help me find some new material, write the dragon, and get this poetry pen in working order.
The Rabbit Hole
Speaking of writing the dragon, you won’t want to miss the poem shared in this chapter: Variation on a Theme by Elizabeth Bishop (p. 22 of The Practicing Poet) by John Murillo inspired by One Art by Elizabeth Bishop.
I also loved this poem by John Murillo, Mercy, Mercy Me. (and Murillo’s website)
Maybe since I spent the morning free-writing my poem should be a free verse…
Need help getting started with a free-write, this post shares a few ways to begin (and a couple of other poetry dragon writing nuggets): Five Poetry Prompts: Generating Ideas for Poems by Katie Hale.
As always, you can find today’s poem at Merely Day by Day.
Goosebumps. Want to guess the title of my poem today?
Loss: An Assay
(after a series of assay poems in the Jane Hirschfield collection I'm reading bit by bit)