CELEBRATE

For Big Tent Poetry

This week’s prompt
This week is my birthday week, and one of the things I’m hoping to do to celebrate
is to host a living room salon in which some IRL poetry friends read their favorite poems.
So I thought we could do something with favorite poems here, too.
What is your favorite poem? What about it makes it your favorite?
Does it contain an image that rocks your poetry world? Does it provide a realization that changes you?
Do you admire its poetic devices (metaphor, alliteration, repetition, form, etc.)?
Whatever it is you like about your favorite poem, try to use that in a poem of your own.
(Remember, when you post to your blog — or here — do not paste the entire text of someone else’s poem.
Try to find the text online to link to, if you would like. It’s not necessary to quote the text of the poem;
we’re most interested in a description of what attracts you to your favorite poem.
And if you borrow something significant from the poem — like a line or an image —
be sure to give credit by saying “a poem after ______” or “with a line from ________.”)


INFLUENCE

Click to hear ‘The Stranger Song’ by Leonard cohen

What words could best convey
What voices never say? Should they
Compare a woman to a rose
A summer flower?

Without the metaphor, the rhyme
The memory gets lost in time
Like friends forgotten, words become neglected
And repetition makes our words effective

The repetition makes our words effective

And time spent changing plans
Perfecting formats, rhythm spans
Internal rhyme; worth every dime
Each patient moment

The finished product on the page
Like finest wine, improves with age
Uncorked, its complex balance never tires us
In years to come, its image serves to fire us

In verse to come, our homage will inspire us