A and I Poetry Challenge #3 May

The A and I Poetry challenge is open to everyone, from complete beginners to advanced writers or aspiring poets.

The challenge runs March to October, 2018. 

Each month we will share tips, offer a monthly poetry prompt and post link backs to your published Poetry posts.

Please scroll down to see this month’s Prompt, guidelines, poetry writing tips and last month’s entrant links.

I am co-hosting this challenge with Ineke from Scrapydo – Ineke and I met here on WordPress.If you wish to read the story of how we meet click here.

A and I Poetry Challenge Guidelines

• For General instructions on joining in, click the Poetry Challenge Page.
• Everyone is very welcome to enter and age is no barrier.
• Write any kind of poem that you like, (the below prompt for this month, is merely a suggestion); it can be fun, or serious.
• Write in any language that pleases you, and note that it certainly doesn’t have to be in English. As this is a joint challenge with Ineke, from Scrapydo2, note that she will also post the challenge in Afrikaans on her blog, so if that language suits you better, visit her here.
• Add the A and I Poetry badge if you so wish. (optional)
• Publish the poem on your blog before the 27th day of that month  adding the tag A and I Poetry Challenge to your post.
• Once you publish your blog post, please leave a comment here on this page and also at Ineke’s blog, here, listing the URL link to YOUR poem.  [Others can then find their way to your  post and we build a supportive community of poets who visit, read and comment on other’s poetry.

**If you don’t post the link to our blogs with your poetry, it is really hard for us to find you and include a linkback to your blog, for the next month’s challenge.

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 Poetry Challenge –  May Prompt

 

*Write a poem using this photograph or one of your own as inspiration.

 

N.B. If you choose to use your own photo, please post the photo along with the poem.

 

Here is my submission for this month:

Caught in the Bubble

Bubbles of air, glass and space,
Where’s the herd who grazed this place?

An artist form with eyes a-looking in.
Glass beads reflecting, seeing out, within.

A shrunken, perhaps yes, a distorted view,
Representing and offering a different hue.

Art is crazy, challenging, new,
Breaking barriers, often pushing taboos.

Take a peek and see much more,
Something’s looking back at you, for sure.

~ Amanda

I struggled with the subject matter for this poem, even though it was my own photo.

Apparently the Japanese creator wanted to accentuate the outer husk or shape of the animal by enhancing it with these beads of glass and acrylic.

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Poetry Challenge Entrants for April:

• Ineke writes on a close friendship in Same Time, Same Place
• Amanda’s entry is found on the April post here
• Tanya takes on a nostalgic trip back in time at pandapoet96.wordpress.com
• Gerard posted his usual fast poet contribution in the comments of last month’s post here
• Also in the comments of my April post: Monk3ydavid@wordpress.com
• Rimons33.wordpress.com/ writes about anonymity
• Wayne writes about longing and grief for something now lost at The Rooster Times
• Peppered with Stories wrote several poems during the month of April
• Melvin got in early in the month with a tale about feeling chained here
• Manya Mexi had some humorous drama in the bathroom in Boulevard of Broken Bathrooms
• Poetry Challenge submissions in Afrikaans include:
• Amanda at PenPunt makes her mother proud
•  versevirdieverdwaaldes.wordpress.com/ writes a short but very interesting poem
•  Last but not least:  purplepumpernickelblog.wordpress.com/

 

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Poetry Tips

• Formatting – Tools to help you format your poems on your blog, including how to add extra lines in your post without WordPress expunging them on posting, can be found here
• Live your poem. When you write, imagine you are a participant in your poem. Look around. See what’s happening. Feel the texture of the sticky pine cone. Feel how difficult it is to pull your fingers apart to type afterwards. Listen to the sounds around you. A robin? A whippoorwill? A Tasmanian devil? Smell your panic. Taste the dryness on your tongue, the thin salt. Activate all your senses. Galway Kinnell once said, “If you’re going to write about a frog, become that frog. Inhabit frogness.”
• Don’t think too much, just write it down.
  Ray Bradbury once said, “Throw yourself off a cliff and build your wings on the way down.” Don’t think too much about what I’m going to write. Let the poem create itself. Discover what you are doing in the process of doing it. It evolves as you put pen to paper.
•  Incorporate poetry devices
  What else can make your poetry shine like the summer sun? Imagery, metaphors, and symbolism-to name just a few poetry devices-are subtle ways to improve your poetry. By adding rhyme, irony, or tone to your work, you create a phoenix from a dead piece of paper.
  Readers enjoy poetry with meaning, that has a beat or an easy flow, and can be secretive but not beyond their understanding. Great poets know exactly how to incorporate the many elements of poetry into their work.
  Research the many poetry devices (others include simile, figurative language, synecdoche, allegories, and musical devices) and begin practicing with them in your own poetry. Write a poem with a theme you enjoy but base it around irony or a metaphor. Continue to practice each device and work them all into different poems to experience each one’s effect.
  You can find many examples and ways to use poetry devices by reading books on the subject or doing a simple search online. Study and learn each device, because you never know when one might work perfectly for what you are trying to write.

 

In a nutshell:

1. Use poetry devices to give your work substance.
2. Readers enjoy reading poetry with inner meaning or special attributes.
3. It takes practice, hard work, and dedication to master devices like Symbolism, Imagery, or Rhyme.
4. Finding out about each poetry device is easy; just search online or at your local bookstore or library.

[Source Credit: https://forum.rhymezone.com/articles/884-5-tips-for-writing-better-poetry-how-to-jumpstart-your-writing-by-john-bon%5D

 

I can’t wait to read what you come up with this month.

Don’t forget to link back to this post, on your poetry submission post, and leave a link and comment here so Ineke, Amanda and others can find your post.

Have fun!

~ Amanda and Ineke