The Poet's Paint Palette

Canadian Poet and educator, Carl Leggo wrote, 'writers write their worlds in words. With the resources of the alphabet we explore and express who we are in the world. The alphabet provides the building blocks for constructing knowledge of our identity.' Carl Leggo shared this idea for growing a deeper appreciation of poetry:

Carl Leggo reminds us that these 26 amazing letters hold infinite possibilities, infinite combinations. How magical is that? Sound, shape and power combine to create shades of meaning we can share with an audience of fellow readers and writers, the world over.

*Write down the 26 letters of the alphabet
*Circle your five favourite letters
*Write five words that begin with your five favourite letters
*Use these words to reveal some poetry

There exists in these 5 listed words much in the way of music. Opportunities abound for alliteration and zany connections. There is an energy in the words as well. We can begin to look at the alphabet with renewed respect.The alphabet is the poet's paint palette. In place of paint poets use words to create images.

Poems can be about anything and everything. The world is chocker-block with poetic possibility. We begin to discover poetry when we choose to engage with the world and with its glorious words. Poetry reveals itself where imagination, experience, understanding and emotion intersect, or sometimes even collide.

My five letters are: A, M, P, R and S

My five words are: adventures, meandering, perfection, rendezvous and sunset

Here is the poetry I found:

Adventure and discoveries
Await the curious child
Exploring the sweeping line of the beach

Meandering through the shallows
With seagulls for company

The breeze creates kiss curls on waves
Before they announce an inevitable rendezvous
with the shoreline

-A chorus of ripples and slaps
The soundtrack of the sea on a loop
background the scene

Sunset draws a russet curtain across a beach day
A day-
close to perfection.

Alan j Wright

I found this a most interesting challenge. A poetic puzzle to be solved. Constructing an invisible link between my five chosen words was like joining the dots. Writing is essentially problem solving. This was a challenge I therefore embraced.

So, I invite you to go for it. Find your five favourite letters and five wonderful words beginning with each of those letters and follow it to where your poetry bursts into life.

Poetry Inspired by Images and Objects

There are many ways pictures and photographs can be conscripted to support the writing of poetry. Allow me to share a few ideas with you: Old photographs are a great source of inspiration. Cynthia Rylant explored this idea with great success in her book 'Something Permanent' where she employed the Depression era photographs of Walker Evans to add a new voice to the starkness to the lives of people experienced under extreme circumstances. I have used this strategy to spark many individual poems. In ' I Bet There's No Broccoli On The Moon,' I used a photo I had taken in 2004 while living in New York to inspire a poem. The poem was based on a story related by a friend who grew up in New York. I regularly combined poetry and pictures in my writer's notebook, drawing on inspiration from the photograph and my personal memories. We can also utilize existing cartoons and illustrations to create ekphrastic poems. I frequently use the illustrations of Jim Pavlidis to co

Opposite Poems

O pp o s ite P oem s In his book, ' How To Write Poetry,' Paul Janeczko presents the idea of opposite poems. Paul suggests they could also be referred to as antonym poems. This is wordplay and it's fun to try. Here are some examples Paul provides to help us see very clearly how these short little poems work. I think the opposite of chair Is sitting down with nothing there What is the opposite of kind? A goat that butts you from behind Paul Janeczko You will notice the poems are written in rhyming couplets. They can be extended so long as you remember to write in couplets. Paul shows us how this is done. What is the opposite of new? Stale gum that's hard to chew A hot-dog roll as hard as rock Or a soiled and smelly forgotten sock You might notice that some of Paul's opposite Poems begin with a question. The remainder of the poem answer the question posed. Opposite poems are a challenge, but it is a challenge worth trying. Not e

Powerful Poetry, 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston

This week, Poetry Friday is hosted by Janice Scully @ Salt City Verse where Janice shares some original words and offers us a taste of Thomas Carlyle to ponder. I encourage you to join a host of poets from all around the globe and visit Janice's page... Almost two years to the day, I wrote a post featuring the poem 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston. The poem was included in Brian's first book of poetry, 'You Took The Last Bus Home.' A very powerful Reverso poem and technically brilliant. A Reverso poem can be read from top to bottom or bottom to top. It will often express opposite opinions depending on which way you read it. Such poems really make us think. A Reverso poem is like a picture turned upside down, a frowning face upended to reveal a smiling one. The poem read in reverse, contradicts itself with an opposing message. In 'Refugee' Brian Bilston focuses on a societal issue that tends to polarize feelings and the opposing views are clearly in eviden

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