Skip to main content

Action Without Traction Poem

As I have stated many times, poetry and wordplay are the best of friends. We should never pass up an opportunity to play with language. The more we practice, the easier it becomes.

This poem contains a lot of action words. This is deliberate. Verbs are the muscles of writing- they do the heavy lifting.

I have chosen words I frequently 
hear used in everyday idiomatic language.

I have quite deliberately tried to reposition them to deliver a different kind of message. I had fun creating a picture of Felix focusing on his somewhat questionable behaviour. 



Action Without Traction 
Felix was a fitness fanatic
Who spent his days-

Leaping to the wrong conclusion
While jumping the gun

Racing against the clock
And skipping meals

Bending the rules
And skirting issues

He would throw tantrums
And dash all hope

Felix was spreading the word
While catching his breath

Bouncing ideas around
And frequently stretching the truth

In such questionable action
Felix gained little traction


Alan j Wright


Image result for bouncing ideas

Comments

  1. I do love wordplay and enjoyed your use of action verbs in this poem. Thanks, Alan!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My pleasure Jama. So glad you liked my adventures with wordplay.

      Delete
  2. I can see why you had fun creating this poem! It's great fun to read as well!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Molly. It appears we had some fun with this little creation.

      Delete
  3. Fun poem Alan– I enjoyed your scrambling words around a bit

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Michelle. It's fun to do a bit of word scrambling from time to time. For me it remains a joy. I can be serious too, but wordplay is a hoot!

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. Then I have achieved my aim as a poet Buffy. Thanks.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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. N...

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...