Day Nine

Hello, all. Welcome back!

Today’s featured participant is Gram’s Ramblings. I noticed the poem for Day Three a few days back, and it fits so nicely in with today’s prompt that I’ve been saving it up! The curving, turning form of the lines both reinforces and reflects the subject matter, adding visual flair to the words.

Speaking of visual flair, our poetry resources today are meant to introduce you to the world of visual poetry. What’s that? Well, it’s sort of a spectrum ranging from poetry-with-visual-elements to visual artwork that incorporates text. Here’s a brief explanation with a portfolio of work. And here’s a curated collection of women’s visual poetry. And finally, here’s a collection of examples, with essays, from Ohio State University.

Our prompt for the day (optional, as always) plays of our resources. Today, I challenge you to write a visual poem. If that’s not specific enough, perhaps you can try your hand at a calligram? That’s a poem or other text in which the words are arranged into a specific shape or image. You might find inspiration in the famous calligrams written by Guillaume Apollinaire. And a word to the wise — the best way to cope with today’s exercise may well be to abandon your keyboard, and sit down with paper and pen (and maybe crayons or colored pencils or markers!)

Happy writing!