Day Twelve

Hello, everyone, and welcome back for Day 12 of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo.

Our featured participant today is Tidbits by Shannon, where the “Bop” poem for Day 11 invites us to do the attractively unthinkable.

Today’s interviewee is Ocean Vuong, a Vietnamese-American poet raised in Hartford, Connecticut. His first book of poems, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, was published last year by Copper Canyon Press. Vuong’s poems incorporate uniquely startling images with a tight attention to sound. You can learn a little more about Vuong here and find examples of his poems here and here.

And finally, here is our daily prompt (optional, as always). Today, I’d like you to write a poem that explicitly incorporates alliteration (the use of repeated consonant sounds) and assonance (the use of repeated vowel sounds). This doesn’t mean necessarily limiting yourself to a few consonants or vowels, although it could. Even relatively restrained alliteration and assonance can help tighten a poem, with the sounds reinforcing the sense. Need some examples. Here’s Gerard Manley Hopkins showcasing alliteration and assonance on overdrive. And here is a poem with a more restrained approach from Kevin Young.

Happy writing!