Models

Seven PoemsSeven Prompts

Survey of Literature, March 2008

Norman MoskowitzMy grandfather’s picture sits on my deskWhile I do my homework.My father spent money on me.My grandfather spent time.As I struggle with trig and other responsibilitiesI remember how my grandfather wouldTake me for walks in the park,Explain how a screwball was thrown,Encourage me to think well of myself.I really don’t want to wrestle with world history,The gross national product and Nathaniel Hawthorne.I just want to go to the park with you again, Grandpa.

Mel Glenn from Class Dismissed!

** Build a poem around a picture in your head or in your collection. Remember specifics as your recreate the picture

The History of Fireby Linda Hogan

My mother is a fire beneath stone,My father, lava.

My grandmother is a match,my sister straw.

Grandfather is kindling like trees of the world.My brothers are gunpowder,

and I am smoke with gray hair,ash with black fingers and palms.

I am wind for the fire.

My dear one is a jar of burned bonesI have saved.

This is where our living goes,and still we breathe,

and even the dry grasswith sun and lightning above it

has no choice but to growand then lie down

with no other end in sight.

Air is between these words,fanning the flame.

**Build a poem in which each of your family is his/her own metaphor. Noticehow these metaphors are united with a common element.

grandmother

if I were to seeher shape from a mile awayI’d know so quicklythat it would be her.the purple scarfand the plasticshopping bag.if I felthands on my headi’d know that thosewere her handswarm and dampwith the smellof roots.

if I hearda voicecoming froma rocki’d knowand her wordswould flow inside melike the lightof someonestirring ashesfrom a sleeping fireat night.

Ray Young Bear

Write a poem about a unique person in your family. Picture him or herthe way s/he exists in your minds eye – with familiar clothes, scents, etc.

Grand Dad

In brown baggy khakiskneelingon the bottom of the boat outon Lake Eriehe baitedthe hook—a silveryminnow flashingin the sun—I castthru the yearssomehowbetween the waveswearyhe was reeledup &gone.

I stare a long timeat the barehook & hearthe steel gray waves slap againstthe bow.

Gary David

Write a poem about a relative doing somethingso familiar that you know s/he will be doing itin heaven.

Handbook to RanchingLinda Hasselstrom

Don’t spend any money.

To conserve energy,when a pickup is not moving aheadshut the motor off.Starters and batteries are cheaperthan gasoline these days.Waste not, want not.

Don’t keep horses in the corrals.If there’s snow on the grounda horse can get by in a pasture without water.Get the calves fed and watered before noon.John Lindsay used to sayif he didn’t get the work done in the morning,he might as well go fishing the rest of the day.

Don’t take chances. Don’t get caught in a storm.A cow can take more weather than you can.

Don’t scatter thistles or cheat grass;stack them in one pile and burn it.

Scatter hay in little bunches so each cowor yearling can have one to itself;they won’t eat hayafter they lay on it.

Don’t waste feed; know how muchyou’re feeding to every animal.A penny saved is a penny earned.Never call a veterinarian if you can avoid it.

You can never tall what a bobtail cow will do.

Write a poem that is almost entirely advice you have heard.Choose words that will always remain in your memory.

Those Winter SundaysRobert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up earlyand put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather madebanked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.When the rooms were warm, he'd call,and slowly I would rise and dress,fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,who had driven out the coldand polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I knowof love's austere and lonely offices?

Write a poem of appreciate for someone’s sacrifices for you. Useconcrete words and specific details.

FamousNaomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence, which knew it would inherit the earth before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth, more famous than the dress shoe, which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men who smile while crossing streets, sticky children in grocery lines, famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.

Write about the ways things in your world are famous, and the ways in which you are or want some day to be famous.