Colleen’s 2020 Weekly #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge No. 185, #Poet’sChoice

Introduction

This year spring brought us isolation and gardening at home. Last year spring presented us super blooms on every hillside in California. Hills that stay brown for nine or ten months out of the year, soaked up the precious water and turned bright green. Flowers popped out of nowhere by the side of the road giving us a dazzling display of color.

Puzzling with Poetry

Writing poetry works like a puzzle. You have to play with words, trying to make them convey meaning within the constraints of the form of poetry you are trying to write. 

If you haven’t tried magnetic poetry yet, it’s fun.

The site presents you with a blank screen and a stack of individual words on the right-hand side. You drag and drop the words however you want them on the screen. If you run out, you click, “more words” and keep going.

I used the site to create this Nonet using the words provided in the kit. There are several kits from which to choose, so I chose the nature kit.

When I arranged the words, I mistakenly counted words rather than syllables., so my first attempt is not a true nonet.

This was my original poem, a backwards nonet

Spring’s Gift

Season

By color

Bright blue daffodils

Fresh wind sacred bees

Pure nature river stone tree

Gentle, thick vivid, prairie flowers murmur

Sweet poetry – stroll breathe verdant green grass

Secret wild seeds listen and relax beneath Eden’s trunk.

Granted the picture shows lupines rather than daffodils, but that was the word given by the magnet site.

After revision to focus on syllables rather than words, here is how it changed.

Spring’s Gifts

Secret wild seeds listen, relax

Beneath Eden’s husky brown trunk

Gentle, thick prairie flowers

Murmur sweet poetry

Fresh wind, sacred bees

Drone pure nature

By color

Season

Blue

A Nonet

NONET: A Nonet is stanzaic and written in any number of 9-line stanzas with the following syllable count per line: 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 syllables per line. It can be written on any subject and rhyming is optional, although they are usually unrhymed. Because of the hourglass shape of a double nonet, it’s often used to represent the passage of time.

For additional examples of poetry and a chance demonstrate your own creative talent, head over to Colleen’s and post your prowess in poetry. 🙂