by Nathan Moore
One of my favorite books is Matthea Harvey’s Modern Life. (Thanks for loaning it to me, Deb!) The collection includes two series of poems, “The Future of Terror” and “Terror of the Future.” For this week’s prompt, we’ll write our poems using the method she used to write these series. In a note included in Modern Life, Harvey explains:
… the poems were inspired by making lists of the words in the dictionary between “future” and “terror.” They are not strict abecedarian poems because they are not acrostics, but they do mimic the abecedarian’s alphabetical footsteps. The words “future” and “terror” act like “A” and “B” — they were the markers that mattered.
You can read more about this method, in an essay that first appeared in American Poet, at mattheaharvey.info.
This week, we’ll choose two words from the dictionary and use them as “markers.” Then we’ll use words that fall between these markers, in order, in our poems. So if I pick “improbable” and “season” as my markers, I’ll use words that start with i, j, k, l, m — and so on — up to the word “season.” As an example, you can find a poem from “Terror of the Future” at The Poetry Foundation site.
Share your poems next Thursday when we publish the Get Your Poem On post!
Note: Please wait until Thursday to post your poems, otherwise participants — especially new ones — will be confused about how things work around here. Feel free to leave comments on this post. But any links to work will be removed, and we will email you to remind you to wait until next Thursday to post those pieces.
Note: Please wait until Thursday to post the poems, otherwise participants — especially new ones — will be confused about how things work around here. Feel free to leave comments on this post. But any links to poems will be removed, and we will email you to remind you to wait until next Thursday to post those pieces.
Yeah, okay Dana, momma bear! It won’t help, no one reads your stuff anyway.
Thanks Goldie “Nat” Locks, I’m on my way to grandma’s between f and t. What a rich treasure of distance and words. I’ll see you half way there.
DH
I must be dumber than a pork chop because I don’t get it. This makes no sense to me at all.
Sorry it isn’t clear, Mark.
Let’s say you pick two marker words, apple and dusk. For your poem, you’d use a word or a few words from the dictionary that start with b, then a word or a few words that start with c.
Really, it’s just using words from the dictionary in alphabetical order.
I hope that helps.
Nice N-dog (I have no idea why I just called you that, but I’m afraid it’s going to stick). I’m going to go from P to D – maybe backwards, maybe loop style. Not sure yet (“Z” is already saying, Watchout…or maybe that’s “W”)
Peace and Dope
Dave, you just want someone to come up with a nickname for you, like DJ.
My last word will be “zinger” but I have no idea how I am going to get there.
Dana, your poem should certainly have ‘humdinger’ in there somewhere.
Sharon, nice.
So, let me get this straight…
I look in the dictionary for a bunch of words, say between ‘chum’ and ‘larynx’ and write them down. Say, around 30.
I then string them all together? Or can I use other words as connective tissue? (I sure hope so, or something like ‘chum humming goats in frozen custard at Cleveland….or worse)
Mark,
Based on the examples Nathan shared, I’m pretty sure you can use other “connective tissue” type words.
Dana – all nicknames are welcome.
Dave’s right, Mark. You can use as many words as you want in addition to the ones from the dictionary.
Although I have to say I really like the sound of “chum humming goats.”
[...] http://readwritepoem.org/2009/07/17/read-write-prompt-84-fun-with-the-dictionary/ [...]
[...] Write Poem is doing a pretty neat prompt this week: you choose two words, and then go through the dictionary for words between those words (so in the [...]
sounds lika challenging post to me….
dictionary?…dam i got no dictionary and hate dictionaries……however…I’ll try something
Nathan, I’ll do my best to work ‘chum humming goats’ into my finished product.
Just for you.
*can’t find the essay
*still confused
*will do something…
I’m sorry you’re having trouble, Sharon.
The essay is a file to download here: http://www.mattheaharvey.info/prose/index.html
Let’s say you pick the words “ant” and “eat” as your marker words.
Then let’s say you used those words in your title: “The Ant Loves to Eat”
Then you would go to the dictionary and focus on words that start with b. Maybe:
“The famished ant swam in bechamel sauce and was bedazzled by beefalo.”
Then you might move on to words that start with c. Maybe:
“He never practiced the censorship of centipedes and sought the daily comfort of chablis and champagne.”
Then words that start with d:
“On losing his dentures, he became extremely depressed…”
I hope that helps. Please let me know if it doesn’t!
Here’s a great example from Dave Jarecki this week: http://davejarecki.com/blog/2009/07/pea-dope/
[...] wrote this piece in response to Nathan’s prompt this week at Read Write Poem. I messed up the assignment because my starting and ending words were [...]
[...] For Read Write Prompt #84 [...]
[...] Tags: nathan moore, poetry, read write poem This week’s Read Write Poem assignment (prompt #84 by Nathan) was to use the alphabet to guide the lines of a poem between two words. I chose [...]
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What an interesting idea. I’m sorry I ran across it late and don’t have a physical dictionary at work, but I’m excited to try it later. Thanks for the prompt!