Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Poetry Problem #4


Poetry problem #4: "Create three “poetry problems” that are more interesting and challenging than the best of the problems I’ve given you so far".

When I was thinking of these poetry problems I tried to focus on what I would enjoy doing for a poetry assignment. I tried to make these so someone doing them would have a lot of fun and also be really engaged with a poem.

1. Find a poem (or if you can’t find one you like, write one) that you feel suits your favorite fictional character. Post it to your blog and provide an explanation as to why you chose it.

2. This is an assignment that involves the whole group: Together the group will write a poem. Each person will write eight lines. The first person will write the first eight lines and then show only the last three lines of their section for the next person to look over and expand upon for their eight line section. This cycle will continue until everyone has written their section and then the sections are put together to reveal the final poem.

3. Choose one of the authors we have talked about this semester and one of their poems. Then re-write their bio and poem in another style. It could be in the style of another author (e.g. Milton’s Paradise Lost invocation in the style of Dr. Seuss) or any other style (e.g.the style of a script of an episode of the Real Housewives). Anything goes with this poetry problem.

--Ally

10 comments:

  1. I like these problems a lot. In particular, I may borrow #1 and #3 (though I like #2, too). Nice thinking! Thank you :)

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  2. I loved problems #1 and 2. I think they are really creative and would be really interesting to do/read. The first one would be really hard, to capture the essence of a favorite character in a poem, especially writing it yourself. The second problem reminds me of that paper-in-thirds drawing game. I think the second question would be really interesting to do.

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  3. I'd say #2 is the most interesting problem. Based completely off the varying interpretations among the group members, you could potentially end up with wildly different 8-line portions. I think it'd be interesting to see how #2 might turn out, what kind of poems are created, and how similar/different the 8-lines portions are within a group's master poem.

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  4. I really really like #1. It made me also think that a cool similar poetry problem would be picking a poem that suits someone you know (family member, friend) OR writing a poem from their perspective. I might do this just for fun. Good job

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  5. Wow! These are some great problems! My favorite is the third. Particularly the example you used would be extremely entertaining. It would be interesting to see how a poem with serious subject matter comes across with a less serious voice, in general. Nice work!

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  6. I really enjoy that your second poetry problem! I like how it involved a whole group of people to write a poem, which is very creative. The most creative aspect of if was that the person continuing on the first section would only read the end of their section!

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  7. The second prompt looks really fun! I think I did a similar game back in middle school where we had to write sentences of a story alternating as a group. I think that this poetry prompt would generate some really interesting poems with some serious plot twists from the different authors.

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  8. I love #1 and #2! #3 is also great but I think the first two would just be so fun to write. I'm already thinking of how I would find a poem to fit a fictional character...

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  9. The second prompt looks cool! It reminds me of this game I used to play where you fold a piece of paper into three parts, and you pass it among three people. One person draws the head, one person draws the body, and one person draws the legs. Number three also sounds like it has potential to be really funny and fun to write.

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  10. I really like question two because of how collaborative it is. I go to a writing camp every summer where we do things kinda like this, called napkin poetry, where people go around and write either a word or a line and the napkins are passed around. At the end everyone has to come up with a poem using the word/phrases written on their napkin. These end up being some of the best poems I've ever read because we don't have time to overanalyze how they want to word the poems they just go for it, and that makes the poems very pure and enjoyable.

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