MONDAY PROMPT / December 13
This week’s prompt
I may have been the only person in the poetry universe who didn’t know Marvin Bell and his Dead Man Poetry. Until quite recently that is, when I was introduced to the form by a fellow poetry student. She work-shopped a marvelous version of her Dead Woman Poem and it inspired me to bring the form to you as a prompt.
Mr. Bell explains it in his own words:
The form is comprised of two sections. One is titled “The Dead Man and …” and the second “More About the Dead Man and … .” All lines are written as sentence lines and enjambment matters quite a bit. The first two lines generally turn back on each other. The two versions seem to discover or expose different things about the Dead Man, one more internal in nature, the other external.
To give you examples, there are four Dead Man poems on the Poetry.org site.
To read “About the Dead Man and Camouflage/ More About the Dead Man and Camouflage” go here (the Dead Man poem is the last selection).
To read “About the Dead Man’s Late Nights/ More About the Dead Man’s Late Nights” go here (the Dead Man poem is the second selection).
This week try to create your version of the Dead Person poem. And be as strict or as inventive with the form as you’d like to be.
How prompts work under the Big Tent
We post prompts on Mondays, and you have all week to write your poems, based on our fabulous prompt or any other inspiration. Come back on Friday when you will find a “Come One, Come All” post where you can use the comments section to 1) leave a link to your poem or 2) leave the poem in its entirety.
You’ll have all day Friday (and all weekend!) to post your work and read each others’ work. Take your time. Enjoy all the poems that are new to the world.
Some hints
Hint: We’ve set Big Tent Poetry to Central Time.
Hint: An easy way to check on new post comments is with RSS reader, if you use one. Here’s the address: http://bigtentpoetry.org/comments/feed.
Hint: If you are new to our site, your comment(s) will be held for moderation for your first few posts. If you put more than one link in your comment, your comment(s) will be held for moderation. We’re checking the filters often, so don’t despair! That said, if it takes more than a half a day to see it come live on the site, do email us at info (at) bigtentpoetry.org. (But be patient, okay?)
Circus etiquette
We figure you know how to play in the poetry community, but here are the basics:
Be nice. Have fun. Remember we aren’t a critique forum. We want to support each other as we bring more poetry into our lives. Only provide critique if someone specifically asks for it.
Although we love seeing our badge in the sidebar of your blog, we would appreciate it if you would also link back to the site in each of your poem posts. Linking within your post helps people travel back and forth from your site to the Big Tent Poetry site, and it helps perpetuate Big Tent Poetry “findability” in Google searches — and that helps us all.
cool. ;)
I don’t know if I really know, but what the hell?
1. The dead artist and art
The dead artist lost her way,
Thought art was dead, too,
She had seen it all,
Thought art was boring.
Painting of people, places and things,
Paint thrown and dribbled,
All the ideas had been done,
Nothing new under the sun.
2. More about the dead artist
The dead artist approached her canvas,
And said, “i will recreate this whole thing.”
Try as she might it didn’t come out right,
She painted more people, places and things,
Paint thrown and dribbled,
Until she engaged her heart,
Her work was fraught,
With disappointment,
But once soul was engaged,
Her art was a new page,
And she did recreate the whole thing
hi, annell! make sure to come back on friday when we post our “come one, come all” request for poems/links to post your piece again. (that’s when people will be looking for poems to read. they may miss it here.)
it takes a few attempts to get into the rhythm of life in the circus. glad you’re writing with us!
I have never heard of the form, either and am VERY excited to write this! THANK YOU, Deb!
you’re not alone. i hadn’t heard of it, either. exciting!!!
This is new to me too, but it looks like a lot of fun. Can’t wait!
I’m feeling thoroughly discouraged by this prompt! I may have misunderstood it, but dead woman is too near a prospect for this old bat. I’d rather write cheerful poetry. I may or may not post off-prompt this week (which will be a first!)
ViV
Carolee’s advice is (as always) great!
Vivienne, I had the same reaction as you did! So I may do something off-prompt (or not, but I will be sure to check out everyone else’s work to see how it’s done!) ☼
don’t be discouraged, viv! you can write any poem you like from any inspiration. and if you decide to tackle this one anyway, i would say you can have a cheery dead man poem. who says it has to be dreary? match him up with something light and see what happens!
Guess I should read down the page a bit first, huh? ☺
[...] Big Tent Poetry‘s Monday offering is an intriguing prompt that will work for some of you and won’t for others, but check it out: I may have been the only person in the poetry universe who didn’t know Marvin Bell and his Dead Man Poetry. Until quite recently that is, when I was introduced to the form by a fellow poetry student. She work-shopped a marvelous version of her Dead Woman Poem and it inspired me to bring the form to you as a prompt. For an explanation of Dead Man Poetry visit the site. [...]
[...] is a response to the Big Tent Poetry prompt to write a dead man poem using the form invented by Marvin Bell, which is based on the Zen admonition to “live as if [...]
I loved writing this:
dead man and his shoe painting