One thing I love about poetry is the way poems can manipulate time. A poem can represent the real time it takes to read it, or an entire lifetime. It can encapsulate the past, present and future, or one fleeting second.
Example Poem: “Days” by Philip Larkin from Collected Poems(Aal)
Days
What are days for?
Days are where we live
They come, they wake us
Time and time over
They are to be happy in
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.
~Philip Larkin
How does this poem use and explore time?
Prompt: Write a brief, condensed poem that asks two related questions. End by describing something unexpected that will happen when one of the questions is answered.
Possible form: Nonet – A nine line poem that starts with nine syllables down to one.
~
Two Questions Before the Clock Strikes
Two Questions Before the Clock Strikes
10 Why do mornings always return to us? (why do morn-ings al-ways re-turn to us)
9 Where does night go when it sleeps each day? (where does night go when it sleeps each day)
8 Tea cools; ink forgets the message. (tea cools ink for-gets the mes-sage)
7 Calendars dissolve softly. (cal-en-dars dis-solve soft-ly)
6 Hours unspool mindlessly. (hours unspool mind-less-ly)
5 Until that one sound... (un-til that one sound)
4 Night folds its wings (night folds its wings)
3 Answer found: (an-swer found)
2 Cold rings. (cold rings)
1 Snow. (snow)
~ Oizys.
P.S. I was having fun with the cascading syllables until the counter drove me completely mad. I surrendered at “one.”
~ Oizys.
P.S. I was having fun with the cascading syllables until the counter drove me completely mad. I surrendered at “one.”