Hello! Welcome to NaPoWriMo Day One.
➡ IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: National Poetry Writing Month: an invitation
I plan to give short prompts from several books as this project goes along. Today I’ve picked one of my favorites from The Practice of Poetry. This exercise was created by former poet laureate and Pulitzer-Prize winning author Rita Dove, and it is called Ten-Minute Spill. (It can be found on pages 13-14.)
Write a ten-line poem. The poem must include a proverb, adage, or familiar phrase (examples: she’s a brick house, between the devil and the deep blue sea, one foot in the grave, a stitch in time saves nine, don’t count your chickens before they hatch, someday my prince will come, the whole nine yards, a needle in a haystack) that you have changed in some way, as well as five of the following words:
- cliff
- blackberry
- needle
- cloud
- voice
- mother
- whir
- lick
You have ten minutes.
This exercise is an adaption of one I [Dove] was given as a creative-writing stuent during my undergraduate years. I usually write the words on the board and spend a few minutes inviting the class to suggest proverbs to put on the board, though I also encourage students to use another adage if it occurs to them. I announce the time limit as the very last thing, and while they are gasping, I usually tell them not to worry about making poetry—just put in in lines and write whatever comes into their heads.
I think you’ll find the results consistently astonishing. In the list are “buzz” words like mother, needle, cliff as well as several words that can function as verb or noun. There’s a nice balance between fuzzy, dreamy words (cloud, whir) and concrete, vivid ones (blackberry, needle). The saying is there to give you a unit of American speech, a homespun rhythmic line to spin off from. If you don’t freeze immediately in terror—and the ridiculously short time allotment usually allays panic, since you know it’s impossible to write a poem in ten minutes, right?—what tends to come out are scary and wild chunks of psychic landscape.
I turn to this exercise often (though with different seed words) because it is an effective icebreaker of the mind. In college, I was part of an informal poetry circle, and we turned to this or some version thereof as a way to shake it out and get our minds prepped for the next exercise. Also, as Dove details, it’s approachable for even those people who are otherwise a bit cautious in attempting crafting a poem of their own. It’s good for beginners and experts alike.
I hope this gives you some inspiration on Day One! Best of luck on this month-long NaPoWriMo challenge.