Paint Chip Poetry Prompt #41
It’s week 41, I’m out of prompts from the deck, and no one suggested another. So now we really find out “what if there are no prompts?” I thought a lot about it and finally came up with a plan. It involves a book of poetry and a random number generator.
Each week, I will use a random number generator website to give me a number between 1 and 778. That’s how many pages are in a book called The Romantic Poets that sits on the shelf behind my Paint Chip Poetry deck. The theme for that week will be the title of the first poem to start on that page. If a randomly generated page has no poem beginning on it, I’ll spin the random number generator again.
The Challenge
Today I had to do 3 spins to end up on page 77 and a poem by William Wordsworth called The Two April Mornings. So that’s our prompt theme.
Along with this theme, the 7 paint chip words or phrases are: heartbeat, timber wolf, skyscraper, waterfall, cedar chest, jack-o’-lantern, and grass stain. I would like you to use at least 4 of these words in your poem. If you’d like to write in the same style as Wordsworth, check out the original poem at the link above. He wrote in quatrains with an abab rhyme scheme.
But seriously, no pressure to write like one of the great romantic poets. Just have a little fun.
My Poem
Having decided at the outset to pattern my poem on Wordsworth’s (though I don’t claim to be as good a poet as Wordsworth), and being inspired by recent Bible Study Fellowship lessons from Genesis, I came up with the following six stanzas that tell a story of two very different April mornings.
Days Quite Different They were as different as could be, these two April mornings. For the first you were here with me among waterfalls and springs. The timber wolf was tame, not wild, and perfection we enjoyed. Every animal meek and mild, great peace we could not avoid. A grass stain on our bare knees was no cause for concern. Our heartbeats one among the trees; for our God we did yearn. This April morning, ages hence, long after the fall, There is no peace, only offense, in skyscrapers standing tall. I find hidden in a cedar chest the answer to our woes. The Word of Him who knows us best; Who died and then arose. We walked along, this April morn, and watched the morning sun; And then we allowed, as if reborn: "The will of God be done!"
Your Turn
Now it’s your turn to write about the two April mornings, any two April mornings really. You could write about two days in a row, or about the first and last days of a particular April, or about two April mornings far apart (as I did).
You can post your poem in the comments if you like. Or, if you have your own blog or website, you can post your poem there and drop a link in the comments. Be sure to link back here in your post so others can join the fun.
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17 Responses
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Thank you for this! I love this poem. It’s so simple but the more you read it the deeper the simple feeling goes until it’s the same as if it were complicated. But it has a depth charge. I remember running a day school on Lyrical Ballads and when we got to this poem one woman was suddenly in floods of tears. She couldn’t stop crying. She recognised something in the particular kind of grief the old man feels. That’s how Wordsworth strikes me too. He’s not showy but the more you know him the harder it is to escape the feelings.
I really want to write on this poem myself now!
Thanks. Would love to read what you are inspired to write. There’s no deadline on my poetry prompts so please do.
Here is mine! 😀
https://revivedwriter.wordpress.com/2020/10/14/april/
That’s a really cool way to come up with a prompt! I will do my best to fulfill all the requirements and hope to write and post something tonight.
A good idea for the prompts, Linda, but not one of Wordsworth’s better poems! I hope mine is a bit happier. https://suestrifles.wordpress.com/paint-chip-poetry/
I love how you told a story with yours. Very nice. As for whether the Wordsworth poem is a good one, to be truly random that’s the price we pay.
I like your poem, Sue, and appreciate the abab quatrains. 🙂
https://mysticalstrings.com/2020/10/09/two-april-mornings-poem/
https://mehflowers.wordpress.com/2020/10/10/sullen-to-serendipity/
https://padresramblings.wordpress.com/2020/10/09/two-april-mornings/
I’m no Wadsworth, although I did manage to write in quatrains with an abab rhyme scheme.
https://ronrowland.com/april-mornings-october-evenings/
I tried to post a comment on your blog, twice, but both times I got an error message that my WordPress login had expired. Not sure what’s up with that. But what I tried to write was:
I love your poem. I’m a big fan of spring and summer, not so much fall and winter. Although this fall has been pretty nice here so far. Your rhyme scheme is awesome and I like how you worked in jack-o’-lantern even though the theme was April mornings.
Hmmm, you are actually registered twice: as lindalk48@gmail.com and as linda@anotherfearlessyear.net My website didn’t issue any warnings to me or give any indication that you tried. I’m not sure what’s up either.