My choices were limited this week. I mean really limited. There is a single entry in the J section of the poetry dictionary. I don’t know what I’m going to do the next time we get to J. Other letters will have to provide more than two prompts for us to get to the end of the year, especially since I also discovered there are no entries for X, Y, or Z. If you ask me, John Drury wasn’t very creative in creating this dictionary.
The Challenge
Anyway, this week our challenge is to use juxtaposition in our poems, which is defined as follows:
JUXTAPOSITION (jux’-tuh-puh-zih’-shun; French, “placed close by”) The placement of contrasting things (such as different images) side by side. The effect can be startling, amusing, or illuminating. Sometimes a metaphorical connection is implicit, as in the last line of Guillaume Apollinaire’s “Zone,” which juxtaposes images of the sun and a throat that has been slit: “Soleil cou coupé.” In section fifteen of “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman juxtaposes images of different people in adjacent lines. . .
Later on, Whitman places a prostitute who “draggles her shawl” next to the President “holding a cabinet council.”
the poetry dictionary, page 151.
This week I’m only giving you six paint chips to work with. If you’d like, you can juxtapose each of these pairs. Or you could mix them up. Or maybe you want to pick your favorites and juxtapose them with ideas from your own imagination.
The words and phrases you have to work with, listed as I’ve paired them, are bougainvillea and fountain of youth, blue ribbon and panther, and lightning and lighthouse. You only need to use two, but extra bonus points if you use them all.
By the way, is anyone keeping track of extra bonus points? I’ve lost count.
My Poem
I decided to just use two of the paint chips myself and write a tanka.
Steady the lighthouse Shines bright into the dark night Guiding a ships crew Terrified by lightning strikes Threatening and unsteady
Your Turn
You know the drill. Write your poem using juxtaposition, then either share it in the comments or post it on your blog and put a link in the comments. I look forward to some interesting poems inspired by this prompt.