Welcome to the start of your month of poeming! You'll get a new prompt each day, alternating types of poems with ideas of what to write about. It really helps to have both, so for each type of poem I'll also suggest ideas of what to write about, and for each idea of what to write about, I'll also suggest some forms / types of poems that might suit it. And if you're new to writing a poem a day, here are some useful tips.
Today's prompt is a type of poem: a chain poem. This is a lovely loose form with just one simple constraint: the last syllable of each line repeats as the first syllable of the next line. It’s the sound that matters, not the spelling, so you can play with that in all sorts of ways: meadow / doe, tendrils / drills, etc. You can have as many lines as you like and they can be as long or short as you like.
Here's an example of a chain poem I wrote about St Giles' Fair in Oxford, with the repeating syllables in bold:
Through thumping song snatches, screaming bodies disown
only the ground, feet learn the air and skim trees, airborne,
born fresh in evening sun full of spires and tree-tops,
topsy-turvy plummets shrieking with light, back down,
downy mounds of baby-colours sugar and tiny cars,
castles of spiralling lights rising through tannoy
noise, and back up from shadows and sparkles,
kills of rubber ducks and giant-bear rescues, soaring
ingots of tousled joy, flying, upside down, back to the sun.
That's it: one beautifully simple constraint. It's a surprisingly ancient form, too, a medieval one which in turn descended from Ancient Greek echo verse.
I find chain poems are best suited to going with the flow, loosely following the lines to find out where they go, rather than deciding in advance what you want to say. Its curious constraint makes it hard to control the direction, so rather than fight the form, I like to choose a general topic or something to describe and then write to discover. So for an idea of what to write about, I suggest describing things you find underwater, whether that's underwater in your local river or canal, or underwater in the sea or the ocean: under the water, or under the waves. And write to discover what's there.
The Meddling with Poetry course explores a host of different poetry forms as well as the musicality of language, poetic imagery, and other aspects of the poetic. It's 8 weeks long, one evening a week, and absolute beginners and experienced writers are equally welcome. You can read more details and book a place here.
