Poem Assignment

Poem Assignment Guidelines

What

Write a poem, no longer than two pages, and no shorter than 12 lines. Limit the use of one or two word lines.
Think about form—How does your piece look on the page? Do the form and formatting reflect that this is art?
For poems using organic form, avoid making formal choices that could detract from the language, such as center alignment.
For poems with traditional forms, such as the sonnet, the abecedarian, the cento, prose, or shape poetry, consider why you are drawn to that form.
How does the form affect the subject matter or content of the poem? Or vise versa— how does the subject/content dictate the form? Which will come first. The answer will be different for each poem and poet, but either way, pay close attention to what you can learn about writing from this process.
Ask yourself:

Have you earned any abstractions in the piece?
Are there concrete details that anchor the reader in sensory details?
Do your concrete details add up to images that take the reader beyond the literal?
Why

Writers are readers. Read and reread our course poems, and think about their particular moments you love or that challenged your expectations and understanding of poetry. If you admired Ross Gay’s play with diction, Rick Barot’s contrasting use of details and image, Ilya Kaminsky’s juxtaposed similes, Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s high lyric imagery, practice using these concepts in your own drafts.

Take risks in your own writing and try to surprise and delight yourself.

Remember, as per Hirsch:

Poetry is language compressed and raised to its highest power.
Aim for language that reflects “collision, collusion, compression.”
How

Remember, writing a “rough” draft is a great first step, but, most often, the real work of writing happens in revision.

Write a draft.
Read it aloud to yourself or someone else.
REVISE.
Repeat the previous steps as often as you can bring fresh insight to the piece.
Post to Canvas on the due date.