XI
Don May 16th, 2008
XI
Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on “the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”
Free verse, as we have established, is not free and is usually not enough. One way of adding some semblance of form to it is by the expedient of an acrostic, as in this impression of a girl I met, Nancy Joy Johnson.
N ever in my universe,
A t least to my knowledge,
N ot on the line between before and after or
C rossing the path of any otherwise existence
Y ou have been until today. Nancy
J oy is a good name for you, for
O ften after you walk away I laugh myself into
Y on land of green trees.
Later I would combine the acrostic with real forms like the sonnet. Now, that is a challenge!
Donald T. Williams, PhD
- Poetry
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