Monday, September 22, 2008

Mosaic

Write a poem which satisfies the following criteria:

1. The poem must consist of three, four, or five short numbered sections.
2. No section should be rhymed.
3. The poem should have a title which:
- a. gives the reader at least some clue as to what the overall poem is about;
- b. like the title "Religion Back Home" and "Eclipse," the title should be both literal and figurative.
4. Each sections should be a complete little poem in its own right, very concrete and rich in imagery, and with its own sense of an ending.
5. Each section should, like all achieved poems, in a way that is both indirect yet vivid touch upon a different facet of the poem's overall theme.
6. All the sections of the poem, despite their differences, should contribute to whatever the point is which the overall poem is trying to suggest, but the poem should not read only like a list of examples because:
7. The whole--the sections taken all together--should be greater than the sum of the parts. In other words, the whole should be a kind of metaphor.
8. The point of the poem should be sufficiently subtle and complex to require the strategy outlined above.

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