Just over one week left of NaPoWriMo! Don’t stop now guys. Your daily (optional) poetry prompt is a fun one.
Personification. Write a poem in which each day of the week is a person. This is an in-class exercise I recently did in a poetry class taught by the talented and wonderful Beatriz Gartler (check out some new poems on her website, she’s doing NaPoWriMo too). The point of the exercise is to get you to experiment with personification, which the dictionary defines as “the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.”
Here’s how mine turned out:
Familiar Friends
Monday: self-assured, wearing
tall boots with clacking heels,
holds the door open for no one.
Tuesday: puddle-hopping
misses the first train,
but catches the next.
Wednesday: pulls on her sweater
with the extra-long arms,
folds herself into the last seat,
in the back of the room.
Thursday: falls down, searches
drawers for a bandage, blows
on the cool sting of disinfectant.
Friday: sweeps everything
from the table, places
a cold glass of water in the center
with a single ice cube.
Saturday: replaces the water
with wine, drinks it down, refills it.
Sunday: makes a list.