Hi poets! Let’s mark this ninth day of NaPoWriMo by trying out a poetic form that is based on the number nine. Here’s your daily (option) poetry prompt.
Nonet. Write a nonet. Nine syllables in the first line, eight in the second line, then seven, six … until the last line has only a single syllable. Or you can do a reverse nonet, in the other direction. Or a mirror nonet, where you go one way and then back out the other way. Here is a little tutorial from the Write Tribe.
My nonet is adapted from the “Doll Test” questions, research that helped make the case for the desegregation of schools in the Brown v. Board of Education case. The questions, which were always asked in this order, are simple but haunting. I immediately thought of them for this spare form with its resonating last syllable.
Doll Test
Show me which one is the nice doll. Now
show me which one is the bad doll.
Which would you like to play with?
Which looks like a white child?
Like a negro child?
A colored child?
Show me which
doll is
you.