Sunday 9 April 2017

poetry 2017 / 049


Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that relies on repetition. It can be repetition of a phrase, or just a word. Need a couple of examples? Try “The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe, or Joy Harjo’s “She Had Some Horses”. Poe’s poem creates a relentless, clanging effect through the repetition of the word “bells,” while Harjo’s repeated use of the phrase “she had some horses” and variations thereof gives her poem poem its incantatory effect, while also deepening its central philosophical conceit of what things are the same and what things are different.


White, White

she lives within white walls
white floor
white canvas

white paint in broad brushstrokes
white on white
the hint of a shadow from white titles

white sheets, white dreams
she writes white lies on white paper
bleeding white sap from white, white bone.

white novels with white covers
white lettering on white boards
white words etched on white skin

whitewashed
a white man's
right-wing world
white-out

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