Tag Archives: golden shovel

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 01 Round-Up

Last Saturday I posted the first “Get Your Golden Shovel” prompt as a collaborative project for our writing community. In this round-up, I share my golden shovel poem as well as those that were contributed by the community.

What’s a golden shovel poem? It’s a poetic form originally created by Terrance Hayes. Check out the rules here.

I want to give a big thanks to each of you that were willing to give this first experiment a try:

@gigglingfattie (No Love For Fatties)

Kathleen

Edward V. Fuller

@midlifecatlady64 (MidLife Cat Lady)

Sam “Goldie” Kirk

Eric Drury (The Thoughtful Beggar)

The Dreamgirl Writes

Golden Shovel No. 01

“Time says hush. By the gong of time you live.”

The Gong of Time by Carl Sandburg (Honey and Salt)

Hurry, Hurry, Hush

By Monty Vern

Rushing waters of our time;

Ebbing tide says

Hurry, hurry, hush.

Un-lived memories race by;

Yanked away by the

Quickening gong

Of

Our impatient time;

Shh! Will you?

Let’s pause a moment to live.

Guests’ Poems:

It’s just now about that time

He leans close as he says

Drowsiness fills the apartment with a…

by No Love For Fatties

It is time.

No one says

“Hush”

by the by.

Even the

ringing gong

of

So much time.

Not even you,

by the days you

live.

by Kathleen

Pangs mean it is time

The body says

Now hush

We are close by

Near to the

reverberating gong

Thinking of

passed time

with you

Honoring you by how we live

by Edward V. Fuller

Ah, The days of Time

The wind, it Says

It’s time to Hush

And listen, By

Focusing on The

Sound of the church Gong

Which reminds you Of

How much Time

There is Left

For you to Live.

by MidLife Cat Lady

‘There’s no time,’

she says.

‘Hush,’

I reply and just walk on by.

Because…

by Sam “Goldie” Kirk

In youth we confidently flirt with time

As it goes on we must do what it says

Wrinkles gained with a quieted…

by Eric Drury (The Thoughtful Beggar)

And here is one with a twist on the form (after all, creativity rules over rules):

Friends are chosen family, so choose wisely

For they come to know you intimately…

by The Dreamgirls Writes

How cool was that! I love seeing all of the different takes on this. If you want to give this line a try feel free to leave your poem in the comments below (or link your post to this one).

Thanks again to each of the guest contributors. Stay tuned for next prompt coming soon. Everyone is welcome to join in.

Be well,

Monty

Apples Eating Zebras

Here is a new Golden Shovel poem. I admit I’ve become a bit addicted to this form (here are the rules in case your unfamiliar).

Ars Poetica (an excerpt)

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleave-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs

by Archibald MacLeish (1892 – 1982)

The following is a Golden Shovel poem from the first line “A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit”

Apples Eating Zebras

Apples eating zebras and z’s to a

I cobble together words in a poem

Making nonsense I should not but should

Gobble up wobbles and play vocab tricks to be

Escaping tricky corners with palpable

Tight and twisty turns and

Flamboyant gestures of an eloquent mute

Breaking forms with made-up rhymes as

A wanna-be unknown poet throwing a

Bucket of colorful words upon a globed

Canvas and calling it a bowl of fruit.

Apples Eating Zebras

What a fun one? Want to give the Golden Shovel a try? Join the “Get Your Golden Shovels” collaboration. Here is a link to this week’s prompt.

Be well,

Monty

Winter Worn Souls

First please check out this absolutely gorgeous poem from the English poet, Robert Herrick.

The Coming of Good Luck

So Good-Luck came, and on my roof did light,

Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night;

Not all at once, but gently, as the trees

Are by the sunbeams, tickled by degrees.

by Robert Herrick (1591-1674）

Inspired (and not in the mood to do my day job), I decided to try and craft a Golden Shovel poem from the line “Are by the sunbeams, tickled by degrees”. If your not familiar with the Golden Shovel poetic form, here is a description. Also, if your interested in trying this form out, I’m currently running an experimental collaborative project called “Get Your Golden Shovel”, which you’re welcome to join.

Winter Worn Souls

Winter worn souls are

Warmed by

Midsummer night campfires, heads resting upon the

Birchwood log pillows heated by the day’s sunbeams.

Memories tickled

Awake by

The cold, clear nights’ stars shimmering in the sky for 360 degrees.

I might continue to work on this and expand to include more (or even all) of the lines from the original poem. The line “Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night;” would also be a wonderful line to work with.

Be well,

Monty

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 01 (a collaborative series)

This is an invitation to all of you poets (or potential poets, which is all of you) out there to join me in a new collaborative series I’m calling “Get Your Golden Shovel”. Here is how it will work.

Each Saturday in February (as an initial experiment and then I’ll decide whether to continue), will be Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll post a prompt consisting of one or two lines from a well known poem on Saturday, then we all will create a new poem using the Golden Shovel technique and share it with each other. I think it will be very interesting to see how different each of our pieces are despite pulling from the same source of material.

What is the Golden Shovel technique, you ask? It’s a poetic form originally created by the poet, Terrance Hayes. Check out the “rules” here. There is also an example provided.

Golden Shovel No. 01

“Time says hush. By the gong of time you live.”

The Gong of Time by Carl Sandburg (Honey and Salt)

You can either post on your own blog and link to the prompt post so that we can all see it and further share or include it in the prompt post’s comments section.

While there is not any hard deadlines, the intention is to share your Golden Shovel poem during the prompt week before the following Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll target posting my own poem along with some of yours with links in a recap post ahead of the following weeks.

That’s it. Today’s the the first prompt. Feel free to give it a try with the prompt line above if you want to get your feet wet.

I’m looking forward to seeing what develops from this. It should be fun!

Be well,

Monty

Get Your Golden Shovel! (Collaborative Series)

This is an invitation to all of you poets (or potential poets, which is all of you) out there to join me in a new collaborative series I’m calling “Get Your Golden Shovel”. Here is how it will work.

Each Saturday in February (as an initial experiment and then I’ll decide whether to continue), will be Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll post a prompt consisting of one or two lines from a well known poem on Saturday, then we all will create a new poem using the Golden Shovel form and share it with each other. I think it will be very interesting to see how different each of our pieces are despite pulling from the same source of material.

What is the Golden Shovel form, you ask? The Golden Shovel form was created by the poet Terrance Hayes, whose poem “Golden Shovel” (from his 2010 collection Lighthead) is based on Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” which references the phrase “Golden Shovel”. Here are the rules:

1) Take a line (or lines) from an existing poem (I’ll provide this as the prompt for the week)

2) Use each word in the line (or lines) as an end word in your poem.

3) Keep the end words in order.

4) The new poem does not have to be about the same subject as the poem that offers the end words.

5) Make sure to credit the poet who originally wrote the line (or lines) and link to my prompt post.

6. Have fun! If the rules are too rigid for what your muse is calling for then break them!

Golden Shovel Example:

Prompt: “Cursing the winter solstice sun” (from Under the Solstice Sun by Monty Vern)

New Golden Shovel poem:

Winter’s Curse

Honey sweet lips cursing;

Stoking flames, melting the

Frozen timepieces of winter;

Summoning summer’s solstice;

Accelerating earth ‘round the sun.

I’m only using my own poem as an example. The prompts will come from poems that I admire of find interesting in some way by other poets.

While there will not be any hard deadlines, the intention is to share your Golden Shovel poem during the prompt week before the following Golden Shovel Saturday.

You can either post on your own blog and link to the prompt post so that we can all see it and further share or include it in the prompt post’s comments section.

That’s it. We’ll be starting on Saturday, February 5th with the first prompt. Feel free to give it a try with the prompt line above if you want to get your feet wet.

I’m looking forward to seeing what develops from this. It should be fun!

Be well,

Monty