Exercise taken from Creating Poetry by John Drury. Page 19, exercise 14:
Write a poem that’s all sound, a babble of word music, letting vowels echo and consonants repeat, not worrying much about what it means. Savor the sounds. If this seems hard to begin, try listing as many delicious words as you can, words you can taste (and proper names too), like “crush” and “deliquescent” and “Susquehanna.”
Rise of an Avocado Day
Silver’s gossamer evanescence slips down a cherrywood banister,
whispers a phosphorescent dawn.
This is an avocado day, the sky jade over the sea, so
our lips hover over taste in hope.
This is morning that knocks on your cellar door like cymbals,
crashing, open, but listening, glistening, freshening the sun.
Dew like clear pearls between grass blades, our toes curling
under chestnut earth, the delicate doves gray against green.
Wings slicing air like jazz in a hazy room, fog like
cigar smoke hovering above water.
Our breath is just an undercurrent of the breeze,
slender as invisibility
but grasping everything with the strength of a titan.
My love,
we go free with this daybreak,
we rise like robins,
rove like gypsies under mauve morning.
And we won’t return even when the moon steals the sky.
By: Janessa Barrette
What I think:
I enjoyed this exercise because it allowed me to free-write with words that feel like honey on the tongue. I found myself writing with a hunger for how the language sounded, not necessarily what it meant. That’s for later revisions, not for the initial exercise. I like “avocado day” and “wings slicing air like jazz in a hazy room.” I think the end became a bit cliche, but I’m not too bothered because I was just going with the poem’s feeling…I think there’s something to work with, here.
The Junk Drawer 