Get out your rulers! (and your pens!)
Use Six Squares
On a piece of paper, draw six separate squares with two-inch sides.
If you're feeling crafty, cut out the squares!
One poem per square OR One stanza per square
For this exercise, you can either write one poem with six stanzas that each fit within the bounds of your squares, or you can write six tiny poems--one to fit in each square!
I did the one poem per square and for help, I turned to some fellow short poem writers: Margaret Atwood, Ezra Pound, and of course, William Carlos Williams.
What do they have in common?
Aside from being direct and brief, notice how each of these poems has a striking image. Atwood's is a fish hook in an open eye, Pound's is the petals on a black wet branch, and Williams' is the red wheel barrow.
Odd that each of them have some sort of wetness to them?
Tiny poems capture a specific moment, a fleeting feeling, a fading image. To accomplish this, your language needs to be just as specific and concise.
Utilize figurative language as much as possible (metaphors, similes, personification, etc.) Notice how Atwood's poem is a simile: the "you" fits into the speaker like "a hook into an eye" which is a painful image, right? Then, she capitalizes on that pain by specifying "a fish hook / an open eye" which suggests a relationship type of 'fitting' between the "you" and the speaker based on the association between fish in the sea and the dating pool. So this tiny poem is fixating on a painful connection.
Ezra Pound uses a metaphor in their tiny poem through the placement of a colon. The colon instantly connects the apparition of faces with the petals. The title working to place its readers allows for juxtaposition between the urban setting of the metro and nature. An original analysis of this poem suggested Pound to be connecting the momentary with timelessness all through the use of precise punctuation.
On the other hand, Williams doesn't use simile or metaphor but instead relies on enjambment and word choice. The line break after "depends" leaves readers literally depending on the next line and stanzas to understand--it instills a dependency into the poem itself for the readers to directly experience. There's been discussion about the second stanza and how the line break transforms the image from a red wheel to a full wheel barrow and also debates about the importance of the color red...you can dive into that if you want, but what catches my eye is the third stanza and the word choice of "glazed."
Not wet with rain, or cool with rain, or slick with rain--GLAZED. This one word solidifies a clear image for the reader. I immediately saw a shiny wheelbarrow from the sun reflecting off the glaze of rain, but an argument for moonlight could be made too. Then we get the chickens. Why white chickens? Why chickens at all? What is this poem even about? Common questions seeing as Williams only gives us the concrete image alone and no metaphor or simile. Well, what do you associate with chickens other than dinner? They are a direct symbol of farming, paring them with the central image of the wheelbarrow (also used on a farm) solidifies the meaning behind this tiny poem: the importance of agriculture.
Think Outside the Box to Fit Your Poem in the Box!
With these poets' tricks in mind, I generated some strong images that I thought could stand alone in a short poem or at least could be understood through reasonable associative leaps to be made by my reader.
To get started, I borrowed "The Red Wheelbarrow" form just to get in the tiny poem mood:
so much depends
upon
a faded ball
cap
stained with sun
and sweat
waiting by our
door
My version doesn't have as much color contrast as the red barrow and white chickens, but the structure is there. However, the context is not. An outside reader, without having read any of my other poems, would have no idea what the significance behind an old, gross ball cap is. So, this might work within a collection of poems, but it wouldn't survive on its own. Onto square number 2!
Outside themselves
diving -- falling--
thorn-apples yearning
forgiveness, reaching
morning -- quickly
receding
Here, I tried to adopt Pound's discreet punctuation trick. Instead of a colon, I utilized the M-Dash which works to slow down the poem and allow readers to feel that "falling" sensation (ideally anyway). Lots of personification happening here and dynamic verbs which are always a good go-to, but these ones could be pushed a little more. Thornapple trees are very invasive in Michigan and hard to control; they also have a ton of myth surrounding them, so a good choice of plant to be personified.
Square number 3:
And to think
all I had to do
was hand you the skin
of my lips and ash
from my knees
to please you
Working similarly to Atwood's poem on a painful connection, the line breaks and word choices here suggest a sort of tumultuous intimacy. I personally am excited about this one, so let's move on to the last three squares...(Weirdly got stuck on the image of ashes?)
By now, I've got the creative juices flowing and I'm ready to take on all these two-by-two inch squares have to offer!
Square 4
Funny how we forget
the sawdust settling
in our clothes' crevices
is the promise of your
ashes we'll each hold
and never wash
from our palms' creases.
How else will we keep you?
Square 5
I've brought you
the ashes of the sun.
Take them. Ground them
up. Balance them on your
tongue. Cast them. Throw
them into the river and tell
me you've found something
to believe in.
Square 6
I'm still while blackbirds
pull red berries from thin
branches, nearly choking
on the frozen fruit but
I, too, haven't seen a worm
in ages. Perhaps this is loss.
The choking of ice to free
a desperate hunger.
This exercise really forces you to be conscious of word choice, line breaks, and to hone in one central image/idea, instead of trying to interweave multiple. If you get attached to one of your square-poems, don't be afraid to pull it out of the square and implement some stanzas or more lines. This is just a brainstorming activity to get you going; if a long poem is born, go with it!
Happy Writing!