New Mexico CultureNet

WebSlam VIII – Round 3

Prompts

Submissions are closed for Round 3.

Students responded to the following prompts for Round 3. Scroll down to read their work.

  1. Write a poem with food as its central focus. Be specific to create tone and meaning. Consider using the Internet to find facts, recipes and stories that might flesh out your poem.

  2. Write a poem about a work of art. The poem can be about something in your home, something your mother or father made, or something you saw in a gallery or museum. Describe the work as clearly as possible—write a picture of it for your reader. Avoid value-laden words such as “beautiful” or “good.”

  3. Create a poem using a modern take on a classical form: sonnet, villanelle, pantoum, or sestina.
    Sonnet: A short poem with fourteen lines, usually ten-syllable rhyming lines, divided into two, three, or four sections.
    Villanelle: A 19-line poem, originally French, that uses only two rhymes and consists of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain.
    Pantoum: A form of verse in which the second and fourth lines of each four-line verse are repeated as the first and third lines of the following verse
    Sestina: A poem of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, with the last words of the first six lines repeated, in different order, at the ends of the other lines. Also called sextain.

Poems

Study of an Artist
Maria Orona — McCurdy School
bebop_lucky_valentine@yahoo.com

What a wondrous day when the artist
first lifted pen, chalk, or brush
to create those visages
common and divine alike.
How did you feel, the hour when creation
first came upon the soul, the mind, the hand?
The fertile Tuscan soil
was matched only by your boundless imagination,
its numerous fruits outlast the centuries and their
denizens.
Your eyes, sharply gentle tools to absorb,
dig for the beauty without
so that the beauty within may be channeled.
What so compelled you to create those images,
the twelve who dined with their master,
apparatuses of war,
the grotesque, the comely,
fair virgin with a child,
noble woman with a mysterious smile?


Inspired by paintings of Leonardo da Vinci


Reviewer:     Adan Baca, bacaloc@yahoo.com
Rating: 8.7
Review: Very good poem. You imagery is great and the poem is very readable, at the same time it has a classical feel. I really liked the way you ended the poem, asking the artist for his inspiration, and you used clear examples of his works.

Posted: Nov/18/2006 2:34 am

Reviewer:     Valerie Martinez, vmartinez@csf.edu
Rating: 7.8
Review: Maria—I like the meditative nature of your poem, the mood of reflection that you create, here. And you ask some important questions about inspiration and da Vinci. Good. Otherwise, the poem doesn’t do much besides ask a questions and make a few general observations about the artist. What the poem needs is much more, in terms of theme. For example, why not suggest possible ANSWERS to the question of “how did you feel” when creation strikes? Perhaps you could answer for each of the paintings you mention and guide us into a more provocative world, here. The challenge, in poems about art, is to go further than summarizing or describing it. Instead, make this much more your own poem by leaping from da Vinci’s work to your own imagination about the spark of creation. This will give the poem much more in terms of ideas and questions. Also, work on your line breaks which are somewhat awkward, in places. Think of every poetic line as a little poem in itself, and break the lines very, very precisely. Valerie

Posted: Nov/19/2006 2:22 pm

« prev poem

next poem »

WebSlam participants