Skip to main content

Long Titles, Short Poems

Tonight the Dream Keepers tried to write short poems with long titles, an assignment from Dawn DiPrince's wonderful book Yoga For the Brain. Here's the example I wrote:


What Happened when John decided to Do His Laundry the Old-Fashioned Way:
with a Bar of Soap, a Rock, and a River.
Threadbare
Underwear.


The assignment is harder than it sounds, and the Dream Keepers had a tough time with it. But they still came up with some good samples. Read their work, and then try writing your own!


By Elly:
What Elly Was Left with After She Ate A big Juicy Hamburger in Two Bites.
Yummy
Tummy.

By Leroi:
What the Owner Said When He Took His Pet to Meet the New Vet, who Already Had Met
a Dog, a Frog, and a Bunch of Cats.
Oh
No.

By Daquan:
What Happened When I Took A Bone from a Dog Who Had Had It a Long Time.
Fight.
Bite.

By Tierra:
The clock stopped at 11 O'Clock.
Tick Tock?



Comments

DawnDiPrince said…
Your examples of short poems with long titles are great!
Dawn, thank you! I LOVE your work! Check out this week's assignment. The kids really, really loved it!
I really lovely the examples... They made me laugh too.
Thanks for sharing.

Popular posts from this blog

Six-word Scary Stories

We've done six-word memoirs. Tonight the Dream Keepers wrote six-word scary stories. Read and enjoy! (Then write and submit your own in the comment field!) A vampire destroys the city with power. —Tramonta Garner (pictured above) One virus. One town. No survivors. —Jaimee Bogard-LaMar, 14 One girl. Many monsters. What's next? —Jaimee Bogard-LaMar, 14 Big zombie eats eyeballs. City blind. —Elisha Branch, 14 One house. One family. Both gone. —Elisha Branch, 14 Knock, knock. Who's there? Killer mysterious. —Derranesha, 12 Baby cries. No answer. What happens? —Derranesha, 12 Ring, ring. "Hello." Please help me. —April, 12 The spooky monster ran towards me ... —Sonya, 17 The worm crawls into the brain. —Sierra The slippery, slimy monster grabs two. —Quintoya Eskridge

Write Your Dreams

--> Write Your Dreams by Rochelle Melander Your dreams can be a rich source of stories, images, metaphors, and sensory details for your writing.  Many famous novels began with the writer's dreams. Mary Shelley was staying with Lord Byron in Switzerland during a frightful cold spell. Byron suggested they write a ghost storied. After Shelley came up with the idea of a reanimated corpse, she had a spooky dream: that dream became the core of her famous novel  Frankenstein . While traveling on a train, E.B. White dreamed of a small, adventurous mouse. Although he started writing the story almost immediately, it would be twenty years before he published, Stuart Little . When Stephen King snoozed on a long flight, he dreamed about a woman who kills her favorite writer, using his skin to bind a book. That dream gave him the idea for his bestselling book, Misery .  You, too, can use your dreams...

Write Now: Headline Fun

--> I still remember the moment. My husband and I were in the checkout line at the grocery store. I was reading the headlines on the magazines when I saw this one, "Constipation Killed the Dinosaurs." Until then, I don't think I realized how amazingly creative tabloid writers need to be. Here's your assignment : Write a tabloid article, complete with headline, that could appear in your current work-in-progress. If this seems too challenging, grab a headline from an existing tabloid and write your article based on that.