Gavin Bennett's Blog: 2015 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 17

Time for another Two-for-Tuesday prompt.

Here are your options:

Take the phrase “Ode to a (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.
Take the phrase “(blank) is for the Birds,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

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Re-create Your Poetry!

Revision doesn’t have to be a chore–something that should be done after the excitement of composing the first draft. Rather, it’s an extension of the creation process!

In the 48-minute tutorial video Re-creating Poetry: How to Revise Poems, poets will be inspired with several ways to re-create their poems with the help of seven revision filters that they can turn to again and again.

Click to continue.

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Here’s my attempt at an Ode to a Blank and/or Blank is for the Birds poem:

“Ode to a Complaint, or Missing is for the Birds”

-from Jesse Wilcox

This is getting a little ridiculous: lost, not found
by an entire town. Here I am, right under your
nose with a single rose held aloft for a toast
to my new master’s plan, the hypnotic hand

of a foreign man. He found me at night in my
favorite haunt, himself looking fragile, frail,
and unfailingly gaunt. Sure, I was startled,
but he looked in need of help, so I offered

my hand and then emitted a yelp as he faster
than fast took hold with great strength and
flashed me teeth unusual in length before
sinking them in to the skin at my wrist

and he offered me life with an eternal kiss.
Now I am lost, but I’m lost in such bliss.

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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of the poetry collection, Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He edits Poet’s Market and Writer’s Market, in addition to writing a free weekly WritersMarket.com newsletter and a poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine.

This is his eighth year of hosting and participating in the November PAD (Poem-A-Day) Chapbook Challenge. He can’t wait to see what everyone creates this month–not only on a day-by-day basis, but when the chapbooks start arriving in December and January. Fun, fun, fun.

Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.

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