Daily Poem Revision
Select one of the poems you wrote for last week's exercise and revise it following TWO of the THREE revision notes below:

1. Change the person/POV of your poem.
2. Create a rhyme scheme for your poem.
3. Count the number of lines in your poem, double it. Count the number of words in your poem, cut it in half.

Post versions of the poem here. Comment on at least TWO of your classmates' poems.

Abecedarian poems begin with the first letter of the alphabet, and each successive line or stanza begins with the next letter until the final letter is reached. Before you lump this form in with those acrostic poems your middle-school English teacher made you compose using the letters of your name, give it a chance. If you're not sure what to write about, or feel like everything you're producing sounds the same, try this strict form to help break free from the creative constraints of your usual words and phrases. For more information consult poets.org. Who knows? You might become so taken with the form that you decide to write an entire collection of abecedarian poems, like Harriet Mullen's Sleeping With the Dictionary.

Nineteenth-century poet Walter Savage Landor's "On Love, on Grief" packs a punch in its brief simplicity: "On love, on grief, on every human thing, / Time sprinkles Lethe's water with his wing." Not only is the poem sonically beautiful, it also takes a cliché (time flies) and transforms it. As writers, we may occasionally stumble upon phrases or situations we want to write that are considered cliché. Today, take one of the clichés you often feel drawn to and try to refresh it.

Write a poem that sets out to explain an item, idea, or process. Begin the title with "How..." or "Three Reasons Why..." or some other phrase that introduces what is about to be explained. Maybe you will pick apart a particular habit you have, or analyze a fear that seems illogical. Don't feel obliged to reach a concrete conclusion. Instead, see where the thought pattern takes you. Is this poem really about why you think bunk beds are unsafe, or does it begin to address something else?