This week’s Sunday Poetic Bloomings chose “MEAN WHAT YOU SAY… SORT OF ” for its PROMPT #98. Listen in on their reasoning and task.
“The last time out, we gave you a list of words and asked you to use your thesaurus to find alternate words (synonyms) with which to write your poem. Today we dip back in to find something contrary (antonyms) to the words provided. And once again use these to write your poems. The words come from “The Stories of John Cheever.”
THE LIST
impair timidity
chaste sober
power loudly
angel transparent
skulduggery problem”
I usually enjoy this kind of challenge, but for this one I had to ponder it for a while. I had all the antonyms to choose from. The problem was that negativity ruled those words and I don’t usually write in the negative. I might hint at it, but don’t usually wallow in it.
As a result, I needed to let Muse choose the words I’d use to build a poem, sometimes unusal in flavor and diverse in direction. My chosen words were:
Impair=Cleanse Chaste=Wanton Power=Surrender Angel=Devil
Skullduggery=honesty Problem=convenience Loudly=Subtlety
Transparent=cloudy Sober=loquacious Timidity=Valient
Paradox
Cloudy vision, a devil’s tool,
Asking honesty for reprieve;
A convenience leading to
Wanton surrender’s loquacious
Passage through night-tme’s valiant
Bid to cleanse one’s thoughts of growing
Awareness in life’s mock subtlety.
Related articles
- Poetics: InterActions (dversepoets.com)
- Tender Mercy (whenwordsescape.wordpress.com)
- Sprawling Yet Genuine Poetic Feelings Fill Every Poem in Guy Bala’s New Book (prweb.com)
- “Improve English with Antonyms” Dev IT Solutions Launches Innovative Educational Mobile Apps for iPad and iPhone to Aid Kids in Learning English Words & Antonyms (prweb.com)
- Mean What You Say… Sort of – Prompt #98 (poeticbloomings.com)
- Antonyms (teacherlingo.com)
- Wednesday Poetry (2voices1song.com)
