The assignment for Day 3 offers these three parameters:
- Prompt: trust
- Form: acrostic
- Device: internal rhyme
Acrostic
Acrostics have been around for millennia: they’re a creative way to give order and convey multiple meanings at once while staying fairly subtle.
There have been two prevalent ways to create acrostics. In one, you follow the sequence of the alphabet, beginning each verse in your poem with a different one from A to Z (or to whatever letter you choose to reach — you’re not obliged to cover the entire ABC). This type of acrostic emphasizes the idea of seriality, of accumulation, or of a preset order.
The other type of acrostic is one in which the first (or last) letter of each verse together spell out a message: a short sentence, a word, a name (for example, medieval poets loved writing love poems with acrostics spelling out their beloved’s name).
Some interesting ways to use acrostics include writing a poem that asks a question to which the answer is the spelled-out word; one in which the “hidden” message contradicts or otherwise complicates the content of the poem.
Writing Process
I’ll start with a simple acrostic, a poem that spells out its subject matter.
Mount Rainier’s white head appears
Out of her bed of clouds.
Unless the day is sunny and clear, when
Nothing her beauty shrouds.
To see her in her majesty
And mystery
I find to be
Necessity.
This includes the acrostic form and the device of internal rhyme, but not the concept of trust. It also sounds a bit pretentious. I would probably never use the word shrouds, except when it’s necessary to rhyme with clouds.
But look: The first line in my second stanza must start with t. There’s an opening for trust:
Mount Rainier’s white head appears
Out of her bed of clouds.
Unless the day is sunny and clear, when
Nothing her beauty shrouds.
Trusting in her majesty
And mystery
I find to be
Necessity.
There’s still that pesky shrouds, but the more I read this poem, the less that word bothers me. I’m trying to convey the image of stateliness and reverence, and this old-fashioned word contributes to that imagery.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your comments.
