poetry 2017 / 088

Today, I’d like to challenge you to take one of your favorite poems and find a very specific, concrete noun in it. For example, if your favorite poem is this verse of Emily Dickinson’s, you might choose the word “stones” or “spectre.” After you’ve chosen your word, put the original poem away and spend five minutes free-writing associations – other nouns, adjectives, etc. Then use your original word and the results of your free-writing as the building blocks for a new poem.

Benwell Boys

Our mam was still alive

when we were a skinhead;

bleached jeans, polished Docs

buzz cut over a tee shirt

(and no jumper – they was for southerners).

We listened to the bands what made us pop

Ska and Punk and some of the Glam gurus

Ziggy Stardust and Alice

and we hung around Granger Street

playing coins-against-the-wall

and wasting tens on the Asteroids machine

in the warmth of the chippy.

I never went a bundle on the racist shit

but them lads from Gateshead

were the scum of the earth in our books

we'd be belting down the back streets

looking for a bin to hide in.