Sheets of Green

Golden Shovel Poetry is a style of verse created by Terrance Hayes. This form of found poetry allows the writer to take a favorite poem and use it to make something original. I experimented with found poetry last year when I wrote Blank Verse poems. Since I have a small booklet of William Blake poems on my shelf that I’ve planned to reread, I decided to start the month of July playing with the words written by this Romantic Era poet. Blake didn’t receive much recognition in his life. Some people thought he was insane. I will call this first poem Sheets of Green.

The rules for writing a Golden Shovel Poem and Sheets of Green

While researching this style of poetry created by Terrance Hayes, there seem to be four simple rules. You can use as many lines of the poem as you want, and the poem will end with you being your creation. I find this idea interesting. Written below are the three simple rules.

1). Choose a poem that you like. I will use poems by William Blake in my July poetic adventure.

2)Use each word in the line or lines as the end word in your poem. Make sure they stay in order.

3) Construct an entire poem around them. The meaning doesn’t have to be the same.

4) Give the original poet credit who wrote the line or lines you used.  

In this poetic adventure, I will stick to using poems written by William Blake. This small poem I call Sheets of Green. The word end words of each line were from Blake’s The Garden of Love.

Sheets of Green

I remember the image of a 
Rustic, pretty white Chapel
Standing tall and was
Sturdily and wonderfully built
Near a field that cattle wandered in
With a steeple and the
Bell rang in the mist

This place in my memory where
I remember that you and I
Found release and used
To come to 
Slumber and play
Our childish games on
The hill where we rolled and the
Soft sheets of fresh-mowed green

Who is Molly Shea?

Molly Shea is an accomplished fictional short story writer from Indiana who writes short stories and novels about a fictional town called Tecumseh.  To read more of her short stories and adventures, click here.

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