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 Flight Plan.
The rules for writing a Golden Shovel Poem and Flight Plan
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 Flight Plan will consist of the end of lines taken from Blake’s Auguries of Innocence.
Flight Plan There is something eerie about each Plea and clumsy clamorous outcry Contained in the whisper of The flutter and flight and the Hysterical fright of the hunted Harmless fleeing haunted Hare Hiding in the shadow of a Grain of frivolous fine fibre That can be found flowing from Stalks of corn standing in the Field without a body or Brain Protection from the villain that does Seek to with terrible teeth tear The story of a Singing skylark Wondering wounded Warbler lost in The woods and the Terrible harm to the wing The silent singing of a Chubby Cherubim Is chilling and does Make the concert cease There is no ear to Detect a song to sing
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.
Be sure to follow Molly on Twitter!