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 The Killing of the Ox.
The rules for writing a Golden Shovel Poem and The Bat and The Killing of the Ox
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 The Killing of the Ox will consist of the end of lines taken from Blake’s Auguries of Innocence.
The Killing of the Ox I know that he Was the one who always was and always shall Set out to damage and hurt by his blunt speech and the Words that amount to so little And stealing the voice of the Wren There is a message that shall Comfortless and never Let a bad situation be Heal’d for the belov’d But can be comprehended by Gossip of the reckless men I realize that he Was the one who Vanished and was the One who shot the Ox And left it bleeding to Intensify my wrath He is the one who Prevented to be mov’d There is a mystery that shall Linger on and never In the light of calm reason, be Unable to solved by The intuitive mind of a women But you should understand you were lov’d
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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