Lightning Bug

Okay, I decided to hang with the Golden Shovel Poems longer. I can’t help myself. It’s not my fault there are so many great poets in the world. I’ve used William Blake and Robert Frost for inspiration. It’s time for me to take advantage of one of the women poetresses. When I read Jo Jo Moyes’ The Giver of Stars, I was reminded of Amy Lowell. I read her work in the past and decided to explore her poetry for a while. Therefore, this new poem will be titled Lightning Bug .  

 Terrance Hayes invented the Golden Shovel style of poetry. 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. Now, I am having fun writing Golden Shovel Poetry.

The rules for writing a Golden Shovel Poem and  Lightning Bug

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. Currently, I will use poems by Amy Lowell.

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.

Here are a few quick facts about Amy Lowell. She was the leading poet in the Imaginist School. This woman never attended college and considered herself a social outcast when she was young. She was an avid reader and book collector. Also, she publicly smoked cigars, which was outrageous for a woman then. Pieces of the poem The Blue Scarf by Amy Lowell will appear at the end of each line of this poem. I will title Lightning Bug.

Lightning Bug 

Summertime and a
Tiny bug trapped in a jar
Watching the image of
A spot once green
Turned to a bright jade
Lights up and throws
A flash from the tip of its
Tail illuminating the shadow
To attract the better half
Blinking over and over
Until the night becomes the
Daylight and shines on the floor
And the lightning bug falls into a
Endless sleep where a big-bellied
Ugly cricket sings and a croaking frog
Dances and hops
A jig to get him through
The day light hours, and the
Bee that flies in sunlight
Buzzing about her work and the
Greenest Praying Mantis and
The Wasp that shutters and plops
The grasshopper hidden in
The weeds and the
Granddaddy long leg gold-bubbled
Web spun above the water
The creatures nobody thinks of
Keepers of the day while a
Lightning bug remains trapped in a basin

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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