My Silent Muse

Okay, Word Daddy is missing in action. He must be on another one of his cross-country road trips. I hope his motorcycle breaks down and leaves him stranded in Tucumcari. Sorry, I shouldn’t be mean. I decided to hang out with the Golden Shovel Poems in October. What can I do with a missing muse and so many great poets in the world? I’ve used William Blake, Robert Frost, and Amy Lowell for inspiration. He was an interesting man. He proposed to Maud Gonne four times, and she repeatedly turned him down. When that didn’t work, Yeats proposed to her daughter. She also turned him down. Yeats was the first Irish person to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Therefore, this new poem will be titled My Silent Muse.

 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  My Silent Muse

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 William Butler Yeats.

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.

Now that I’ve finished using Yeat’s poem, The Circus Animal Desertion, I plan to play with this poem to create my next Golden Shovel Poetry. Many of the images in this poem are taken from Irish folklore and mythology. Things could get complicated before I finish creating from this one, but I never like to back down from a challenge. I will title this poem My Silent Muse.

My Silent Muse 

Sometimes, I ask my muse what
Became of him, and I wonder if he can
Still, give inspiration to one lowly as I
I can write my stories  alone, but
The poems are numerous I hate to enumerate
All the reasons my inspiration is growing old
Maybe you could toss me one of your themes
Word Daddy, you know I look to you first
I’ve leaned so heavily on you that
I restless for your whisper like a frantic sea-rider
I know you helped the warrior, Irish poet Oisin
When he got stuck, you silently led
Him into a verse that he could live by
On the shores of misty Ireland and the
Sainted Patrick struck him on the nose. 
(Irish folk tales claim Oisin and St. Patrick had heated arguments over Christianity and Celtic paganism.)

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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