Hello, everyone.
Ron Padgett was born in 1942 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has been publishing poetry, fiction and translations for over 50 years.
Ruth Upperton died in 2013 aged 81. She completed a degree in law and lived for a time in Palmerston North.
Cows appear in both poems. You could work an animal of any kind into your text. Or a kind of flower. A cowslip is a flower.
In terms of structure, the two poetic texts could not be more different. The first has short, mixed lines, a light tone, and little rhyme or rhythm.
The second text relies heavily on sound patterns, has very regular lines, and has a much more sombre tone.
You could attempt either kind of structure, or you could try to work them together.
Six words to attempt to incorporate into your writing from Padgett: flower, face, slip, sky, home, mind.
Six words from Upperton: shore, time, silence, picture, miss, breath.
If you have a copy of The Exercise Book, turn to "#22: Research and Experimentation" for an additional challenge.
That's all. I hope you are inspired to write today.
American Cowslip
by Ron Padgett
Nothing is
the way you think it is
going to be.
Take this little flower
from me, and let it go
into the way you think of it.
And so it grows
and is the face
of Daisy the cow speaking,
she my young grandma
growing and wearing
a pink slip and who fell
from the sky that was
clear blue and pure
all over the place
you called home
as it moved out
from under you
in the slow
rotation of the sphere
you call a star,
a flower, a mind.
And the cows they are all orphans
by Ruth Upperton
And the picture was a present
And the shore had not been broken
And the cows are not our orphans
And the photo hadn’t snapped yet
And I hadn’t seen the body
And there wasn’t time regardless
And the picture wasn’t present
And the cows they trumped the living
And the silence well it’s restful
And the pitcher wasn’t breaking
And the living cows weren’t moving
And the picture caught the paddocks
And the sun’s come up real stellar
And the dark well it’s a comfort
And the time regards us passing
And the crops how are they doing
And the most I’ll miss is you love
And the pitching sea’s a killer
And the midnight moonlight river
And the breaking call of cameras
And the picture snaps our colour
And there’s not a breath among us