OctPoWriMo 2022 - Day 11: Love, Great And Small

 

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In further considering the idea of 'growing the creative self', we can think about how our loves, great and small, can unlock our creativity and inspire us to write.

Over the years I have written about various crushes and other more meaningful relationships, some of which have been brief but left footprints on my heart, and others which are still in my life today. 

A sonnet might be one way of expressing these feelings - it is, after all, a classic love poem format, espoused by Shakespeare, Petrarch, Keats, and others. (See October 2nd's prompt for a guide to the sonnet structure.)

However, in the words of the recently departed Her Majesty the Queen of England (and, doubtless, others), grief is the price we pay for love. Having also recently lost my grandmother, who lived a very full life but whom nonetheless we are of course also sad to lose, I may choose to expand my creativity with an elegy.

The poet Thomas Gray was one famous exponent of this particular form, along with, Whitman and Rilke. Elegies express three stages of loss: grief and sorrow, followed by praise for the dead person, and concluded with consolation and solace. Traditional elegies are composed in stanzas of two quatrains, using iambic pentameter and an ABAB rhyme scheme. However, for a modern elegy, you can of course deviate from this if you wish.

Word prompts:

Bright

Warmth

Lightness

Everlasting

Boundless

Remember, our prompts are only suggestions: you can find your inspiration wherever your muse leads you. Please visit the other participants, share the hashtag #OctPoWriMo on social media, and share your link in the comments below. Let us know how this journey into poetry is going for you and if this is your first year or if you have been with us from the beginning.

Happy writing!

Bianca