Hello, everyone.
Kerry Popplewell is from Ngaio in Wellington, New Zealand. Steele Roberts published her first collection of poetry in 2010.
Rainer Maria Rilke died in 1926 at the age of 51. He was an Austrian poet and novelist who wrote lyric and mystical poetry in the German language.
One theme we can identify in the first poetic text is the passing of time. Write about time ar about something that has changed over time.
Alongside time in general, a theme from the second poetic text is the night time. In particular, you might write about how people act at night.
The structure of both texts is short. Consider writing a poem that is more short than you might usually.
Alternatively, the structure of the first poem uses deliberate repetition. The second poem has some end rhyme. You could write a piece featuring either or both of these.
Six words to attempt to incorporate into your writing from Popplewell: water, slow, visible, sense, cells, across.
Six words from Rilke: crowds, look, sway, thoughts, reply, struggle.
If you have a copy of The Exercise Book (Manhire, Duncum, Price & Wilkins), turn to "#90: The Night Sky" for an additional challenge.
That's all. I hope you are inspired to write today.
Evanescence
Kerry Popplewell
after Rilke
Leaves are falling, falling in water—
and the water falling
slow over stones.
Around us, minutes are falling—
a mist too fine to be visible
but we sense the damp on our skin
as we sense our cells dissolving
faster than sunlight which flows
across the green flank of a hill.
People At Night
Rainer Maria Rilke
The nights were not made for crowds, and they sever
You from your neighbour, and you shall never
Seek him, defiantly, at night.
But if you make your dark house light,
To look on strangers in your room,
You must reflect—on whom.
False lights that on men’s faces play
Distort them gruesomely.
You look upon a disarray,
A world that seems to reel and sway,
A waving, glittering sea.
On foreheads gleams a yellow shine,
Where thoughts are chased away,
Their glances flicker mad from wine,
And to the words they say
Strange heavy gestures make reply
That struggle in the buzzing room;
And they say always “I” and “I,”
And mean—they know not whom.