On her blog @SarahDoughty prompted:
Tell me a story covering three things:
- a promise
- why you write
- a passion
This was my response. Not exactly a story, but you know, brevity is an art! 🙂 What’s your response? Go check out her blog and leave a thought.
.
I do; I do
release the stories,
my dreams of you.
.
POETRY LESSON:
I feel like I need to take this moment to point out what is going on in this poem, because while there are only 3 lines and eleven words, they are woven tightly using a variety of poetic technique. First, while each line responds in order to Sarah’s 3 prompts, they also read as one sentence, so there are overlapping meanings. Secondly, there is a pattern of 4-3-4 words. Thirdly, repetition in the first line is quite emphatic, but provides a rhyme that tightens the ending with you.
Fourthly, I get seriously carried away with the sound devices assonance and consonance, binding each component of the words to their fellows. There are three vowels sounds repeated, the only out-lier is the ‘o’ in stories. e.g. I, I, my; do, do, you; release, stories, dreams; the, of. (Reminder: assonance is repetition of a vowel sound, NOT a letter). The consonant sounds also repeat with do, do, dreams; release, stories, dreams; release, stories, dreams; my dreams. The the and of are both *fricatives, and so while not exactly the same sound, the brain hears them as ‘close enough.’
Finally, that leaves only the ‘l’ is without a partner, except visually–because I,I,l look the same, don’t they? And of course, the lonely o from stories, visually matches the o’s in do. In other words, every component of each word is tied somehow to the rest of the poem. Absolutely everything fits like a tight puzzle.
Did I do any of this intentionally? No, actually. I just responded to the prompt, tidied it up until I liked it, and then when I copied it here, I noticed how tight it was.
*Fricatives in English are f,v, s (both s/z sounds), th (both θ and ð).
Shawn L. Bird 