LESSON ONE

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The Sprinters

By Lillian Morrison

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The gun explodes them.

Pummeling, pistoning they fly

In time’s face.

A go at the limit,

A terrible try

To smash the ticking glass,

Outpace the beat

That runs, that streaks away

Tireless, and faster than they.

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Beside ourselves

(It is for us they run!)

We shout and pound the stands

For one to win,

Loving him, whose hard

Grace-driven stride

Most mocks the clock

And almost breaks the bands

Which lock us in.

 

 

WORKSHOP ONE

 

Diamante Poem Example

 

Bike

Shiny, quiet,

Pedaling, spinning, weaving

Whizzing round corners, zooming along roads

Racing, roaring, speeding

Fast, loud,

Car

 

Cinquain Poem Example

 

Dinosaurs

Lived once,

Long ago, but

Only dust and dreams

Remain

 

 

Shape Poem Example

 

In the Pocket by James Dickey

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Going backward

All of my and some

Of my friends are forming a shell                my arm is looking

Everywhere and some are breaking

In                breaking down

And out breaking

Across, and one is going deep                deeper

Than my arm               Where is Number One hooking

Into the violent green alive

With linebacker?                I cannot find him he cannot beat

His man                I fall back more

Into the pocket                it is raging and breaking

Number Two has disappeared into the chalk

Of the sideline                Number Three is cutting with half

A step of grace my friends are crumbling

Around me the wrong color

Is looming                hands are coming

Up and over between

My arm and Number Three:                throw it hit him in

The middle

Of his enemies                hit move scramble

Before death and the ground

Come up LEAP STAND KILL DIE STRIKE

Now.

 

 

LESSON TWO

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Pitcher

By Robert Francis

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His art is eccentricity, his aim                                 

How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,                      

                                        

His passion how to avoid the obvious,                      

His technique how to vary the avoidance.                      

                                                                      

The others throw to be comprehended. He                      

Throws to be a moment misunderstood.       

                                                                      

Yet not too much. Not errant, arrant, wild,                      

But every seeming aberration willed.                      

                                                                      

Not to, yet still, still to communicate                      

Making the batter understand too late.

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WORKSHOP TWO

 

Acrostic Poem Examples

 

HOCKEY                                                  SAM                                                    SKY

 

Hockey is my favorite sport         Shares his stuff                                So nice and blue

On the ice or street                      Always on time                                 Keep on looking at it

Cool and fun                                  My friend                                           You should look

Keep on playing

Exercise and stronger

You should try

 

Haiku Poem Examples

 

In the amber dusk                                                          Two leaning tombstones

Each island dreams its own night                                Took seventy years to touch

The sea swarms with gold                                             Mist and peace dwell there

 

 

LESSON THREE

 

First Lesson

by Philip Booth

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Lie back daughter, let your head

be tipped back in the cup of my hand.

Gently, and I will hold you. Spread

your arms wide, lie out on the stream

and look high at the gulls. A dead-

man's float is face down. You will dive

and swim soon enough where this tidewater

ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe

me, when you tire on the long thrash

to your island, lie up, and survive.

As you float now, where I held you

and let go, remember when fear

cramps your heart what I told you:

lie gently and wide to the light-year

stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

 

 

WORKSHOP THREE

 

Limerick Poem Examples

 

There once was a young man from Kew

Who found a dead mouse in his stew.

Said the waiter, “Don’t shout

Or wave it about,

Or the rest will be wanting one, too!”

 

There was an old man with a beard There once was a young lady named bright

Who said, "it’s just how I feared! Whose speed was much faster than light

Two owls and a hen She set out one day

Four larks and a wren In a relative way

Have all built their nests in my beard. And returned on the previous night.

 

Hickory, dickory, dock,

The mouse ran up the clock.

The clock struck one,

And down he run,

Hickory, dickory, dock.

(Nursery Rhyme)

 

 

Shakespearean Sonnet Poem Example

 

SONNET 18

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

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LESSON FOUR

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The Passer

by George Abbe

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Dropping back with the ball ripe in my palm,

Grained and firm as the flesh of living charm.

I taper and coil myself down, raise arm to fake,

running a little, seeing my targets emerge

Like quail above a wheat field’s golden lake.

 

In boyhood I saw my mother knit my warmth

With needles that were straight. I learned to feel

The passage of the bullet through the bore,

Its vein of flight between my heart and deer

Whose terror took the pulse of my hot will.

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I learned how wild geese slice arcs from hanging pear

Of autumn noon; how the thought of love cleaves home,

And fists, with fury’s ray, can lay a weakness bare,

And instinct’s eye can mine fish under foam.

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So as I run and weigh and measure and test,

The light kindles on helmets, the angry leap;

But secretly, coolly, as though stretching a hand to his chest,

I lay the ball in the arms of my planing end

As true as metal, as deftly as surgeon’s wrist.

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