Imitation: The Golden Shovel Form
OPTIONAL: Share your Golden Shovel poem (please share!).
a song in the front yard
I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.
I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.
They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).
But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.
Gwendolyn Brooks, “a song in the front yard” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1963 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Gwendolyn Brooks.
Thoughts of an Older Sister
ReplyDeleteAfter Johnny Cash
Waking up, heading downstairs to prepare breakfast for me and you.
Strawberry spread or apricot jam? Nutella? I always, always make
sure to ask you; you’re fussy about your bread. You never thank me.
I feel like I spend the day on two things: homework and making you happy,
although homework is more appreciative than you! But at night when
thunder claps, rain showers, and heavy black clouds smother the skies,
when you hide behind the bed before running to me for a hug, I see that you are
my only sister, and you make my life a rainbow kaleidoscope, never gray.
-Anya C.
Love it! Great shift in this poem (and an excellent song as a starting point). Thank you for sharing!
DeleteGolden Shovel Imitation Poem
ReplyDeleteAfter Antonio Carlos Jobim
I’ve always wondered what living alone is like, maybe it’s Painful.
I’ve been told that it is
Not very fun to
Be alone, because it meant to live
Without those you love and believe in.
It meant being alone in solitude.
(Go listen to the song in the original language it was written!(Portuguese)
It is called Triste by A.C. Jobim)
B3 is Chris Bauge
Excellent! Love Jobim! The Composer of "Desafinado," Plays and Stone Flower are two of my favorite albums of his.Thank you for sharing!
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