On Abecedarians


I'm so lucky that I get to work with children and young people as part of my day job. I teach creative writing, which is the best subject, and I won't hear a word said against it! 

And I'm good at it, too. 

But, I'm often reluctant to do anything too tricky or "formal" with my young writers, because 
A. I want them to really enjoy the sessions, and 
B. the contemporary poetry scene is not that enthusiastic about formal poetry structures. 

That being said, I've been working with a particular group of teenagers for a while now, through my freelance contract with Writing East Midlands and, a few months' ago, we got to talking about constrained writing techniques. 

They seemed keen, so I thought I'd set them a challenge! 

So, I brought in an Abecedarian poem called Hummingbird Abecedarian by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. 

An Abecedarian is a type of poem where each line starts with a different letter of the alphabet: the first line starts with the letter A, the second with the letter B, the third with the letter C, and so on, all the way to the twenty-sixth line, which begins with Z. 

I was a little worried that the complicated nature of the prompt would put the group off. After all, it's quite a bit different from the free-verse, open-ended prompts we'd be been doing up until this point. 

But they really rose to the challenge, and everyone seemed to be really get into it! In fact, we spent the whole hour working on our poems, and lots of folks who don't normally chat in the group were asking questions and giving each other advice too!

I guess it shows that teenagers (and people more generally) will rise to the challenge and try hard things if they feel safe and comfortable to do so. 

Lesson learned. Next week, we'll tackle sestinas! 



Photo by Tanja Tepavac via unsplash.com



I also got the chance to write my own Abecedarian during the workshop, but I'm stuck on line 24, which starts with the letter X. If anyone has any fabulous X words up their sleeves, LET ME KNOW! 

And, if you'd like to have a go at an Abecedarian yourself, here's a neat little guide to giving it a go.

The trick is to make it sound natural - and use lots of enjambment - so your audience doesn't know it's an abecedarian, until they see it on the page. Sounds easy, but it's actually such a brain teaser!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Women (Saying) Stuff

Image
I’m part of a group of called DIY Poets , and since 2016, the women of DIY have been hosting an annual event celebrating International Women’s Day .  This year Women Say Stuff hosted its tenth open mic, and it was a really gorgeous evening, where we had the pleasure of uplifting the voices of local women and raising money for Nottingham-based domestic abuse charity JUNO Women’s Aid .  We sold over 100 tickets to the event, secured local sponsorship to pay our staff and performers, and raised over £600 for our chosen charity! Plus, our lovely audience also donated three bags of period products for women in need, which we donated to Nottingham Women’s Centre .  On the night we had twenty-three women on the open mic, plus two fantastic headline sets from Derby-based poet Aoife O’Connor, and WSS co-founder Clare Stewart! (I especially loved Aoife’s award-winning poem “ A Series of Unrelated Small Things .”) On the open mic, we had a real range of topics from maths and to medu...
Read more

On Saying Goodbye

Image
My grandad died earlier this month, and it’s been a really sad time for our family. But I was very fortunate to get the opportunity to say goodbye to him by sharing a poem at his funeral service. This is the poem I wrote. I hope that, if he heard the service at all, he liked it. Bird Box Love  for Grandad Ged  You fixed a bird box to a shaky branch, and welcomed all the sparrows there to nest. You gave us baby birds a fighting chance; your garden was the one we liked the best. We sparrows sung your praises in our songs because you loved us all, and love abounds. This garden feels so empty, now you've gone; a feather floating gently to the ground. The sun has set on all your summer days, but though your presence fades, we hold you dear. For death is just a parting of the ways, and grief is simply love that perseveres. The garden feels so empty, now you're gone, but we can still remember you in song. Image via Unsplash.com  
Read more

On the Evolution of my Working Week

Image
I’ve been a full-time freelance writer and educator since March 2022, and it’s a great job. No two days are the same, and I get to work on multiple projects across multiple organisations, with very few strings attached.  Of course, there are downsides. No sick pay or pension, having to do my own taxes, and having periods where I’m not sure where the next job is coming from. But all in all, I think the freelance life suits me pretty well.  But I often speak to people who don’t understand what freelancer life is like. They think it’s a doss, or a holiday, or they think I’m just swanning about, like some sort of poetic lady of leisure. And, while I do my fair share of swanning, my freelancing life is a pretty busy one. So, today I thought I’d share an example of what I get up to in a typical week, to give you an idea of what it’s really like!  Saturday: This week, I’m supporting a poetry open mic night and event for International Women’s Day. We have 120 people booked to att...
Read more