The Frame Poem

Here's an exercise in poetry I posted on Screw Iowa's blog this morning...and decided to steal for my own! Steal, being the operative word of the day it seems...

And also LATER I'll write a recipe for spaghetti with shrimp and bay scallops (after the poetry exercise you owe it to yourself to make a delish supper dish!)

Take a chance: write poetry, enrich your inner being!

The prompt: In front of me on my desk is The New Yorker—please take hold of any magazine you wish… open to a random page. I opened to the July 6 & 13 2009 issue

Lucky me, I found on pages 56-57 a poem entitled “Twin Cities” by Carol Muske Dukes…plus two pages worth of words from an article: The Kill Company by Raffi Khatchdourian.

What you’re about to write is called a frame poem or an exercise of words that will frame a poem. Basically you steal words or phrases from the magazine pages and write your own poem.

As my dear friend and mentor John Dufresne always said, and he might have been quoting someone else, “Good writers imitate, great writers ‘steal.’” (I believe the quote is a rip off from something Picasso said: “Good artists imitate, great artists steal.” But then again, it could be from something T. S. Eliot said…whatever the case may be, it’s a terrific great idea to consider. Remember it. House it in the room of your brain that speaks to your writing!

Okay, give me a second here to "read" and skim … meantime go find a copy of Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated, People, or whatever. You can highlight the words, or make a list.

These words are from the poem:

Skate across
Raft
Snake
Dakota
Cliffs Caves
River
Mills
Winter ice
Brittle mirage

These are from the article:

The presence of women
Conflicting memories
Squad disbanded
Cleaned up the remains
The men I killed
Squatted
Deaths
Soldiers
Shot while escaping
Massacre
Charlie company
Blindfolded bodies
miscommunication
Law of War
Capacity for moral discrimination
the sound of gunfire


So what’s going on in my brain here? Strong words or images popped out at me.As I was picking out words, apparently my brain started doing associations and did some first drafting homework for me by connecting possible words in order to group together later to write a poem that could make sense.


I might title this:

In the Presence of Women

Some of the Dakota tried to escape
skating the partially frozen river
or snake across it at its shallow, lower parts
in zigzag formation
to reach the hills, cliffs
and caves on the other side.

Some of the horses had travois,
raft-like attachments made of tree limbs
covered with pelts
but the brittle mirage of thawing winter ice
could not hold them
and many women and children drowned.

The Calvary’s disbanded squads
chased and hunted down others,
some shot while escaping.
The remaining men of Charlie Company
blindfolded the renegade Indians
and killed them Army style, lined up
in an execution with a firing squad.

When it was over, it was revealed
these natives weren’t hostile at all,
but peace-lovers, which made this a massacre.

“Miscommunication,” a Sergeant said,
“The Law of War,” said a Lieutenant,
his brass buttons shining in sun
glinting from the General’s office window

The General said to the officers,
“At ease, Gentlemen. What’s needed, perhaps,
is a greater capacity for moral discrimination.”

It took me all of twenty minutes to write this draft, not half-bad for a first draft, but it can made into a really good poem with some time, effort, and revision. Try one! Your brain will make associations you never dreamed about when you formed your list. You can change and invert the words or phrases, and of course, add some of your own to give the vrerse some sense. Have fun!