Dream of a Common Language
( A Poem a Day, Every Day for a Month #6)
The Dream of a Common Language
The energy of a difficult passage
The vision of a vanishing fire
The lies of a faithful servant
The nerves of a stubborn woman
The shadows of a neglected child
The waters of a smoky night
The calm of a lonely room
The estrangement of girl-hood grief
The half-life of a hazy hope
The cruelty of charming children
The kindness of kindred creatures
the loyalty of nameless strangers
The rigidity of righteous rules
The honey of fleshy hallucinations
The dissolution of desolate days
The waves of soft feathers
the passion of a simmering poison
The peace of falling snow
The peace of dreamless sleep
Comment: Adrienne Rich’s Dream of a Common Language is sitting on my night table, so I decided to use the structure of the title to generate other titles. As I went along I started playing with alliteration –having the letter of the noun at the beginning match the letter of the noun at the end, and also seeing if I could make the adjective also the same letter to make the entire title alliterative. I also found it interesting how including or excluding the article a changed the meaning from one in particular to all instances: For example, the dissolution of a desolate day vs. The dissolution of desolate days and the subtleties in this difference.
Poetry Prompt: Start with Titles: Take one of the titles from this list or create a list of your own and use it to start a poem.
