"ABC" (shown above) is perhaps one of former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky's most infamous poems, and a classic example of the abecedarian form. A lot of the exercises I've given you have dealt with the nuts and bolts of language and this one is no exception, as, of course, there's no more rudimentary raw material for poetry (or any other writing) than the alphabet itself. So I'm asking you to write something that considers the alphabet from an inclusive perspective. This might take one of several forms:
- a straight, minimalist ABC poem like Pinsky's with 26 words in alphabetical order
- some variation on this, using all of the letters but in mixed order
- a 26 line poem in which each line begins with a letter in alphabetical order
- some variation on this, but mixing the order
- a "quick brown fox" poem (as in "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," a pangram, or phrase that uses all of the letters of the alphabet -- you may choose to use as few or as many additional letters as you'd like: see here for some crazy examples).
Part of the trick of this assignment is figuring out how to deal with the less common letters (for example, taken together J, X, Q and Z account for less than one half of 1% of the letters used in the English language). Accounting for these letters (and other uncommon ones like Y, P, B, V and K — all used less than 2% of the time) will force you to bring words that you otherwise wouldn't have thought of, therefore expanding your poetic vocabulary.
Have fun with this assignment, but don't be lazy! Challenge yourself to use the alphabet in ways that you hadn't considered before, and post the results on Blackboard for us all to see.
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