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Diamonds
The idea is to create a poem the format of which will resemble a diamond.
It may, though not necessarily, start with a short introductory phrase followed by a single word.
It will become wider in the middle.
Then it will taper to a final single word at the end.
As with all poetry this is a guideline and you can amend or restructure as you feel appropriate.
Ten steps to The Diamond.
1. Identify your theme or subject. If for example your theme is work it is possible to identify a specific job of work, or task. For example, ‘Teaching’.
2. For the first line of the poem choose two words (Teaching, the title, is the first) which will say something about teaching or being a teacher. For example, begin with the phrase Teaching is……. and add the words ‘small children’, or ‘hard work’, or ‘abundant patience’.
3. For the second line choose three words which add something to what has gone before. In this example words will be added to ‘small children’ as the poem begins to take shape, and they will refer in some way to the previous line, to small children, to what they do, what they expect or need, how they work, the atmosphere of the classroom. For example, ‘sitting in rows’, ‘writing new poems’, ‘hands raised hopefully’ etc, etc. The poem now looks something like this…
Teaching
Small children
Writing new poems
4. The third line will have four, maybe five, words which enhance further what has gone before and begin to give a little bulk to the poem. For example, you may wish to say something about how they are thinking or the work they are attempting by adding something like, ‘searching for new phrases’ or ‘scribbling, thinking, carefully writing,’ or ‘searching for novel notions’. * You could write as many or as few of these lines with four or five words as you want.
5. Add to these lines with longer ones if you feel there something else you wish to include. For example, you may wish to say something about how a teacher helps and assists children; e.g. ‘planting seeds, directing, developing, applauding each new phrase, each new idea’, or ‘a gentle nudge when needed, a helping hand at a difficult stage’.
6. When you feel you have included most of what you want to say begin to close your work with another three words; words that perhaps say something different about teaching, such as ‘Monday to Friday’, ‘Weeks passing quickly’.
7. Then two words and finally one that perhaps tells something of the emotion a teacher feels; and it could be a noun or a verb or adverb. The choice is yours. For example it could be ‘satisfaction’, ‘Tiring’, ‘Achievement’, ‘Fulfilled’.
8. Read what you have written and change what you feel requires change. And if you feel you need to add something, maybe an exclamation for impact, go for it! ‘Love it!’
9. Read it to someone. Get advice.
10. Publish.
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