Saturday, October 8, 2011

The frost twilight passes away

For one of my English Literature classes, I was required to write a "replacement poem." I had never done this before, but found it quite intriguing. To create a replacement poem, you choose a poem and substitute all the nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs with the same part of speech. You can either leave the conjunctions and prepositions or you can replace them. Basically, the point is to produce a poem with the same style, but making it your own. During the Renaissance Era, ambitious poets would often use the style and/or the tone of other famous poets (usually the poets of the previous Medieval Era) to develop their work. Then, as they improved their skills at writing poetry, they would invent a style and tone entirely their own.

I hope you enjoy this replacement poem I created based on T.S. Eliot's, "The winter evening settles down." Though T.S Eliot's poem had a much deeper meaning than simply describing a winter's evening, it inspired me to write a poem limited to the image of a winter's evening. Winter is my favorite time of year, so I found creating this replacement poem quite fascinating...

The frost twilight passes away
By Thomas Stanley, Jr.

The frost twilight passes away
With feel of ice in winds.
Sundown.
The frost-bit air of snowy nights.
And again a misty blanket cakes
The frozen ears
Of cloaked people on their way
And children in white yards;
The blanket sticks
On iced walks and house-tops,
And at the end of the road
A lost house-pet shivers and whimpers.

And then the white-out of the sky.