“Looking” for dVerse Poets, May 3, 2024

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     Click on photos to enlarge. 

                                                                       LOOKING

Every Sunday, sitting
on a small wooden chair
memorizing verses from a Bible with my name
stamped in golden letters on the cover,
singing “Jesus loves me, this I know,”
I found a box but didn’t fit inside.

Then in college, 
books and beer and Buddha,
that expanded religion of poetry
and midnight discussions in
the game room. Rumi, Roethke,
Donne and Philosophy 101.
Time after time,
I found a box but didn’t fit inside.

Moving once more into a wider
world with no hard chairs. Just
a backpack and the classroom of an open road,
putting things learned into practice,
that religion of experience, heady,
I found again, box after box, but didn’t fit inside.

For dVerse Poets this week, we were asked to compose ‘Bop’ poems.

The ‘Bop’ poetic form has 23 total lines in three stanzas ordered thus, with the same one line refrain following each of the three stanzas:

  1. a six-line stanza – that poses a problem;
  2. an eight-line stanza – that expands upon that problem;
  3. a six-line stanza – that solves, or fails to solve, the problem

For this prompt, we are to include the following line as the refrain after each of the three stanzas: I found a box and put a room inside
OR:
I found a box… [add your own words to complete the line]

Prompt guidelines:
No mandatory rhyme or meter;
Experiment with enjambment;
Use minimalistic grammar

26 thoughts on ““Looking” for dVerse Poets, May 3, 2024”

  8. kim881's avatarkim881

    Your Bop resonates with me, Judy – I never fitted into any kind of box, although I did enjoy school and university, but mainly the books and reading. I think I’ve found a box of sorts now I’m older and more contented.

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