One of the central concepts of poetry, especially poetry in forms, is repetition. As poets we repeat sounds, syllables, words, syntax, meters, lines and stanzas. The use of repetition is one of the qualities of poetry that separates it from prose. In prose, repetition is rare and usually done to either increase clarity or to make a single point.

Repetition creates patterns. Whether the patterns are phonetic or syntactic, when people encounter these patterns they recognize them and respond to them. If you repeat the same word or line over and over again, the reader will assume that it has significance. If you repeat a sound (rhyme, alliteration, consonance) it links words or lines together. If you repeat a meter, it moves the poem forward and adds a musical quality to the poem. If you repeat syntax, it allows different ideas either form links or create contrasts.

Repetition is a tool. If used well, it adds to a poem through the links and patterns it creates. If used badly, it can become too obvious, creating predictability. Like any poetic tool, it should be used carefully and with intent. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish by using repetition, there’s a good chance you will misuse it.

Today’s Poetic Assignment

Write a poem that uses at least two different forms of repetition. Try to embrace at least one form of repetition that you don’t ordinarily use.

Today’s Recommended Poet

As a poet, Melissa Morphew is first and foremost an excellent storyteller. She writes mostly in a narrative voice about fictional and fictionalized subjects. Her descriptive skills are wonderful and her stories are surreal and beautiful. Be sure to read her newspaper interview, it is an excellent introduction into the world of poetry publishing and contests.

Latest Book

Fathom 2006

Poetry on the Web

Five Poems By Melissa Morphew

Four More Poems by Melissa Morphew

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Shower
my bicycle and I were running
to go out

Assurance
Yellow pulls across the hills and thrums,
or the silence after lightning

If I Was That Kind of Woman
All day I am a tuning fork
attracted to the slightest
hesitation in our voices

Summer
Spotted towhees flit here, there
Scrounging the next meal

Inversnaid
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

Santa Monica Carousel
My horse left its pole
upshot, cloud by cloud
quick as a bullet in a dream

Existence
In one rose the mute insect
would not abdicate its existence

And finally, one from me…

Making it Through August
Sweaty
Grimy
Fat
Angry

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Cloudberries
they will
subside slowly to fewer than
you would ever have believed.

Thirsty
My heart is thirsty a lot
The cold water, your sweet smile only for me

Cool Hat
laundered until
it cries for mercy

Network Optimization
Bottom line, too many lumps of data with your tea.

How Does Your Garden
Lights flashing, another ambulance
not for me.

Out of the Blue
I don’t believe in suddenly. Nothing happens
all of the sudden,

Missing Epistle
You want my epistle.
I grasp it firmly in my hand usually

Moon Poem
the surface lit up like a discotheque
and the air hummed
like a refrigerator late at night.

Ode to My Dead PSP
My smelly roommate and his dirty cronies
Directly abused my handheld by Sony

Finally, here is one of my poems, all shiny and self-conscious…

The Curse of Low Colesterol
Flush with his degree
From the University of Nevada – Reno

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Immortality
The cook’s right hand, lifted
an exact century ago,
completes its downward arc

unwritten meridian poem
the weapons-grade petulance

Poem for a Man with No Sense of Smell
the wet flush of my fear is sharp
as the taste of an iron pipe

Ghazal for a Comfort
Sometimes the hierarchy works, or looks to

The Stone Gatherer
Now I collect stones, and tell others
they are grave markers.

Pistachio
A spritz of soda, carbon captured, bubbles bursting;
Antiseptic odor effervescing from the glass.

The Iconoclasm of Mice
Mouse dung falls from overhead on books
I’ve made into icons in my writing house.

Starfish
So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert.

Just a Poem About Coffee
a man with sunglasses scans the menu
he walks out the front door empty handed

And one from me:

Big Heads
Each a random sampling of their parent’s failures
Cobbled together and mostly functional

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An Eighth Lesson in Magic
In the absence of miracles, the pot
simmers a new husband in the oven.

They’re Leaving Home
After forty years he has to wonder,
will he ever go back to that street?

mandate (social)
Dollars notwithstanding, they each burn their own way.

Sojourns in a Parallel World
We call it “Nature”; only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be “Nature” too.

Blues
I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world.

The Scent of Blue
As a girl, she wears Bluebell,
fresh and full of hope

Perfect Dead
You are improving
as you die

Her Eyes Filled, Thus the Poem Spoke
doves of peace
fluttering like Mae West’s eye-lashes

Lake Powell Revisited
sandstone reaches up
from man’s hoarded water tank

Happiness
happiness is the uncle you never
knew about

The final poem is one of mine:

Snow Together
I had to describe it for her
Falling down and collecting on the windshield

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Stupid Love Poem
I wrote you a love poem
Because you told me to

The Myth of Memory
Maybe that explains the lack of eyelids,
always awake, always in sudden shock.

The First Thing I Make for Dinner
dried mint crushed
with a little Drambuie
to give it a kick

Poem for Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci, I love your big head

Band Camp, Day Five
Two hours means gripped palms, sweating with desire

Quackery
Quackery Cliffston clackering quackenstien
You doctory phonery you

A Poem To Help Let Go
A card given to me covered in a smell I love n know

Poem about Project Management Systems
It once was “Jango”
But that implies true greatness-
More like “Jar-Jar Binks”

My Bicycle: A Love Poem
When I ride too far it hurts my hiney

Color Me Blind…
Filling pockets with shamrocks and smoking,
cinnamon cigars to leave saffron aftertastes

Making Jack O’Lanterns
Cut all ’round the stem, just so,
Scrape out the inside below

Messenger
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?

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