Day Five and you’re almost done! You’ve struck gold!
The golden shovel is a relatively new form of poem developed by Terrance Hayes, inspired by a Gwendolyn Brooks poem. (You can click on their names to read their poems.) I’m pretty sure it taps into some left brain, right brain creativity, because I go through mental gymnastics during the writing process, never know quite what I am going to end up with, and the finished product is more eloquent than what I would ordinarily write. I adore golden shovels – a perfect combination of muscle and creativity, and a great way to round off our challenge!
HOW TO:
- Find a strike line* (any length) from an existing poem and attribute it. (Who wrote the original line, and in what poem?)
- Put each word from the strike line at the end of individual lines in your poem… If your strike line has four words, your poem has four lines. (The strike lines in my poems are written in bold. )
- Now fill in the gaps to make your poem. Lines can be any length and on any topic.
* the strike line does not have to be a complete line, but it must be an unbroken chunk of text – either a portion of a line, or spread across multiple lines. The longer your strike line, the longer your poem.
That’s it! Five days of poetry to put some pep in your step, and some muscle and creativity in your writing. Thank-you to everyone who has participated – and special thanks to those who have been sharing to the hashtag and commenting within the community.
Sincere thank-you to CQRASN for funding this project, supporting not just regional Queensland creatives, but creative peeps across Australia, and the globe.
Kathryn Apel 
Love your golden shovels, Kat!
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