It’s Tuesday, the dVerse Poets Pub bar is open (with a choice of popular drinks and snacks), and I’m Kim from writinginnorthnorfolk. I’d like to welcome you to Poetics and introduce you to a rather long poem by Australian poet Les Murray, entitled ‘The Quality of Sprawl’.   

It’s also the title of his book of essays, opinions, thoughts and musings about Australia.

Les Murray’s poem is based on a kind of list of his personal definitions of ‘sprawl’. It has a great title and is a neat combination of apparent opposites: in the poem, he values ‘sprawl’ for its unpredictability, individuality and freedom from the restraints of convention.

The challenge is to write a poem on the quality of a something (noun, verb, adjective but not ‘sprawl’) using the same format of title: ‘The Quality of…’; I’ve included a short list of suggestions below, but it’s fun to come up with one of your own.

• lazy
• cool
• silence
• dust
• feet
• dog/cat
• smile
• soup

I would like you to emulate the format of the poem, starting each stanza with ‘[Word] is/does’; however, your poem doesn’t have to be quite so long.

If you are new to dVerse and/or Poetics, here’s how to join in:

• Write a poem in response to the challenge;
• Enter a link directly to your poem and your name by clicking Mr Linky below;
• There you will find links to other poets, and more will join so check back to see more poems;
• Read and comment on other poets’ work – we all come here to have our poems read;
• Please link back to dVerse from your site/blog;
• Comment and participate in our discussion below, if you like. We are a friendly bunch of poets.
• Have fun.