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“I found a box and put a room inside” – I’ve lost the link but that was spoken by a creative person on YouTube who was showing how she designed some miniature cut-out furniture to make a ‘box room’. Clever indeed but I was struck more by the creative potential emanating from that simple phrase and how it might suit an MTB prompt.

Firstly the whole subject of boxes is wide open for poets. Here is an extract of “Music Box” by Jorge Luis Borges:-

“…Music of Japan. Parsimoniously
from the water clock the drops unfold
in lazy honey or ethereal gold
that over time reiterates a weave
eternal, fragile, enigmatic, bright.
I fear that every one will be the last.
They are a yesterday come from the past…”

And a lovely long poem I’d encourage you to read is “Jewel Box” by Eamon Grennan which begins…

“Your jewel box of white balsa strips
and bleached green Czechoslovakian rushes
stands open where you keep it shelved
in the bathroom. Morning and evening
I see you comb its seawrack tangle of shell,
stone, wood, glass, metal, bone, seed
for the bracelet, earring, necklace, brooch
or ring you need…

And sometimes the box is a metaphor, or with metaphysical contents or just imaginary as Kimiko Hahn’s The Dream of a Lacquer Box”

“I wish I knew the contents and I wish the contents
Japanese —
like hairpins made of tortoiseshell or bone

though my braid was lopped off long ago,
like an overpowering pine incense or a talisman from a Kyoto shrine,

…or am I wishing for Mother? searching for Sister?
just hoping to give something Japanese to my daughters?…”

For today’s MTB poetry prompt we are writing Bop Poetry created by Aafa Michael Weaver.

Poetry Style: a 23 line poem which has 3 stanzas ordered thus, with a same one line refrain after each:-

  • a six-line stanza – that poses a problem
  • an eight-line stanza – that expands upon that problem
  • a six-line stanza – that solves, or fails to solve, the problem

Include this same 1 line repeat after each stanza:
‘I found a box and put a room inside’
OR ‘I found a box…[add your own words to complete the line]

Poetry Guidelines: No mandatory rhymes or meter
experiment with enjambment
use minimalistic grammar

The Bop is regarded as a modern day sonnet, without the strictures, since it poses a problem from multiple angles before featuring a poetic turn that introduces a new perspective to the reader at the end.

Since we’ve not done The Bop at dVerse before, these links provide a fuller explanation with examples:

So once you have posted your poem according to the guidelines above, do add it to Mr Linky below then go visiting and reading other contributors as that is half the fun of our dVerse gatherings.

[N.B. Mr Linky closes Saturday 3 p.m. EST]