Poetry Challenge #263-Upside-Down, Backwards, Sideways Shel
We’re shaking things up the week so we can celebrate Shel Silverstein’s Birthday, September 25, 1930…1931...1932…some year around then (at some point Shel refused to give more interviews and forbade his publishers—and everyone else—from revealing more personal info.) That alone is worth celebrating, right? What we do know is that Shel Silverstein, known most-well to us as an author, playwright, and poet, a self-proclaimed lousy baseball player, former Comiskey Park hot dog vendor, started out drawing comics for Playboy Magazine and writing country songs, one of which, “Boy Named Sue,” is Johnny Cash’s all-time best-selling single! Shel Silverstein passed away in 1999, but through his poems, stories, songs, lives on.
Poetry Challenge #263
Upside-Down, Backwards, Sideways Shel
Here is one of Shel Silverstein’s poems from his collection A Light in the Attic, called “Backwards Bill”. While reading it, can’t you practically see how the alliterative BBs in that name “Backwards Bill” was the driving force behind that poem. But why stop there?
In honor of this rule breaking, risk taking, rhyme making poet, let’s push alliteration as far as we can go by crafting a Tautogram! A quick search didn’t turn up any of Shel Silverstein’s tautograms but can’t imagine he never tried his pen at one. So…This one’s for you Shel!
What’s a Tautogram you ask?
Tautogram, from the Greek words, “tauto” meaning same and “gramma” meaning letter, is a puzzle of a poem in which every word starts with the same letter.
That’s it! That’s the only rule!
Variations on a tautogram include: creating a poem where each line or stanza starts with the same letter and that letter changes from line to line or stanza to stanza.
Tautograms are not meant to be “serious” literature, they are written for fun. So have at it and have fun!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Reward Time: Click over to listen to Shel Silverstein on the Johnny Cash Show!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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