poem 3 an ode
ode is a kind of poem, usually praising something. The praise can be for anything (but for this assignment it cannot be a person). There are many famous examples of ode poetry, the Romantic poet John Keates wrote odes to Autumn, a Nightingale, A Greek Urn, Melancholy, and more. Another famous poet Pablo Neruda wrote odes to salt, wine, and his socks. I have included two of his odes below:
Ode To The Lemon by Pablo Neruda
From blossoms
released
by the moonlight,
from an
aroma of exasperated
love,
steeped in fragrance,
yellowness
drifted from the lemon tree,
and from its plantarium
lemons descended to the earth.
Tender yield!
The coasts,
the markets glowed
with light, with
unrefined gold;
we opened
two halves
of a miracle,
congealed acid
trickled
from the hemispheres
of a star,
the most intense liqueur
of nature,
unique, vivid,
concentrated,
born of the cool, fresh
lemon,
of its fragrant house,
its acid, secret symmetry.
Knives
sliced a small
cathedral
in the lemon,
the concealed apse, opened,
revealed acid stained glass,
drops
oozed topaz,
altars,
cool architecture.
So, when you hold
the hemisphere
of a cut lemon
above your plate,
you spill
a universe of gold,
a
yellow goblet
of miracles,
a fragrant nipple
of the earth’s breast,
a ray of light that was made fruit,
the minute fire of a planet.
Among the market greens,
a bullet
from the ocean
depths,
a swimming
projectile,
I saw you,
dead.
All around you
were lettuces,
sea foam
of the earth,
carrots,
grapes,
but
of the ocean
truth,
of the unknown,
of the
unfathomable
shadow, the
depths
of the sea,
the abyss,
only you had survived,
a pitch-black, varnished
witness
to deepest night.
Ode To A Large Tuna In The Market By Pablo Neruda
Only you, well-aimed
dark bullet
from the abyss,
mangled
at one tip,
but constantly
reborn,
at anchor in the current,
winged fins
windmilling
in the swift
flight
of
the
marine
shadow,
a mourning arrow,
dart of the sea,
olive, oily fish.
I saw you dead,
a deceased king
of my own ocean,
green
assault, silver
submarine fir,
seed
of seaquakes,
now
only dead remains,
yet
in all the market
yours
was the only
purposeful form
amid
the bewildering rout
of nature;
amid the fragile greens
you were
a solitary ship,
armed
among the vegetables
fin and prow black and oiled,
as if you were still
the vessel of the wind,
the one and only
pure
ocean
machine:
unflawed, navigating
the waters of death.
POETRY PROMPT – for this poem I want you to write an Ode to something. I want you to write a poem praising something. Your poem must have a title. Your poem must be over 20 lines in length, but your line length must be a short – one to six words per line maximum (like it the example above). Your ode can be to anything, it doesn’t matter how weird it is, but it cannot be to a person or a group of people or any human being.
