Art is an interesting thing, because it doesn’t necessarily progress through time like science or math. Copernicus was undoubtedly a brilliant man, but today his life’s work is rarely studied in itself; we learn about the impact his work had upon the worlds of science and religion, but in this day and age, few people would actually care to read a dissertation on why the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around. We can summarize it without losing the message.

However, consider Shakespeare. Sun Tzu. Chaucer. Dante. Sophocles. Virgil. Milton. Bashō. Indeed, consider the various religious texts that millions of people read every day, most thousands of years old. Despite their age, despite our modernity, there is something we connect to, something very basic about literature.

Perhaps it’s that people haven’t changed much, despite how much we’ve changed the planet. Perhaps it’s that people change too much, and reading these things reminds us of who we were.

Perhaps the true difference is that where scientific writing may change the world and how we view it, literature changes us and how we view ourselves. It cannot be summarized without sacrificing the change.

And since ancient literature can still be powerful, moving, even life-changing, it means we are still in dialogue with our forefathers.
Perhaps the most famous example of this dialogue between poets is in Christopher Marlowe’s poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and the subsequent response from Sir Walter Raleigh, The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd. Indeed, this response was so popular that many poets since have weighed in on the poem, from John Donne and Cecil Day-Lewis to William Carlos Williams and Ogden Nash. Likewise, countless haiku have been written responding to, parodying, or emulating Bashō’s famous ‘frog haiku.’

The Prompt

For the miscellaneous prompt this month, then, we’d like you to write a response poem of your own. It can be in response to any poet, living or dead, though we’d prefer you stick to famous poems or poets. We expect submitted poems to clearly demonstrate a careful reading and understanding of the poem in question. To enter:

Study a famous poem of your choice.
Write a response that clearly demonstrates a mastery of the original while putting forward your own ideas.
Send *simplypoetry a note titled “SimplyJanuary” with a link to your deviation.
Include a link to or the text of the original poem in your note! Submissions without the original poem included will not be considered.

CONTEST ENDS: January 31st, midnight central time.

Judging and Prizes

Judges for the contest and prizes for the contest will be announced in *simplypoetry’s January journal, in the place of the Miscellaneous Prompt, and will link to this news article. The new journal should go up soon, so keep an eye on *simplypoetry!

What We Expect

To give you an idea of what we’re looking for, here’s a short example done by =vix0r. The original poem, by e. e. cummings, can be found here, and the reply poem can be found here. Notice the related form and message, but also notice that the response could stand on its own as a poem; it obviously references cummings’ work, but is not entirely dependent on it for meaning.

Some Ideas

For those of you with not a lot of experience with famous poetry, or for those of you with too much experience, we’ve made a list of poets and poems you may find useful or inspirational. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s something to get you started. Keep in mind that all of these poets and many of these poems can be found via a quick Google search, and in many cases can be found at poets.org.

Poets
E. E. Cummings
Pablo Neruda
Robert Frost
W.B. Yeats
John Keats
William Carlos Williams
Gwendolyn Brooks
Billy Collins
William Blake
William Wordworth
Duncan Campbell Scott
Miroslav Holub
Humbert Wolfe
Seamus Heaney
Robert Browning
Matsuo Bashō
Carol Ann Duffy
Patience Agbabi
Roald Dahl
Alice Walker
Allen Ginsberg
Stevie Smith
Langston Hughes
Walt Whitman

Poems
Since Feeling is First
Tonight I Can Write
The Raven
Paradise Lost
The Road Not Taken
Theme For English B
When You Are Old
We Real Cool
The Red Wheelbarrow
The Root of the Matter
Green Candles
The Railway Children
Soliloquy for a Spanish Cloister
Before You Were Mine
The Tyger
Ms De Meanour
Cinderella

That’s it! Get started; we’re giving you just over a month to study, interpret, and create, and we expect you to make the most of the time!

If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please note either *simplypoetry or =vix0r.