From Prose to Poetry: Reinventing ‘The Bubble’ part 2: Morning Vignettes

Blowing Bubbles, by June Perkins

 

Before applying some ideas from yesterday, I decided

‘The Bubble’ needed to be examined for its observational strengths.

I took a different approach by trimming excess words and shaping them into stanzas.

Then I did a little bit of work on developing the bubble metaphor.

I added a new title  ‘Morning Vignettes.’

I am also thinking about ‘bubbles’ of memory such as in the photograph above in this post.

 

Draft 2 # The Bubble

 

Morning Vignettes

 

Lavender princess chats to her sister.

Mother, whose vigil is her third child

the baby in her pram, turns around to

makes sure they haven’t disappeared. 

Her protective gaze surrounds them

a bubble of protection

that could be broken.

 

School boys with ruffled shirts

caps tilted sideways

soft drinks in hand, call…

‘John, Josh…’

Friendship is their shield

and their challenge.

Their bubble is boisterous and loud.

 

Girls, with pony tailed hair

this is the school rule

when it is past the shoulders,

are glued to mobile phones.

They glance down

achieve morning equilibrium

in walking side by side.

There’s no outward indication

they are friends.

 

A young man strolls alone

muttering

to himself something of importance,

in his own bubble.

Walk, mutter, walk, mutter.

Inside his bubble is safety and beauty

no matter how it seems from the outside.

 

Two school children

pat a dog under a tree. 

Who is around to take him home?

The dog is in the bubble of their love.

He will have to break it when they go to class.

 

A group of friends gather around a Dad

or is it a granddad with a prammed child. 

They are chatting, and as one leaves,

he calls a question,

 ‘Are you alright then?’

Later, he will be there on school pick up

to catch any tears.

 

Rainbow coloured

students in a circle

play hand ball.

 

Other walkers

remember their school days and

how they wore their hats. ‘We had to wear our hats everywhere.

They protected us from the sun.’

 

Someone says, ‘Good morning,’

to everyone she passes, and smiles,

She pops all the bubbles

to connect and then floats on . . .

in her bubble.

 

By June Perkins

 

Next time I will work with the sonic qualities of the poem, its metre, and keep developing the metaphors.

I will think about which characters to keep in the poem and if I want to limit the narrative perspective or think about a character for the narrator.

 

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One thought on “From Prose to Poetry: Reinventing ‘The Bubble’ part 2: Morning Vignettes

  1. Reblogged this on Pearlz Dreaming and commented:

    I’ve decided to workshop some old notebook pieces from prose into poems. Here is the journey of one such piece, ‘The Bubble’. (There are two posts so far on this).

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