B&P’s Shadorma & Beyond – The Dinggedicht – July 11, 2015

Hello Folks … here we are again in the sweltering heat and the freezing cold – depending on where you live!

Today I though I’d introduce a lovely form from the German-speaking world – The Dinggedicht or Object Poem. This poetic form was introduced by Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke in the early 1900s whilst he studied impressionistic paintings.  They can either be an observation of man-made objects (especially the more recent Dinggedicht) or an observation of nature.

The Dinggedicht is:
• framed at the discretion of the poet.
• formed by acute observations of concrete images in the world around, expressing symbolically an event, social condition, mood or idea.

Here are a couple of examples:

Paradise Adrift by Judi Van Gorder 1-3-05

water gently laps
at the edge
of the shore
where a soggy
passport lies open

face down
next to broken palms
and a tilted, scarred
kitchen chair,
one spindly leg buried deep

in the foam-covered sand

Found on PMO

and

 Purpose Served

a shopping cart
pushed up onto
the apartment complex lawn

abandoned four blocks
from its store

containing now
an old microwave

© Lawrencealot – November 14, 2014

Found on Poet’s Collective

§§§

Explanation and history of this form can be found on both links.

Now … let me try:

strawberry and lemon flavoured
sticky puddle
forming on the blazing sidewalk

it’s Lorelei call
attracting ants and flies

Kamikaze Popsicle stick

soon to be
a nude memory
of summer pleasure

© G.s.k. ‘15

§§§§

Fun no?  Here a possible inspiration for your own  Dinggedicht with lots of objects to choose from:

Pieter Breugel – 1560 – Children’s Games (Wikipedia)

Feel free to write a shadorma and/or Dinggedicht, using the painting above or any other subject that floats your boat!

When you have written your poem(s), please TAG them B&P’s Shadorma & Beyond and Mindovemisery’s Menagerie. Then add your link to the Mister Linky widget below.

Have a great week folks, Bastet.