Rocking a Lullaby

Read Patti Smith’s “the sheep lady from algiers” out loud, several times. A few questions you might consider, either in writing or with others:

• What do you notice about the sounds in this poem?
• Who is this poem about? What do we learn about this person?
• Where spaces or locations appear? How does those spaces/locations relate to the poem’s sounds? Its structure?
• How is a song different from a poem? How are songs and poems the same?

Assignment:

Write a poem that serves as a lullaby for a person, place, or thing that you find fascinating or mysterious. Your poem, like Smith’s, should be three stanzas in length; each stanza should be the same number of lines; repeat images, sounds, words, and whole lines; and the last line of each stanza should end with the same word. As you are composing and revising, sing your poem to yourself softly. How can you compose a song that soothes, that leads you from the world of the waking to sleep, rest, and rejuvenation?