Verb It Up: To Be Is To Be Boring (cont.)

3 Make another part of speech into a verb. I love this poem The Dream (from Wonderful Words, a Lee Bennett Hopkins anthology):

Oh! To poet
like a laser,
pierce darkness
with one word!

---Nikki Grimes

I love the way Grimes used “poet” as a verb. To poet. It’s so unexpected, yet it’s perfectly clear (and clearly perfect).

4 Use verbs that belong to another noun. This works well when you’re using metaphor in your poem. In the following cinquain, I’m comparing the patchwork of sunlight coming through the forest to a gauzy fabric.

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