1. Creating your Narrative Poem

2. Sentence 1- Identify the ritual (setting and characters) using enjambment and one hyperbole. EXAMPLE: On Fridays he'd open a can of Jax Close his eyes, and ask me to write the same letter to my mother Who sent postcards of desert flowers Taller than man.

3. Sentence 2-3 Reveal the speaker’s attitude/tone towards the ritual. Reveal the conflict (what the speaker wants vs other characters’ wants) Use alliteration and enjambment EXAMPLE: He’d beg her return and promised to never beat her again. I was almost happy She was gone, & sometimes wanted To slip in something bad.

4. Sentence 4 Imagery- visual description of main character using modifiers and enjambment EXAMPLE: His carpenter's apron always bulged With old nails, a claw hammer Looped at his side & extension cords coiled around his feet.

5. Sentence 5 Actions of the main character and/or speaker using caesura and enjambment. Words rolled from under the pressure of my ballpoint pen: Love, Baby, Honey, Please.

6. Sentence 6 Illustrate the biggest challenge of the ritual through sensory details of the setting. Use antithesis and enjambment Develop the relationship EXAMPLE: We lingered in the quiet brutality Of voltage meters & pipe threaders, Lost between sentences... the heartless gleam of a two-pound wedge On the concrete floor a sunset in the doorway of the toolshed.

7. Sentence 7 Using enjambment, write a sentence that has a tone that is antithetical (opposite) to the previous sentence. I wondered if she laughed as she held them over a flame.

8. Sentence 8-9 Last sentences: use enjambment, antithesis, modifiers with sensory details, and a simile. Sentence 9 should be the longest sentence of your poem and should begin on the same line where sentence 8 ended. These sentences are also the climax of your poem. There should be a realization, understanding, or epiphany revealed here. Readers should understand the purpose and importance of the ritual. EXAMPLE: My father could only sign His name, but he'd look at blueprints & say how many bricks Formed each wall. This man, Who stole roses & hyacinth For his yard, stood there With eyes closed & fists balled, Laboring over a simple word, opened like a fresh wound, almost Redeemed by what he tried to say.