Tweetspeak Poetry

Flying Machines Poetry Prompt: Wing Envy

By 17 Comments

wing envy poetry promptMany believed it couldn’t happen.

Of all the contraptions built on the hopes of becoming the first successful flying machine, poet John Townsend Trowbridge found the notion of heavier-than-air flight silly. His famous poem, Darius Green and His Flying Machine was written in 1870, as a slapstick caricature of the ambitions of these inventors. The young Darius Green, a Yankee buffoon, watches the birds and comes up with a plan to fly:

“Darius was clearly of the opinion
That the air is also man’s dominion,
And that, with paddle or fin or pinion,
We soon or late
Shall navigate
The azure, as now we sail the sea.”

Darius builds a flying machine and decides to test it out and get the hang of it before he shows the world his invention. He climbs the barn and leaps triumphantly into the air with his winged creation while his brothers watch. Unfortunately, gravity takes over and Darius falls “to the ground with a thump.” His brothers laugh and ask Darius how he enjoyed his flight. Lying on the ground defeated and seeing stars, he replies that although he enjoyed flying the landing part was not much fun. Trowbridge concludes with a moral to this cautionary tale in case you didn’t catch his drift:

“I just have room for the moral here;
And this is the moral: Stick to your sphere.
Or if you insist, as you have the right,
On spreading your wings for a loftier flight,
The moral is, Take care how you light.”

It may seem absurd now, but at the time, Trowbridge was in good company. In 1895, an important man of science, Lord Kelvin, the President of the Royal Society of England made it plain: “Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.”

Eight years later, on December 3rd, 1903 brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the impossible. From Kitty Hawk, NC, Orville sent his father a simple telegram:

SUCCESS FOUR FLIGHTS THURSDAY MORNING ALL AGAINST TWENTY-ONE MILE WIND [stop] STARTED FROM LEVEL WITH ENGINE POWER ALONE [stop] AVERAGE SPEED THROUGH AIR THIRTY-ONE MILES [stop] LONGEST 57 SECONDS [stop] INFORM PRESS [stop] HOME CHRISTMAS

Try It: Wing Envy Poetry

Have you ever watched birds flying in the air and wished you could do the same? If so, why not put that imagination of yours to pen and paper? If you could fly like a bird, where would you go? Also think about what you might look like. Do you have colorful feathers or are you more stealthy and bat-like? What makes you special? Can you soar into the troposphere and dive at the speed of sound? Write a poem and tell us about yourself, you spectacular bird!

poetry prompt mini series offer

Click to get FREE 5-Prompt Mini-Series

Featured Poem

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem by Monica written from a unique perspective:

Thoughts from an 1890s Glider

If Lilienthal had wings like a dove
he would have flown up.
But with cotton twill stretched
over my skeleton—split willow branches
spread like spider-web fingers—
Otto had to build a hill and soar
down. We turned when I felt him shift
side to side, fore and aft. I cradled
his hips in my harness, his legs
swinging, shifting his center.
Gliding, we inspired
Wright flight.

—by Monica Sharman

Photo by 白士 李. Creative Commons via Flickr.

Browse more writing prompts
Browse poetry teaching resources

How to Write a Poem 283 high How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.

“How to Write a Poem is a classroom must-have.”
—Callie Feyen, English Teacher, Maryland

Buy How to Write a Poem Now!

 

Save

Save

Save

Heather Eure
Latest posts by Heather Eure (see all)

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  2. Rick Maxson says

    Where I Went

    In the tops of trees, swayed
    into the countryside of dreams,
    on waves of air, I was lost and found,
    high above browned grasses.

    The tartan of rooftops
    lay harmless below me
    as I flew, a nameless bird
    over the broken concrete walks

    that burned my feet, now far
    from the spines of the locust tree,
    over the canals lined with old men
    fishing for eels, in the cattails.

    I circled in a wind from somewhere
    and I was all the noises no one silenced,
    open like the hope in suffering,
    open like a bell in gray light.

    There, on a spindle of leaves,
    I watched the birds aloft
    on the vapor of their wings
    and I flew for hours not knowing where.

    Reply

    • Heather Eure says

      Thank you, Christine! It may sound odd, but when I was a kid I found a dead bat in the road that had sadly, been hit by a car. It was the first time I’d seen a bat up close and I thought it was beautiful. I still do.

      Reply

  5. Katie says

    The Prince of Andalusia

    You spectacular bird
    peafowl, peacock
    makes no difference
    where you flock

    preening yourself
    for all to see
    right under our noses
    pretty as you please

    you strut and stride
    ‘cross the yard
    with all that pride
    for nothin’s too hard

    when you’re plucky
    and sprite
    you always feel lucky
    though never in flight

    forward and backward
    dancing, you go
    backward and forward
    surely and slow.

    Reply

  6. Katie says

    Okay – this is another (surprise, ha!) acrostic & instead of being Wing Envy it is Wing Span:

    Wilbur and Orville
    Inventors of
    New-fangled
    Gadget

    Soaring
    Past
    All hither to
    ‘nown distance records

    Reply

Trackbacks

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *