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Poetry Prompt: Behind the Velvet Rope

By Heather Eure 4 Comments

velvet rope poetry promptStanchions have many purposes and designs—to provide support, some of which are used to secure an area around a construction site; to provide temporary seating in military aircraft; and as bails in dairy barns to keep cows in place while they’re being milked.

They are also well-known for their use in crowd control, engineering the flow of people, and creating waiting lines—from the most basic to priority queues at airports and theme park rides.

It’s become a social metaphor, this stanchion known as the velvet rope.

The velvet rope makes its appearance at film premieres, award shows, and busy night clubs. It’s a visual and physical separation between those who are allowed access and those who are not. There’s a sense of privilege and allure to what lies behind the velvet rope. With that, it also serves as a metaphor for class separation between the haves and have-nots. Some view it as a representation of exclusivity reserved for the popular and the beautiful. To be invited behind the velvet rope is to be set apart.

Try It: Behind the Velvet Rope Poetry

What is it about this barrier that creates such a striking image for people? Although it can be portrayed as a polarizing and complicated picture of inequality, are there any positive attributes to the scene behind the velvet rope? Can a mysterious barrier represent something good? Write a poem about either side of this literal and symbolic gateway. On which side do you find yourself?

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Featured Poem

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Shannon we enjoyed:

In the Glow

By the night-light glow
I see you holding the hem
Of the pink velvet dress
Worn by your lovey-doll

I watch, quiet,
as you slide the velvet
Along your rosebud mouth
And your apricot chin

The way you do
When sleep tugs
at your faded daisy pajama shirt
And your sparkle-eyes grow soft

Your breath hushes
like a bamboo rustle
The deeper, sleeping breath
My own breath slows

The velvet just resting now
Between your finger and thumb
I imagine you bring this softness
Into your dreams

I could quietly slide from your bed
But instead I stay
In the glow
and listen

This is all it is
This is everything

—by Shannon Mayhew

Photo by Nerissa’s Ring. Creative Commons via Flickr.

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How to Write a Poem 283 highHow 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.

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Heather Eure
Heather Eure
Heather Eure has served as the Poetry Editor for the late Burnside Collective and Special Projects Editor for us at Tweetspeak Poetry. Her poems have appeared at Every Day Poems. Her wit has appeared just about everywhere she's ever showed up, and if you're lucky you were there to hear it.
Heather Eure
Latest posts by Heather Eure (see all)
  • Poetry Prompt: Misunderstood Lion - March 19, 2018
  • Animate: Lions & Lambs Poetry Prompt - March 12, 2018
  • Poetry Prompt: Behind the Velvet Rope - February 26, 2018

Filed Under: Blog, poetry prompt, poetry teaching resources, Satin & Velvet, writer's group resources, writing prompt

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Comments

  1. Megan Willome says

    February 27, 2018 at 12:39 pm

    The end of the world
    VIPs and velvet ropes
    Perfect Thursday night

    (haiku for Tom Haverford and Entertainment 7Twenty, “Parks and Recreation,” season 4, episode 6)

    Reply
  2. Rick Maxson says

    February 27, 2018 at 12:47 pm

    Prop

    Awake now through the night, the markets will have closed,
    only distant traffic will you hear, where the lights attract a jury
    of roundabouts, behind the velvet ropes, to decide the fate
    of Broadway offerings; let these curtains be your bed
    and wait here until the ships have passed—like planets they go by.

    Stanchions here are bent with dust, admit only vacant darkness.
    The arch has hung for years ramshakled in a bow, a vandal’s fun,
    it will not fall but waits for season to begin again its curtain call,
    for the susurration of the crowd, before the fresnels begin to dim.
    Don’t try to stay awake, for then the music will not show, the players know.

    Let sleep come; the sound for which you listen is found waiting in a wing,
    in an umbra cold and still. Oh, you may keep your midnight watch to no avail;
    I have tried and heard the whistles wail the freighters to another working day,
    and witnessed nothing. So let sleep come, let the darkness take your eyes away.

    What I have heard and you will hear is not some ghost who plays and fills the air
    with haunting chords that evaporate your flesh in a nightmare of applause.
    You may never know what dust and shadows do in these forgotten rooms,
    perhaps it is only the work of wind wandering on ancient unrelenting strings,
    so faint and delicate, around this humid wharf, so foreign, fingerless and frail.

    Reply
    • Katie says

      May 17, 2018 at 10:24 pm

      Rick,
      This is beautiful.
      May I ask two questions:
      what are fresnels?
      why is it titled Prop?

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. In the Glow - Presence and Prose says:
    May 17, 2018 at 12:51 pm

    […] Poetry with the theme “Quiet as Velvet.” I was thrilled when they chose to feature my poem on their website! This is written from the perspective of that time when the girls were little… or maybe […]

    Reply

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