Written for:  dVerse Poets:  Meeting The Bar – Carvaggio & Charoscuro  (posted by Bjorn)
Today I want you to write poetry that creates drama by focusing on the contrast between opposites, between light and dark, between good and evil. There is some connections to the technique of antithesis I have written about before, but here you have to think a bit like Caravaggio. You have to make the light shine and lift from the shadows. Create drama and volume of the light you want to lift from the dark backdrop, and don’t forget the drama.

Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio

Fair-haired, Nebraska fresh,
she came to the city to pursue
illusive dreams. Thought
no one knew of red hot flame
contained in her heart–oh, to become
part of the theater. A chance
to act on a brightly lit stage
in silver sequins, to wage a war
of words with her leading man.

Short on funds, she joined
other hopefuls in a dark
apartment, shadowed by those
who came before, never making it
past the door. Between auditions
she waitressed in a dingy bar
down a flight of stairs. A neon
lit sign blinked on and off,
The Cellar.

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