Start Small: An Acrostic Demo

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

I’m working on my Magnum Opus THE ACROSTIKON now. Today I’ll do a ground-up demo of how I create an acrostic poem.

The first step is to decide what kind of acrostic to do. The overwhelming majority of acrostics are single acrostics, which means the poem will have all the letters on the left spell something meaningful. The most famous example is Lewis Carroll’s poem to the real-life girl who inspired Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Carroll wrote a lilting account of Alice and at least one sister on a boat, and the first line was “All in the golden afternoon.” The leftmost letters of the lines in the poem spelled Alice Pleasance Liddell, which was Alice’s full name before she married a man named Hargreaves.

Let’s make ours a double acrostic of five lines, and have the leftmost and rightmost letters spell Start Small.

We won’t start with Start because one of the secrets to writing a double acrostic is that the last words of the lines ought to be decided first, since we want them to make a rhyme scheme.

S
M
A
L
L

Let’s see. Most plurals end with S. So a close rhyme with S and M end-letters might be Gems and Stem. We can try again if it doesn’t work out.

gemS
steM
A
L
L

A nifty way to “cheat” when a line ends with an A is to use A as the de facto first word of the next line, but leave it where it is. So we can turn a couplet into a triplet by de-facto ending line 3 with a word rhyming with Stem, then add period, space, A, thus:

gemS
steM
diadem. A
L
L

The last two lines end with L, so they will easily serve as a couplet.

gemS
steM
diadem. A
you’lL
jeweL.

Since gems and “diadems” appear earlier, it occurred to me that Jewel would possibly make a good fit, and “you’ll” is a good word to involve the reader.

Now to tackle the “innards.”

S………………….gemS
T……………………steM
A……………diadem. A
R…………………..you’lL
T……………………jewel

Let’s do the final couplet first. Then we’ll have three lines to set the tone for it. But remember, Line 4 actually starts at the end of Line 3 with A. Hmmm. “A little something something some and you’ll” is, what do you know, good old Iambic Pentameter. Now turn the Something’s and Some into something else: “A riff of beadwork and a clasp and you’ll” is a line describing jewelry-making, and then the last line is a simple puzzle to solve: “Turn browlines into Settings for a Jewel.” The jewel is the lady wearing the diadem.

So now we have

S………………….gemS
T……………………steM
A……………diadem. A
Riff of beadwork and a clasp and you’lL
Turn Browline into Setting for a JeweL

Now we invent a setup. S suggests Sapphire, but Sapphire is trochaic. Luckily Star Sapphire, though not strictly iambic, will work.

“Star Sapphire, most celestial of gemS”

Now continue the sentence with the second line…

“Takes breath away like orchids on a steM”

..and complete the thought on the third line:

“And sparks your work-in-progress diadem. A”

Holy smokes–we are done!!

Star Sapphire, most celestial of gemS
Takes breath away like orchids on a steM
And sparks your work-in-progress diadem. A
Riff of beadwork and a clasp and you’lL
Turn Browline into Setting for a JeweL.

Now you try, Friends! My advice is to Start Small. 🙂

NOTE: as it says on the page, this demo first appeared in the Facebook group Poets All Call.