“Lady Restoration Reproduction” by Christina M (https://www.flickr.com/photos/beanmost/)
So far, we have primarily been following the alphabet to come up with the daily NaPoWriMo prompts. But considering there are 30 days in the month and only 26 letters in the English alphabet, that will not get us through the whole month. Today, let’s revive a long-forgotten English letter, “Thorn.” Representing the “th” sound, it looked more like a “Y.” This is why “ye” is an archaic spelling of “the.” Learn more at this Dictionary.com article.
Today, use this letter as an inspiration, which you can approach in a number of ways. You could write a poem based on Old English poetry forms, specifically, using frequent alliteration. You can find out more on this Wikipedia page about Old English metre.
Another approach you could take would be to reflect on the terms “archaic” or even “thorn” itself. Or perhaps think about language or symbols and how their meaning changes over time.
Feel free to share your poem (or a link to your poem) in the comments.
About Alyce Wilson
