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Red [1]

Poetry [2]
12.22.20

“Mars Being Red [3]” by the late poet Marvin Bell lyrically explores the color red as a state of being, likening it to a list of images that both physically resemble the color and provide memories, such as that of youth. In this compact, twelve-line poem, Bell begins what seems to be a portrait of the planet Mars and then delves into a series of digressions that find resolve in a meditation on the possibility of change: “You will not be this quick-to-redden / forever. You will be green again, again and again.” Inspired by Bell, write a poem that serves as a portrait of a color. Use physical descriptions to begin and then personal memories to develop a transformation in this study of hue.


Source URL:https://www.pw.org/content/red_2

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/content/red_2 [2] https://www.pw.org/genre/poetry [3] https://poets.org/poem/mars-being-red