Angela Wilson is poet of the week for the Weekly W3 Prompt, and she has presented a fun and challenging poetry form called the Golden Shovel.

The Golden Shovel

In The Golden Shovel poetry form, each line of the poem takes one word from the original poem and uses it as the final word in each line of the new poem. The structure of the lines and the rhyme scheme of the new poem can vary, but the end-word of each line must come from the original poem.

prompt guidelines

1. Select a haiku written by someone other yourself;
2. Construct a “Golden Shovel” poem from that haiku.

I select this haiku by Matsuo Bashō from which to construct my poem Splish, Splash, Bash, Ō (anyone notice my homage to Bashō in its title?)

Along the road, the rain –
A pitter-patter sound,
Refreshes the earth.

Matsuo Bashō

I place a word at the end of each line from it in my Golden Shovel poem, *Splish, Splash, Bash—Ō.

Splish, Splash, Bash,Ō

Swishing motorbike tyres zoom Along
Fast! Slicing through The
Flooded Gutters of the Road,
Splashing, splutters Past!—drenching The
Unfortunate Pedestrian, without mirth, dashing from the Rain
Pitter patter, pitter patter—clatter like a train, Pitter
patter, pitter patter, pitter Patter
Splish, splash, bash, splattering Sound.
Dances of droplets refreshes
Grey tarmac ground. Puddling waterfalls torrenting down The
Drain to sewer rivers in the Hidden Earth.


Lesley Scoble. 12 February 2023

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A little bit of history

The Golden Shovel is a poetry form that was inspired by the poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks.
In this form, each line of the poem takes one word from the original poem and uses it as the final word in each line of the new poem. The structure of the lines and the rhyme scheme of the new poem can vary, but the end-word of each line must come from the original poem.

Poetry that digs

The poetry form is based on the idea of ‘shovelling’ words from a source poem into a new poem. 

American poet and teacher Terrance Hayes 1971-

Terrence Hayes devised the Golden Shovel poetry form when he was trying to teach his young son a poem written by one Gwendolyn Brooks. Her poem We Real Cool (1960) influenced Hayes to call the new poetry form The Golden Shovel. The Golden Shovel appeared as a subtitle to her 1960 poetry book The Bean Eaters [The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel].

We Real Cool
The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool.
We Left school.
We Lurk late.
We Strike straight.
We Sing sin.
We Thin gin.
We Jazz June.
We Die soon.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks 1917-2000

The Golden Shovel has become a popular and recognized form of contemporary poetry. Introducing new generations of poets to engage with the legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks and the Black Arts Movement. 
Gwendolyn Brooks is the first black woman to be made American Poet Laureate.

My thanks to Angela Wilson and David, Weekly W3 Prompt, for this fun and inventive poetry challenge.

(*btw, why isn’t the word Splish recognised in the English language, yet? 🤔).