Dinggedicht or Object Poem

The Dinggedicht or Object Poem is a things poem. This is a genre of poetry in which communication of mood or thought is made through acute observation of things and symbolic concentration. It was introduced in the early 1900s by Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke while studying impressionist paintings. It is closely connected to the imagist movement of the same time. It appears the difference may be in the subject of the observation. The dinggedicht appears to be more likely to observe man-made articles while the imagist tends to observe more natural surroundings.

The Dinggedicht is:
• framed at the discretion of the poet.
• formed by acute observations of concrete images in the world around, expressing symbolically an event, social condition, mood or idea.

Paradise Adrift by Judi Van Gorder 1-3-05

water gently laps
at the edge
of the shore
where a soggy
passport lies open

face down
next to broken palms
and a tilted, scarred
kitchen chair,
one spindly leg buried deep
in the foam-covered sand

Pasted from <http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1079>
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource

German and Austrian Poetic Forms:

Bar Form, Dinggedicht, Goliardic VerseKnittelvers, Minnesang, Nibelungen,Schuttelreim

My attempt

Purpose Served

a shopping cart
pushed up onto
the apartment complex lawn

abandoned four blocks
from its store

containing now
an old microwave

© Lawrencealot – November 14, 2014