Stanchions have many purposes and designs—to provide support, some of which are used to secure an area around a construction site; to provide temporary seating in military aircraft; and as bails in dairy barns to keep cows in place while they’re being milked.
They are also well-known for their use in crowd control, engineering the flow of people, and creating waiting lines—from the most basic to priority queues at airports and theme park rides.
It’s become a social metaphor, this stanchion known as the velvet rope.
The velvet rope makes its appearance at film premieres, award shows, and busy night clubs. It’s a visual and physical separation between those who are allowed access and those who are not. There’s a sense of privilege and allure to what lies behind the velvet rope. With that, it also serves as a metaphor for class separation between the haves and have-nots. Some view it as a representation of exclusivity reserved for the popular and the beautiful. To be invited behind the velvet rope is to be set apart.
Try It: Behind the Velvet Rope Poetry
What is it about this barrier that creates such a striking image for people? Although it can be portrayed as a polarizing and complicated picture of inequality, are there any positive attributes to the scene behind the velvet rope? Can a mysterious barrier represent something good? Write a poem about either side of this literal and symbolic gateway. On which side do you find yourself?
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Featured Poem
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Shannon we enjoyed:
In the Glow
By the night-light glow
I see you holding the hem
Of the pink velvet dress
Worn by your lovey-doll
I watch, quiet,
as you slide the velvet
Along your rosebud mouth
And your apricot chin
The way you do
When sleep tugs
at your faded daisy pajama shirt
And your sparkle-eyes grow soft
Your breath hushes
like a bamboo rustle
The deeper, sleeping breath
My own breath slows
The velvet just resting now
Between your finger and thumb
I imagine you bring this softness
Into your dreams
I could quietly slide from your bed
But instead I stay
In the glow
and listen
This is all it is
This is everything
—by Shannon Mayhew
Photo by Nerissa’s Ring. Creative Commons via Flickr.
Browse more satin & velvet
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How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.
“How to Write a Poem is a classroom must-have.”
—Callie Feyen, English Teacher, Maryland
- Poetry Prompt: Misunderstood Lion - March 19, 2018
- Animate: Lions & Lambs Poetry Prompt - March 12, 2018
- Poetry Prompt: Behind the Velvet Rope - February 26, 2018
Megan Willome says
The end of the world
VIPs and velvet ropes
Perfect Thursday night
(haiku for Tom Haverford and Entertainment 7Twenty, “Parks and Recreation,” season 4, episode 6)
Rick Maxson says
Prop
Awake now through the night, the markets will have closed,
only distant traffic will you hear, where the lights attract a jury
of roundabouts, behind the velvet ropes, to decide the fate
of Broadway offerings; let these curtains be your bed
and wait here until the ships have passed—like planets they go by.
Stanchions here are bent with dust, admit only vacant darkness.
The arch has hung for years ramshakled in a bow, a vandal’s fun,
it will not fall but waits for season to begin again its curtain call,
for the susurration of the crowd, before the fresnels begin to dim.
Don’t try to stay awake, for then the music will not show, the players know.
Let sleep come; the sound for which you listen is found waiting in a wing,
in an umbra cold and still. Oh, you may keep your midnight watch to no avail;
I have tried and heard the whistles wail the freighters to another working day,
and witnessed nothing. So let sleep come, let the darkness take your eyes away.
What I have heard and you will hear is not some ghost who plays and fills the air
with haunting chords that evaporate your flesh in a nightmare of applause.
You may never know what dust and shadows do in these forgotten rooms,
perhaps it is only the work of wind wandering on ancient unrelenting strings,
so faint and delicate, around this humid wharf, so foreign, fingerless and frail.
Katie says
Rick,
This is beautiful.
May I ask two questions:
what are fresnels?
why is it titled Prop?