Golden root
# Golden root

A golden root is a poetic form in which the first and last word in each line are drawn from a pre-existing poem to which the poet is paying homage.

It was created by Laura Rockhold who named it after its two sources of inspiration; Terrance Hayes’ golden shovel and Lucille Clifton’s poem "roots."

## Structure

The golden root is a poetic form similar to the golden shovel in that both contain words that are drawn from a pre-existing (source) poem; however, a golden root has more complex constraints. In a golden root, the last word in each line (top to bottom) is the first half of the source poem, and the first word in each line (bottom to top) is the second half of the source poem. A golden root uses every word (or a derivative of the word's root) of the source poem.

## Origin

Immersed in Lucille Clifton’s work and struck by Clifton's poem "roots", Rockhold decided to create a golden shovel in its honor. [She] "intuitively felt Clifton’s words flowing down then up the page, folding around the new poem, becoming a new form as [she] wrote into it. The golden root’s embodied nature enables it to serve as a conduit for the spirit of both poems, bringing them into deeper conversation and relationship with each other. The source poem holds the new poem, the new poem lives within the source."

