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RE: Black out poetry. @japhofin8or inspired.
I love it! Your poem is mysterious. It's really good. I would like to see more people doing this derivative style of poetry. I'm thinking about a challenge but I'm not quite sure how to make the rules. I'm sure I'll figure something out. Thanks for tagging me in he post. I hope to see more from you!
@japhofin8or,
@girlbeforemirror credits this idea to you. Did you come up with it? If so, very creative. How come I didn't think of that? Within 10 seconds of reading it, the wheels started turning. Since you had one good idea, you might have others. That's the kind of people I'm interested in following. Hence, you've got a new Follower.
Two of my fave poetry mentors. Japh taught me to write odes to The last slices of pizza, broken chairs, and old T-shirts. Quill, Coca-Cola jingle Ballard challenges about roof racks and bum cracks.
Japh, I will contribute 10sbd towards your black out contest prize pool when you decide to run with it.
Or restart the ode challenge?? I miss that challenge, or any contest you are perhaps considering.
I am the least predictable contest participant, and even worse contest host. I was always well intended and always very engaged at the preoccupied, precontemplation, rumination stage.
Much like where I am with the poetry task that quil has set me. Ideas rolling, nothing solid just yet.
@girlbeforemirror,
It takes time.
This may sound silly, but poetry is a "way of thinking." When you write a lot of poetry, it changes the way you organize information by changing it into "story form." It subtly changes the way you view the world ... a search for the metaphor and meaning in the otherwise mundane. (You also end up peppering you prose with a lot more alliteration.) Great poetry requires identifying the essence of a thing and then hyperbolizing it. This is not generally a requirement of normal day living.
I have often recommended that new poets only write in verse ... structured meter, rhythm and rhyme. (Incidentally, no one listens.)
This is for two reasons: The discipline required to write in verse forces you to distill the essence. When you haven't, it's obvious that you're writing doggerel. Your baloney becomes obvious for all to see. In free verse, there's no way to get it wrong. That way you always get to claim that you got it right. Convenient. Your baloney, therefore, gets to pretend to be a T-Bone steak. And hence, the postmodern ideological claim that "everything is equally beautiful" ... an assertion that defies the evidence of our eyes and ears.
Second, it forces you to master the subtleties of language: For example, the manipulation of pause by punctuation. I have an expression: "The power of prosody is in the pause."
I started writing last night (it's currently 6in the morning Sunday mothers day ).
I think I have taken the poem in a very different direction. Towards a commentary on humans, in a fairly judgemental way. It will be interesting to see how different. Sunday is not likely to be a productive writing day (family), I will have a look a little later though. I was cooking and scribbling ideas last night. Sometimes ideas and lines come to me when I am not trying.
I started by putting down ideas for each stanza, regardless of word selection or meter rhyme etc. Just to think about where I was going with the flow of a story line, before I started getting stuck on being more selective. I don't think I've done that much before. Even when given a theme prompt I usually just let it roll along as a go.
@girlbeforemirror,
Happy Mother's Day (almost).
I have to admit, I'm a bit giddy with anticipation to see what you come up with. The poem is like a Venn Diagram. No matter what, it's going to have both my DNA, and your DNA, in it. Two different people creating common ground (not finding it) in the middle. The overlap.
You're in a tricky place ... you can only stray so far from my stanzas because your stanzas have an obligatory starting point and an obligatory end point (my stanzas). You are FORCED to consider my perspective.
You know, in this day and age of insane political discourse, this might be an interesting social experiment. Get two ideologically opposed people to write two poems, blank out every second stanza like we did, and then, tell both to write the missing stanzas.
I think @d-pend ought to be fascinated to try this for his Contest. Would you have any objection if I DM'd him and told him what we were up to?
I had better deliver then. I have tried to stay on topic, but I have strayed a little.
Yeah, contact Daniel, he is a lovely man. I better get it together and write something soon then.
Hi
I haven't forgotten about my assignment. I'm in a tricky spot at the moment and can't get comfortable with challenging tasks. It is still circling the back of my mind and coming out in unrelated ballad posts.
I have a few things going on, on the side.
I will contact you via email x