This week, Khara House's Our Lost Jungle Poetry Form Challenge focuses on what I would call poetry one-liners. The challenge is to write several monostiches and American Sentences.
The monostich consists of a single line that should be self contained. Following are a few of my attempts:
Life is the ultimate improvisation.
Creativity has a mind of its own.
The notes played at 18th and Vine drift through the world.
The American Sentence is a variation of haiku invented by Allen Ginsburg. It is a one-sentence poem consisting of 17 syllables. Here are two I wrote:
The soul speaks in words and images even when we do not listen.
Sound may soothe or shock whether it is made by symphonies or cymbals.
While working on this week's challenge, I learned that simple does not mean easy. Give these forms a try! I think they are made for the Twitter generation.
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Thursday, August 23, 2012
Poetry One-Liners
I am a poet and photographer who likes sports, jazz and art inspired by other art. I served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the early 1970's and was assigned to the Computer Sciences School in Quantico, VA. I have published a chapbook of grief poems, I Keep You with Me. My work also has appeared in publications such as Thorny Locust Magazine, core. zine,The Enigmatist, Veterans' Voices and Kansas Time + Place An Anthology of Heartland Poetry. My visual art pieces combine poetry and photographs, and have been most recently displayed at InterUrban ArtHouse, Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center, Buttonwood Art Space, and The Smalter Gallery.
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Definitely Tweetable. 17's my lucky number. I think I'll christen a scratch pad devoted to the inception of American sentences. Worth a try.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a great idea, Lori!
DeleteLovely lines Michelle. Here is another poetry form I didn't know anything about. I love the idea of a haiku in one line. Also, I can see the delusion of "easy", this things are harder than that, aren't they? Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Veronica. I, too, was unfamiliar with both of these forms. I was surprised that Ginsburg came up with the American sentence. I probably have no real basis for that feeling!
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