le stein

 

 

 

Challenge No. 4 of the Our Lost Jungle Poetry Challenge is le stein. Khara House challenged us to write a poem in the style of Gertrude Stein.

 

Browse the link above to learn more about Stein's style. Khara gave us four cues from Stein's work to take into consideration:

1. Highly experimental
2. Word associations, while avoiding words with "too much association"
3. Very much in the present (tense and otherwise)
4. Repetition as a form of discovery

[Note: Stein did write some poems involving the moon so I chose one of my more playful moon photographs to use on this post.]

 

This has been my favorite challenge so far because I love word association. Usually, I have to rein myself in on this; but, this week, I could do as much as I wanted. Also, it seems like I am using repetition more frequently. The weakness of my le stein, as far as the challenge goes, is that it is too easy to understand.

 

Pace of Play

 

Waiting, waiting,
hating every second
of the waiting.
Feeling the weight
of staying in
the same place.
The waiting is
so frustrating.
I yearn to
look ahead and
pick my spot.
Setup and take
the next shot.
Feel the freedom
of the swing.
Instead, I am stilted.
Wilted by the
heat of the sun.
Not a shade
of shade in
which to stand
while I am
waiting, waiting
for those up
ahead to
move on.

 

 

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Found

 

 

 

When I went out to water the garden the other night, I noticed a little red behind the leaves on the gerbera. I moved the leaves and found

 

 



 

 

that the gerbera is blooming again! I added this plant to the garden this spring and it was in bloom when I bought it. I thought that would be it for this year so I am really excited about seeing these new flowers (there are two).

 

Thanks to Rebecca Barray for this week's Wordsmith Studio Creative Prompt. What have you found lately? Tell us about it in your favorite form of expression and post a link in the comments section of the prompt post.

 

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Terza Rima Twist

 

 

This week, the 2013 Our Lost Jungle Poetry Form Challenge is the Terza Rima with a twist.  This form was invented by Dante to structure The Divine Comedy.

 

It consists of three-line stanzas (tercets) and the first and third lines of each stanza rhyme. The last word in the second line determines the end rhyme in the first and third lines of the following tercet.

 

The challenge is to work with this structure, but give it your own twist. The twist is to be predetermined. I chose to rhyme the first word in the first and third lines and use the first word in the second line to determine the rhyme for the following stanzas.

 

Possibilities

 

Stretch until your fingertips

touch every star in the sky.

Etch their form on your skin.

 

Such brightness may blind, but

light in the right amount shows how

much opportunity lies before us.

 

Invite the newness in and

revel in the excitement of the

white hot adventure called life.

 

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Flaws

 

 

 

Flaw-an imperfection or weakness and especially one that detracts from the whole or hinders effectiveness. (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

 

Is this photograph flawed?  Does the flower cutting across the robin detract from the photo or enhance it? I'd love to hear what you think.

 

Thanks to Dana Dampier for this week's Wordsmith Studio Creative Prompt. How would you interpret Flaws? Post a link to your interpretation in the comments on the blog post.

 

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An Anaphora Poem

 

 

Week 2 of the Our Lost Jungle Poetry Form Challenge gave us a chance to repeat ourselves. Week 2 of the Our Lost Jungle Poetry Form Challenge gave us a chance to repeat ourselves.

 

We were challenged to write an anaphora poem. Anaphora is the "repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two successive verses, clauses or sentences."

 

Khara House, our challenge maven, threw a fastball by us when, in the first paragraph of her blog post, she prompted us to think of a word and write it down. You guessed it! This ended up being the word we had to repeat in our poem.

 

My word is yes. (Note: I'm sure I had just started drinking my first cup of coffee when I did this exercise.) And, yes, my initial reaction was horror; but after I stopped groaning and took my head out of my hands, I decided to give my little word a chance.

 

Do you know that yes may be an adverb or a noun? That it's plural is yeses and that there are multiple definitions listed under it in the dictionary?

 

So, here is my poem with yes as the anaphoree (Yes, I made that up.):

 

That's an Affirmative

 

Yes?

Yes, it is.

Yes, I did.

Yes, that's right.

Yes, I am.

Yes, I can.

Yes!

 



(Note: Please feel free to fill in the other half of the conversation).

 

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Milestones

 

Seasons

 

Spring arrives
Gardens grow
Summer colors
Blooms abound
Fall descends
Rich harvest
Winter snows
Dormancy
Spring arrives
Gardens grow

 

 

This week's Wordsmith Studio Creative Prompt is Milestones. Create your interpretation in your favorite genre and post a link to it in the comments on the prompt page. Thanks to Kasie Whitener for this prompt.

 

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Loose Translations

 

 

Our Wordsmith Studio friend Khara House has started a new challenge on her website, Our Lost Jungle. The 2013 Our Lost Jungle Poetry Form Challenge is going to make us "go boldly into the next frontier."

 

This year, Khara has put together forms that call for experimentation and play. The first form is the Loose Translation. The challenge is to find a poem in another language, one which you do not understand, and write a poem from it. How? Use whatever is suggested to you by the letters, words, rhythm, etc.

 

My parent poem is "Cartao-postal sem folago" by Armando Freitas Filho. Following is my loose translation:

 

Post Cards and Some Foliage

 

A natural now cues nothing

Normal parties

Pair of radios and pair of raisins

To do's with words never end

Moreover,

Enter the paradigm

and tacos are passed.

No religions relented.

Petals generally are trimmed.

A beat

Beers are replaced rapidly.

Arrangements raise our life.

A line of tired feet

Paddling in the sea

Mountains all high.

Full house regattas dive and hover.

Equal sadness.

 

I took the approach of looking at letter combinations and saying the words out loud, obviously Anglicizing the pronunciation. At first, I tried to keep a 1:1 ratio of words. I let that go pretty quickly.

 

I also decided to leave what I came up with unpolished. I suggest you go to the above link to the challenge post and read the works in the comments. There are some beautiful poems and/or lines.

 

Without even trying, I ended up using alliteration in the first line. I like to use alliteration so that didn't surprise me.

 

My favorite line is "to do's with words never end." Isn't that the truth?

 

My poem mentions food, beverages, music and nature. All things I write about.

 

At this point,  I would use this form again as a warm-up exercise. I really did have to let go and just write down what came to mind. If I tried to control things, I got no where. I also had a few laughs along the way and that is always a good thing.

 

I think the form also is a good self-prompt because you may get a line or lines that you save or turn into a finished piece.

 

Thanks, Khara, for putting together another challenge. I can't wait to see what's on tap for week no. 2.

 

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Graphic

When I hear the word graphic, I think of graphic artists, design, shapes and lines. So, when I saw that  graphic was this week's Wordsmith Studio Creative Prompt, I headed out to one of my favorite subjects.

This tower is in my neighborhood and on my morning walk route. As you can see, it is the place to hangout at breakfast time in the bird world. I often photograph the birds sitting atop it, but I also like to photograph the different shapes made by the tower itself and the intersection of the various wires. Feel free to play "Count the Triangles", but I warn you, you will see more and more the longer you look. Even tiny ones count!

Thanks to Carol Early Cooney for this week's prompt. What do you think of when you hear the word graphic? Leave a link to your interpretation in the comments on the prompt post.

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Butterflies

 

 

Butterflies

Wings of
different colors
flutter, flutter,
propelling you
 from one place
to another.
Flowers wave
their welcome,
drawing you
closer, closer.
Rest stops
on your journey
of beautiful
movement.

 

 

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