Poetry Fishbowl Open!: ysabetwordsmith

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! (Net connection is slow and spitty today; I hope it works well enough to run the fishbowl properly.) Today's theme is "teaching basic lessons," as selected by the audience. (Poetry that teaches something is called "didactic poetry." If it helps memorize information, it's called "mnemonic verse." Both are often scorned today, but they still work.) I'm soliciting ideas for characters who are teaching, characters who are learning, educational tools, sets of related items to be memorized, methods of learning, challenges encountered in education, morals or themes to be learned, settings in which didactic poetry was popular, and poetic forms in particular. I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

What Is a Poetry Fishbowl?

Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.

In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is "teaching basic lessons." I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things relating to that theme. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.

Cyberfunded Creativity

I'm practicing cyberfunded creativity. If you enjoy what I'm doing and want to see more of it, please feed the Bard. The following options are currently available:

1) Sponsor the Fishbowl -- Here is a PayPal button for donations. There is no specific requirement, but $1 is the minimum recommended size for PayPal transactions since they take a cut from every one. You can also donate via check or money order sent by postal mail. If you make a donation and tell me about it, I promise to use one of your prompts. Anonymous donations are perfectly welcome, just won't get that perk. General donations will be tallied, and at the end of the fishbowl I’ll post a list of eligible poems based on the total funding; then the audience can vote on which they want to see posted.

2) Buy It Now! -- Gakked from various e-auction sites, this feature allows you to sponsor a specific poem. If you don't want to wait for some editor to buy and publish my poem so you can read it, well, now you don't have to. Sponsoring a poem means that I will immediately post it on my blog for everyone to see, with the name of the sponsor (or another dedicate) if you wish; plus you get a nonexclusive publication right, so you can post it on your own blog or elsewhere as long as you keep the credits intact. You'll need to tell me the title of the poem you want to sponsor. I'm basing the prices on length, and they're comparable to what I typically make selling poetry to magazines (semi-pro rates according to Duotrope's Digest).

0-10 lines: $5
11-25 lines: $10
26-40 lines: $15
41-60 lines: $20
Poems over 60 lines, or with very intricate structure, fall into custom pricing.

3) Commission a scrapbook page. I can render a chosen poem in hardcopy format, on colorful paper, using archival materials for background and any embellishments. This will be suitable for framing or for adding to a scrapbook. Details are here. New photos of sample scrapbooked poems are here.

4) Spread the word. Echo or link to this post on your LiveJournal, other blog, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social network. The Twitter hashtag is #poetryfishbowl. Encourage people to come here and participate in the fishbowl. If there is at least one new prompter or donor, I will post an extra freebie poem.

Additional Notes

1) I customarily post replies to prompt posts telling people which of their prompts I'm using, with a brief description of the resulting poem(s). If you want to know what's available, watch for those "thumbnails."

2) You don't have to pay me to see a poem based on a prompt that you gave me. I try to send copies of poems to people, mostly using the LJ message function. (Anonymous prompters will miss this perk unless you give me your eddress.) These are for-your-eyes-only, though, not for sharing.

3) Sponsors of the Poetry Fishbowl in general, or of specific poems, will gain access to an extra post in appreciation of their generosity.

4) After the Poetry Fishbowl concludes, I will post a list of unsold poems and their prices, to make it easier for folks to see what they might want to sponsor.

Feed the Fish!
Now's your chance to participate in the creative process by posting ideas for me to write about. Today's theme is "teaching basic lessons." I'm soliciting ideas for characters who are teaching, characters who are learning, educational tools, sets of related items to be memorized, methods of learning, challenges encountered in education, morals or themes to be learned, settings in which didactic poetry was popular, and poetic forms in particular. But anything is welcome, really. If you manage to recommend a form that I don't recognize, I will probably pounce on it and ask you for its rules. I do have the first edition of Lewis Turco's The Book of Forms which covers most common and many obscure forms.

I'll post at least one of the fishbowl poems here so you-all can enjoy it. (Remember, you get an extra freebie poem if someone new posts a prompt or makes a donation.) The rest will go into my archive for magazine submission.

...go 1 level up... Expand

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ysabetwordsmith

May 11 2010, 17:47:50 UTC 11 years ago

New comment

Well ... I tried. I got two verses into "Log Rhythms," describing what a logarithm is and the basic assumptions. And then it crashed because, well, I don't know how to read the benighted things, how they sound when read out loud in English words, not written as numbers on a page. I couldn't find a source for that online; I'm working at the fringes of my experience here. If I'm going to turn something into poetry, I have to know how it can be said and how words could be juggled around to make them memorable ... like knowing that 2010 can be said "two thousand ten" or "two thousand and ten" or "twenty-ten," etc.

Do you have any resources that might help?

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janetmiles

May 11 2010, 18:46:54 UTC 11 years ago

Here's how I'd say them, based on memory from classes:

log_a x = N means that a^N = x

"log base a of x equals N means a to the N equals x"

log x = N means that 10^N = x

"log x equals N means that 10 to the N equals x"

ln x = N means that e^N = x

"natural log x equals N means that e to the N equals x"

Quotient: log_a (x/y) = log_a x - log_a y

"log base a of x-over-y equals log base a of x minus log base a of y"

NOTE: In this one, x-over-y has to be said a little bit faster than the rest, to connect it into a unit and distinguish it from, say, [(log base a of x) over y]. Or else you have to make hand-parentheses around x-over-y.

Does this help?

May 12 2010, 02:49:28 UTC 11 years ago

Well, I got four more verses from those bits you just spelled out, so that's a total of six. The one you tagged as Quotient has "Quotient" in the verse. I hope they make some sense. If you want more, you'll have to keep writing them out in words for me, and I'll see if I can find ways to stuff them into verses. I tried looking at the inverse, product, and power ... and, well, I'm still not having any luck parsing them and versing them at the same time, or even sequentially.

Also, I'm going to price this poem at $1/line. It is way, way harder than what I usually write! I can show you what I've got so far, though.

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Poetry Fishbowl Open!

Unsold Poems for the June 1, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl

Poetry Fishbowl Report for June 1, 2021

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Unsold Poems for the June 1, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl

Poetry Fishbowl Report for June 1, 2021

Voice Profiling