Poetry Fishbowl Open!: ysabetwordsmith

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you all for your enthusiasm.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "pets and livestock." (Or more generally, animals in a close relationship with humans;

my_partner_doug and I talked about elephants this morning.) 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.

The linkbacks perk post is live, courtesy of

minor_architect. Click to read "The Picket Fence Committee" or notify her of linkbacks to reveal more verses.

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 "pets and livestock." 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) Swim, Fishie, Swim! -- Here is a progress meter showing the amount donated. At $150 you get a free series poem; at $200 you get an extra fishbowl featuring a poetic series.

$158 raised, first goal MET, $42 to second goal

3) 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.

4) 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. Commission details are here. See latest photos of sample scrapbooked poems: "Sample Scrapbooked Poems 1-24-11"

5) 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 you have room for it, including your own prompt will give your readers an idea of what the prompts should look like; ideally, update later to include the thumbnail of the poem I write, and a link to the poem if it gets published. If there is at least one new prompter or donor, I will post an extra freebie poem.

Linkback perk: I have a spare series poem available, and each linkback will reveal a verse of the poem. One person can do multiple links if they're on different services, like Dreamwidth or Twitter, rather than all on LiveJournal.

minor_architect has volunteered to post the verses this month, so you'll need to notify her of your linkbacks in a comment to her post, in order for them to count. "The Picket Fence Committee" belongs to the Monster House series and has 18 verses.

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.  While you're on the Donors list, you can view all of the custom-locked posts in that category. Click the "donors" tag to read the archive of those. I've also posted a list of other donor perks there. I customarily leave donor names on the list for two months, so you'll get to see the perk-post from this month and next.

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.

5) If donations total $150+ by Friday evening then I'll write an extra series poem after the Poetry Fishbowl, and post it for free. Everyone will get to vote which series gets a new poem.  Current donors will get to leave prompts. If donations reach $200, the perk upgrades so that you get a whole extra fishbowl for a poetic series, including a free poem. Everyone will get to vote on which series, and give prompts during the extra fishbowl, although it's likely to be a half-day rather than a whole day.

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 "pets and livestock."  I'll be soliciting ideas for animals that live with people, alien or fantasy pets, familiars, interesting equipment for pets and livestock, ways that pets influence people, the effects of livestock on culture, places where animals may be found, historic examples of pets and livestock, 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, an extra series poem if donations reach $150+, and a series fishbowl if donations reach $200. Linkbacks reveal verses of "The Picket Fence Committee.") The rest of the poems will go into my archive for magazine submission.

...go 1 level up... Expand

my_partner_doug

September 6 2011, 21:09:44 UTC 9 years ago

New comment

An alternate universe where tigers and wolves are pets while the domestic animals are wild.

Elizabeth & I riffed on this over lunch, and she asked me to post the spin I put on it: She already has a science-fiction setting in which Earth's population was expanding off-planet, and many ethnic, religious, or otherwise special-interest groups were able to request their own planets for colonization. I suggested that the militant vegans would ask for a colony planet, and not take along any predatory animals: only bunnies, and squirrels, and other 'cute' furry friends. This would be a story of a failed colony, given the subsequent ecological disaster...

[Footnote: I do a fair amount of vegetarian cooking (mostly Indian), have many obligate vegetarian friends (and a few that are philosophically vegetarian), and have nothing against the voluntary practice of same. It's only the folks that ignore all of the biological indications that human beings are *omnivores*, and try to force their 'meat-free' philosophy on the rest of us, that I get snarky about.]

moonwolf1988

September 6 2011, 21:39:08 UTC 9 years ago

I can imagine the story easily. One of the few things I paid attention to in science class was how important it is to have predatory animals to keep the numbers of herbivores down. It would be like Yellowstone before they reintroduced the wolves but they wouldn't be able to do anything to combat the problems. I watched a documentary on it before and was amazed at how much of an effect they really had. Learning about it is one thing but seeing it is entirely different.

[Vegetarianism itself in understandable. I personally don't like all meat and having a vegetarian option is good for me, but I would have trouble giving up sausages.:)]

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