April 8th, 2011
Poem: "Anomalies of Mind and Time"
This poem came out of the April 5, 2011 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from ellenmillion and sponsored by
kelkyag. Oranaan is a Torn World character with a light and flaky approach to science, who has appeared in various stories including my "It's Not Magic, It's Science!" (To learn about the anomalies, read the article "Others.") Now that it's sponsored, when I submit this poem to the canon board, it'll be marked for publication visible to everyone.
-- a Torn World poem
Oranaan's wits are undeniable,
but thwarted for lack of an interface.
When he tries to push them onto the tip of his tongue,
people wrinkle their foreheads in mute confusion
or laugh at the jumble of ideas tumbling forth.
When he tries to print them out on paper,
the poor words fare no better;
they drown in the ink and die on the page.
When he tries to push them out through his fingertips,
everything he builds falls apart
and people are too busy scolding him to notice
that it was too working for a moment there.
But they're real, his wits;
and it's real, his science --
even though nobody else understands --
as real and as powerful as the anomalies
drifting invisibly throughout the Empire,
changing everything they touch.
Health Rights
According to the World Health Organization Constitution "The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being."
However, the US Dept of Health & Human Services and US Food & Drug Administration, in a 2010 statement maintains that: "There is no right to consume or feed children any particular food; there is no generalized right to bodily and physical health."
That makes it pretty obvious which organization actually cares about the health and survival of human beings.
Drabble: "Prey of Unusual Size"
Teaching About Neurodiversity
Poll Results: Epics Fully Funded & Monster House Perk
Based on the results of the general poll and another donation, both "Paper, Scissors, Stone" (a Monster House poem) and "The Truth in the Tower" (a Fiorenza poem) have been fully funded. These are now completely visible online. You can read other poems in these series by visiting the "Serial Poetry" page on my website.
The Monster House series won the poll for the new perk. You'll be getting a free poem from that series. Current donors will get a chance to send a prompt.
Both polls had lively participation. I'm really pleased by that, because later in the week activity tends to be low. I figure this means people cared about the topics this time, so yay!
Poetry Fishbowl Report for Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Regrettably LiveJournal was dysfunctional or erratic during much of the day. This slowed down the prompts and greatly cut down on the number of comments (47). I actually echoed the fishbowl on Dreamwidth, so some activity happened over there too. I worked from 11:30 AM to 2:00 AM, so about 12 hours 30 minutes, allowing for breaks. The poems ran long: there were no shorts, only two medium-short, lots of medium-long and epics, and one long. I wrote 17 poems. Almost all were free verse, with a couple of forms. Some poems stacked a lot of prompts together, although others derived from a single prompt.
A total of 19 people sent prompts. Two of these were new,
Also, the new perk worked! Donations reached the $150 goal. The perk poll selected Monster House to get the free serial poem. Donors have been invited to offer a prompt for that.
Read Some Poetry!
The following poems from the April 2011 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:
"Anomalies of Mind and Time" (a Torn World poem)
"Dancing to the Beat"
"Dust and Shadows"
"Learning Curves"
"Science on the Chopping Block"
"Science, Unfair" (a Monster House poem)
"the two alchemists" (an Origami Mage poem)
"Where They're Coming From"
Thanks to the general poll and another donation, you can now read the complete epic poems "Paper, Scissors, Stone" (a Monster House poem) and "The Truth in the Tower" (a Fiorenza poem).
Buy Some Poetry!
If you plan to sponsor some poetry but haven't made up your mind yet, read the list of unsold poems from April. That includes the title, length, price, and the original thumbnail description for the poems still available.
Sponsored poems have all been posted. Copies of other poems have been sent backchannel to their respective prompters. The April perk-post for donors is about madness and sanity.
Donors for April include
There is also a poll open regarding line numbers in epic poems. Please take a look at that and share your thoughts.
The Poetry Fishbowl project also has a permanent landing page.
Poll: Line Numbers in Epic Poems
Someone mentioned that such numbers could be distracting because they can look like part of the poem, although I do put them in red to distinguish them from the regular text in black. They might be more useful on microfunded poems than poems posted whole; I find them useful on both, but other folks may vary. I'd like to know what you think about this.
How do you feel about line numbers in epic poems?
Torn Tongue: Nouns Begiinning with "I"
