The Wordsmith's Forge

This poem came out of the January 2, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired by prompts from kestrels_nest, DW users Teigh_corvus and Callibr8.  It also fills the "drama" square in my 12-3-17 card for the Genprompt Bingo fest.  This poem belongs to the series Acrostic Magery after "Imps of the Marginalia" and "Crimson Inscriptions." Read those first, so this will make more sense.

This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them.  The rate is $.50/line, so $5 will reveal 10 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses.
So far sponsors include: ng_moonmoth, mdlbear

FULLY FUNDED
187 lines, Buy It Now = $94
Amount donated = $68
Verses posted = 42 of 57
Amount remaining to fund fully = $26
Amount needed to fund next verse = $2.50
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $1.50

Warning: This poem contains some touchy topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers.  It features cheating, domestic violence, destruction of a musical instrument, a messy breakup, poverty, drama, problem drinking, vomiting, spending Thanksgiving on the road, a return of the cheating ex, and other angst. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

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This is from the January 2, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from Raven. It also fills the "blush" square in my 4-1-17 card for the Month of Rainbows fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette.


"BLUSH"
-- an acrostic poem


Begin with the first kiss,
Like blossoming into love
Underneath a college moon as
School friends become sweethearts,
Happy days unrolling ahead of them.

* * *

Notes:

Acrostic poetry spells a message down the side, typically with the first letter of each line.  Learn how to write an acrostic poem.

This poem was written outside the regular prompt calls. It has been sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette.


"Winter Evening"


Winter evening

blue shadows
over white snow

peach moon
rising through a
watercolor sky

and the wind
sharp as a knife.

This poem is from the January 2, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by Shirley Barrette.


"In a Green Cathedral"


The redwoods rise up
to the sky like pillars
in a green cathedral.

We walk among them,
tiptoeing around their ankles,
talking in whispers, not wanting
to break the breathless hush
of their forest home.

It is said that redwoods
are so powerful that they
terraform their environment
to suit themselves.

As I listen to the sound of
the wind in their distant fronds
far overhead, I can't help but
wonder if it's science or magic.

* * *

Redwoods feature in national monuments such as Muir Woods.  They are indeed powerful enough to alter the environment to their own advantage in profound ways.

This poem is spillover from the January 2, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by Anthony Barrette. It also fills the "Altered States (of the Mind)" square in my 1-3-18 card for the trope_bingo fest.

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Thanks to a donation from mdlbear, there are two new verses in "Strength and Power."  November brings progress and travel to the band.  

Day 8

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

"Sokath, his eyes uncovered!" (spoilers)

"Darmok" is an episode from Star Trek: The Next Generation (season 5) in which the Enterprise meets the Children of Tama, an alien race whose language foils the Universal Translator.

I was yelling my guesses at translation as soon as the mechanical translation failed. :D

This remains one of my all-time favorite episodes of Star Trek, and of xenolinguistics in general. It touches on the fact that communication is essential to sapience and civilization, as well as how there will always be similarities and differences between cultures. It always make my sense of wonder perk up and come running into the room.

What are some of your favorite moments in canons?

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Poem: "Crimson Inscriptions"
Poem: "Imps of the Marginalia"
Poem: "Blue Smoke and Mirrors"
Recipe: "Enlightened Chicken"
Buddha's Hand Citrus Shortbread Cookies
Hawk
How Smart People Talk About Themselves
Today's Adventures
Poem: "Of Portals and Magic Potions"
Hoof Study
Poem: "The Best Kind of Intimacy"
Iceland Passes Equal Pay
Poem: "seat of the moon tree"
Poem: "two little girls"
Trope Bingo Card 1-3-18
Hard Things


The Poetry Fishbowl went well. I have a bunch of sponsored poems posted already, and a couple more from my parents that need to go up.

I'm also doing this fest:
Fandom Snowflake Challenge Day 7: "Love Meme"
Fandom Snowflake Challenge Day 6: "Feedback"
Fandom Snowflake Challenge Day 5: "Resources"
Fandom Snowflake Challenge Day 4: "Wishlist"
Fandom Snowflake Challenge Day 3: "Fanwork Recommendations"
Fandom Snowflake Challenge Day 2: "Favorite Memories"
Snowflake Challenge Day 1: "Why Are You Participating?"


The Rose & Bay Awards celebrate excellence in cyberfunded creativity. Nominations are now open in the categories of:

Art (0 nominations)
Fiction (0 nominations)
Poetry (0 nominations)
Webcomic (0 nominations)
Other Project (0 nominations)
Patron (0 nominations)

You can help by nominating your favorite crowdfunded works and supporters from 2017.


Poetry in Microfunding:
"Strength and Power" belongs to Acrostic Magery.  Rowan and Hulda form a folk band.


The weather has been cold here.  It rained, which melted most of the snow.  Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of sparrows, a large flock of mourning doves, at least two pairs of cardinals, several dark-eyed juncoes, and a hawk.  Judging from the pile of dove feathers, the hawk had some luck earlier this week.  

I've reached the end of scheduled themes for the Poetry Fishbowl project.  It's time to brainstorm some new themes!  These are a few that I've jotted down earlier, ones that I've thought up or people have suggested, to give you an idea what kind of stuff might be suitable:

* Centaurs
* Mythology
* Exoplanets

What other themes would you like to see me write about?  Suggest them in a comment below this post. 

Later on I'll collect the suggestions and do some polling.  The most popular topics will be added to the schedule for future fishbowls.  I'm going to run the first large poll with checkboxes so you can express interest in as many themes as you like.  I will then either pick from the most popular ones, or use that information to pull out the favorite themes for a smaller poll to select the ones which will appear in upcoming fishbowls.

You can also help by linking to this post so that more people will see it.  Everyone is welcome to suggest themes.  Everyone will also be able to vote for them later; prompters and donors will get extra votes.  If you link to the call for themes, you can reveal a verse in any open perk poem:
"Lead Us in Peace"
"We Will Fade into You"
"The Open Gyre"
"Growing Green, Growing Gold"
"Mysterious and Impermanent"

This poem came out of the January 2, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from peoriapeoriawhereart. It also fills the "spells and geases" square in my 9-3-17 card for the ladiesbingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette. It belongs to the series the Adventures of Aldornia and Zenobia, which you can find via my Serial Poetry page.

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 dialecticdreamer is hosting Magpie Monday, taking prompts through Friday.  The theme is "Surprise."