The Wordsmith's Forge

This poem is spillover from the December 5, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from dialecticdreamer and alexseanchai. It also fills the "virtue and vice" square in my 12-3-17 card for thegenprompt_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the Shiv series of the Polychrome Heroics series.  It comes after "Informally Formal Meetings" (Part 1, Part 2) by dialecticdreamer  and sets up another story.

Note: While nothing really bad is happening in this poem, it brings up some difficult associations from Shiv's past that leave him panicking. Also, he's a pottymouth, but that's not news.

( Collapse )

This is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, March 6, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "Constructs and Programmed People." I'll be soliciting ideas for AI, robots, golems, chimerae, human servants, brainwashing victims, gizmologists, robotic engineers, programmers, AI specialists, rabbis and other wizards, genetic engineers, vampires, brainwashers, building robots, programming AI, deprogramming or reprogramming, enchanting golems, overpowering the human mind, brainwashing people, seeking a relationship, finding each other, asking questions, dealing with rogues, betraying someone, breaking or breaking free of a bond, discovering yourself, learning what you can do, laboratories, computer rooms, synagogues, interrogation chambers, dungeons, classrooms, churches, patrol cars, other places where programming or deprogramming happen, programs, the 3 Laws of Robotics, their ethical issues, vocabulary of manipulation, partnerships, other attachment bonds, trust and betrayal, mindrape, mental scars, different kinds of courtship, mental resistance or resilience, bad tape, violation, self-awareness, the nature of sapience, emotional intelligence, equality and inequality, freedom and slavery, alienation, rejection, privacy, and poetic forms in particular.

Among my projects that involve constructs and programming: An Army of One, Clay of Life, Diminished Expectations, Frankenstein's Family, Kung Fu Robots, Laquerware, Polychrome Heroics, The Steamsmith.

I have a linkback poem, "Greater Than the Sum" (13 verses, unicorn series). 

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week.  (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts.  I am now.)  Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog. 

( Collapse )

Thanks to a donation from mama_kestrel, there are 20 new verses in "Always Repay the Cost."  Dr. Infanta gathers the energy she needs to heal Fiddlesticks.

This poem is spillover from the July 4, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from dialecticdreamer and kyleri. It also fills the "experimentation" square in my 5-29-17 card for the Pride Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by mama_kestrel. It belongs to the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Note: This poem is mostly positive, but sometimes Shiv's head goes to some pretty warped places. Tolli is actually doing better at managing the relationship lines than some other folks have done, which means that Shiv's damage shows in a little fussing rather than a big meltdown.

( Collapse )