creativeFeed the Fish!
Now's your chance to participate in the creative process by posting ideas for me to write about. Today's genre is nature. I am especially looking for:
* settings
* imagery
* themes
* events
* poetic forms
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. The rest will go into my archive for magazine submission.
Wow, lots going on here!
December 17 2007, 22:47:14 UTC 13 years ago
Second, I combined your three gorgeous photos with Avalon's prompt "Through the Lens of a Camera."
Third, the resulting poem "Through the Lens of a Camera" is written in free verse, but it actually spans two other forms:
1) Bridging Title: a form in which the title is read as the first line of the poem it introduces. Sol Magazine has a fine entry on this:
http://pages.prodigy.net/sol.magazine/pl01form.htm#bridging
2) Ekphrastic Poem: a form inspired by another work of art. I found this splendid site on ekphrasis, which has long been a favorite of mine.
http://www.puddinghouse.com/ekphrastic.htm
I'm going to post "Through the Lens of a Camera" for everyone's enjoyment, in a separate reply.
Re: Wow, lots going on here!
December 17 2007, 23:09:23 UTC 13 years ago
Re: Wow, lots going on here!
December 17 2007, 23:16:53 UTC 13 years ago
Sometimes all of a person's prompts just happen to fit together. Sometimes I get a whole poem from just one prompt. Sometimes I combine three or four prompts by different people. Sometimes I get more than one poem from a single prompt, which may happen with that tree picture of yours.
It's all good. Really.
Re: Wow, lots going on here!
December 17 2007, 23:40:46 UTC 13 years ago
Poem: "The Dryad in the Garden"
December 18 2007, 00:01:43 UTC 13 years ago
"The Dryad in the Garden"
I went with my college class
to the botanical garden
so we could photograph the trees.
I was researching bark patterns
and trunk deformations
as signs of disease.
Suddenly, there she was in front of me:
between her legs, a leafy green branch
sprouted and arched off to the right;
above that, her hips flared,
then narrowed slightly to her waist;
her left arm was raised over her head
as if beckoning to me, her face in profile
towards the bend of her elbow there,
while her hair rippled down on the left.
At first I tried to pretend
it was all my imagination – too much sun,
perhaps, or not enough water – but
then she moved,
stepping out to catch my hand
in her hardwood grip.
“You will serve me,” she said,
carving her words on my heart.
“Too long your kind have taken advantage of mine.”
She tossed her brown-blonde hair and finished,
“Now you will be for the trees.”
And so I am,
but that doesn’t mean
I’m not getting anything out of it.
Why should cryptozoologists have all the fun?
Call me the first cryptobotanist,
scholar to dryads.
The ancient Greeks would understand.
As for my professors?
Well, they say a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Re: Poem: "The Dryad in the Garden"
December 18 2007, 20:01:37 UTC 13 years ago