Poetry Fishbowl Open!: ysabetwordsmith

Poetry Fishbowl Open!

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! (Net connection was down this morning, repairman has come and gone, so hopefully the connection will stay live through today's fishbowl.) 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 permanent landing page for the Poetry Fishbowl project is here.)

In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is stages of life, selected by the audience in a recent poll. I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things relating to that theme. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.

EDIT: The poetry fishbowl is now closed. Thank you all for visiting.

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.

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) 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.

3) Matching donations. You can pledge a certain amount (say, $10) toward a poem if somebody else puts up the same amount, or you can pledge to match donations up to a ceiling (say, $30) as long as other people are contributing. Matching donations are also allowed for the general fund.

4) Call for cosponsors. If you crave a particular poem but can't afford the whole thing yourself, you can team up with one or more other people to sponsor it. This is a good way to fund the epic poems with custom pricing. You can post your call for cosponsors in the comments here, or make a separate post on your own blog, or both. Please let me know when you're calling for cosponsors for a poem, so that I can echo that in a separate post here and more people will see it.

5) 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. Details are here.

6) Spread the word! Post about the Poetry Fishbowl on your blog and link to it. Tell your friends about it and encourage them to participate. Do you belong to another social network such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.? Spread the word there too, and include a link back to the project. Rate my poetry on Poetry Blog Rankings so it will attract more attention.

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.

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 through LJ's private-message function. If you're not logged in but you want to see the poem inspired by your prompt, give me your eddress; I recommend using {at} and {dot} to discourage spammers. 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.

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 "stages of life." I'll be soliciting ideas forcharacters in a particular life stage, milestones marking life stages, memorable events, cultural motifs related to life stages, and poetic forms in particular.

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 at least one new person posts a prompt! The rest will go into my archive for magazine submission.

jongibbs

August 4 2009, 18:45:30 UTC 11 years ago

New comment

Congratulations. I hope it goes well :)

jenny_evergreen

August 4 2009, 18:54:53 UTC 11 years ago

That moment when an adult has lost both parents...it's a real milestone that isn't really recognized.

Of course, I'd like to see something on motherhood, but you don't need suggestions for something as obvious as that!

Maybe something that follows a character through all the first days of school...

janetmiles

August 4 2009, 18:55:48 UTC 11 years ago

Dang, those are good.

11 years ago

Poem

ysabetwordsmith

moosl

August 4 2009, 18:58:09 UTC 11 years ago

Just a couple of prompts today. The second one is a photo I took at a local flea market.

Pregnant mother and child

Highchair and coffin

August 4 2009, 19:41:09 UTC 11 years ago

From "pregnant mother and child" I got the poem "Mother and Child(ren)" which is today's freebie poem. I'll post that separately so everyone can see it.

ellenmillion

August 4 2009, 19:01:35 UTC 11 years ago

Puberty would probably be easier if we could spend it in a cocoon...

August 4 2009, 20:10:18 UTC 11 years ago

While I was mulling over "puberty" and "not human" in my head, I stumbled across a terrific photo of two hideous cygnets. The result is "Ugly Ducklings," a free-verse poem about puberty in extended metaphor.
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/731216.html

10 lines, Buy It Now = $5

August 4 2009, 19:05:34 UTC 11 years ago

Graduations? (To parallel Jenny's first days of school.)

Other rites of passage in USAian culture: First paying job, first full-time job, driver's license?

The importance of rites of passage, and the damage done by failing to recognize them?

Shakespeare's Seven Stages of Life?

Does it have to be human life? How about larva, pupa, adult? Or some alien set?

The day you stop hearing, "Hey, good lookin'!" and start hearing, "My, you're looking well!"?

tonithegreat

August 4 2009, 19:17:54 UTC 11 years ago

I like that last one! For me it's the line between, "Do you play basketball?" and "Did you play basketball?" (or ona really good day "do you model?" and "did you model?") And I'm walking it right now. And, no, I didn't play, despite being 6'5"!

But I bet everyone gets different questions like that.

talix18

August 4 2009, 19:06:24 UTC 11 years ago

I'm in rather an odd place right now: no children of my own, but of the age where most of my peers are passing things on to their children. I don't know that I'd feel less like a child were I parent and my cousins have enough kids that I can see the continuation of the chain, and yet...

August 4 2009, 21:46:17 UTC 11 years ago

I love the imagery of generations as a chain. "The Meaning of the Chain" explores both the generational links and the importance of having people outside. This one is free verse written in triplets.

15 lines, Buy It Now = $10

Re: Poem

minor_architect

August 4 2009, 19:08:25 UTC 11 years ago

How about a poem for that stage in life when you're handed the most responsibility? For example, that time when you can no longer take the entry level positions and people rely on you for advice, instead of the other way around. (I think I'm at that stage right now. I refer to it by the well-known phrase, "Cleverly Disguised As A Responsible Adult.")

Or, how about a poem for that stage in life when one has passed beyond life, to become an ancestor spirit? What might that state of being be like?

August 4 2009, 22:19:00 UTC 11 years ago

I really liked your second prompt. "Life Beyond Life" is a free-verse poem describing how being an ancestor is really pretty much the same job as being an elder, just at a higher level.

45 lines, Buy It Now = $20

Thank you!

kadiera

August 4 2009, 20:03:49 UTC 11 years ago

itty bitty babies

also, the moment when you realize you really are the adult in a situation.

August 5 2009, 00:49:22 UTC 11 years ago

I put this together with a similar idea from

minor_architect to create the free-verse poem "A Moment of Maturity" about how it's not what you decide that makes you an adult, but the act of considering.

14 lines, Buy It Now = $10

wyld_dandelyon

August 4 2009, 21:39:38 UTC 11 years ago

Times when you see the world anew; not just childhood, but when you've finished a quest, or a life stage, or switch careers, or find a new love, and the world suddenly seems different because your perspective has changed.

Also, times that are in-beteween, not one thing or another. Not child but not yet adult; not single but not yet married; being pregnant; having your kids grown enough that you're not so much "mother" any more, but you're not yet crone, that sort of thing.

August 5 2009, 00:59:38 UTC 11 years ago

Your first prompt made me think of

newroticgirl's prompt about monsters under the bed. "A Night's Courage" is a free-verse poem written in triplets about inner illumination.

12 lines, Buy It Now = $10

life stanges changing

corivax

August 4 2009, 22:00:14 UTC 11 years ago

A lot of older people bemoan what's become pretty common among Americans my age: an "extended adolescence" (or "kidult" or "adultlecence", ugh) from 18 to 29 or so, when people go to school, bum around, travel, switch jobs a lot, try and figure out what they want to do with their lives at the ages their parents and grandparents already were married and settled into a career and had kids and house payments.

There's an article here that seems to be more positive than many. :)

Give us a poet's eternity-eyed perspective!

Re: life stanges changing

August 4 2009, 22:33:07 UTC 11 years ago

This veered a little far afield, but there is a verse about the foolishness of extending adolescence. "When Mommy Says NO" is Mother Earth's half of a conversating with the whining human species wanting a time machine, immortality, and a stardrive. This may not be as gentle as what you had in mind, but I think it's funny.

16 lines, Buy It Now = $10

jolantru

August 4 2009, 23:56:33 UTC 11 years ago

Hmmm, rites of passages for teenagers?

August 5 2009, 01:24:55 UTC 11 years ago

I put this together with the "motherhood" prompt from

jenny_evergreen to explore how modern society doesn't provide very good milestones for entering adulthood -- but Mother Nature still has an old standby. "Filling the Gap" is free verse written in 5-line stanzas.

20 lines, Buy It Now = $10

newroticgirl

August 5 2009, 00:07:57 UTC 11 years ago

A little late in the day, but how about:

losing your first tooth

realizing Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy may not be "real"

realizing the monsters under the bed aren't real, or that you don't need the nightlight anymore

August 5 2009, 02:58:54 UTC 11 years ago

I can remember, when I was little, the process of trying to figure out which world I was in based on the concrete evidence around me and what I could pick up from books, television, and people talking. Your prompt about the Easter Bunny made me think of that. "Testing, Testing, 1-2-3" is a free-verse poem about discovering the world, and its hidden advantages.

46 lines, Buy It Now = $20

Post a new comment
39 comments

Log in

Poetry Fishbowl Open!

Fieldhaven as Habitat

A Little Slice of Terramagne: YardMap

Winterfest in July Bingo Card 7-1-21

Error

Poem

Poem

Poem

Poem

Poem

Poem

Poem

Poem

Poem

Poem

Poem

Re: Poem

Re: Poem

Poem

Thank you!

Poem

Poem

Poem

life stanges changing

Re: life stanges changing

Poem

Poem

Re: Poem

Re: Poem

Fieldhaven as Habitat

A Little Slice of Terramagne: YardMap

Winterfest in July Bingo Card 7-1-21