Poetry Fishbowl Open!: ysabetwordsmith

Poetry Fishbowl Open!

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! 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 ISP connection seems to be running slow today, but I think it'll hold well enough.

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.

In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is "horror (shapeshifters)." (Related horror motifs or non-horrific shapeshifters are acceptable tangents.) I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things relating to that theme. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.

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) 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.

4) Spread the word. Echo or link to this post on your LiveJournal, other blog, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social network. Encourage people to come here and participate in the fishbowl. If there is at least one new prompter or donor, I will post an extra freebie poem.

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 whose eddresses I already have. If 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 horror (shapeshifters). I am especially looking for:

shapeshifters

hunters of shapeshifters

unusual vulnerabilities

specific cultural renditions

origin methods

transformative plot twists

places you'd expect to find shapeshifters

places you would NEVER expect to find a shifter

and poetic forms in particular

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. (Remember, you get an extra freebie poem if someone new posts a prompt or makes a donation.) The rest will go into my archive for magazine submission.

miintikwa

October 13 2009, 17:35:47 UTC 11 years ago

New comment

Bake-neko
kitsune

nekomata

October 13 2009, 17:44:32 UTC 11 years ago

Ah, you beat me to it! Bakeneko / Nekomata would definitely make my day! Nekomata, in some stories, can re-animate the dead which fits in nicely with the horror aspect. They're not as well known as kitsune, it seems.

Skin walkers are also always interesting, as are creatures that rely on an item to change, like selkie.

i_id

11 years ago

Done!

ysabetwordsmith

Welcome!

More Expand

laugh

Re: laugh

dormouse_in_tea

valdary

October 13 2009, 18:00:42 UTC 11 years ago

The girl who was "hare shotten" (had a hare lip) and thus suspected of being a witch who could take shape of hare but when hare was wounded, the matching wound turned up on somebody quite unexpected.

Not sure if that is "horror" enough but the most traditional British shape shifter I could think of.

Poem

October 13 2009, 21:29:43 UTC 11 years ago

From this I got the poem "Hareshotten," which is written in unrhymed, unmetered quatrains. It draws on the mythical properties of the harebell flower. Now why would an ordinary girl want to turn herself into a hare? I actually didn't think of that question, and so was surprised by the twist at the end. This poem is definitely tragedy rather than horror, though.

36 lines, Buy It Now = $15

Re: Poem

dulcinbradbury

October 13 2009, 18:03:44 UTC 11 years ago

Do Gods count? Zeus had a lot of forms.

October 13 2009, 21:40:46 UTC 11 years ago

This one turned into humor rather than horror. "Olympian Proportions" is a free-verse poem about Zeus' marital problems. Don't worry, it happens to a lot of gods.

15 lines, Buy It Now = $10

janetmiles

October 13 2009, 18:21:15 UTC 11 years ago

How about inorganic shapeshifters like Transformers (tm)?

siege

October 13 2009, 19:57:18 UTC 11 years ago

I once wrote a character description based on what I thought would frighten a Transformer. No obvious armor plating, a third eye in the forehead (with extreme visual frequency range), ropy cabling woven through and around a skeletal-looking robotic framework, an apparently exposed motor, a split jaw with no mask, and an asymmetric tranformation (from a hover-cycle that looked like a motorcycle with horizontal wheels to a flying robot with turbofans on the back) because I noticed that nearly all Transformers have a symmetric transformation. There was more to it, but that's the basics.

O_O

Re: O_O

wyld_dandelyon

wolfbrotherjoe

October 13 2009, 18:25:08 UTC 11 years ago

What a wonderful idea. I might gestalt off this idea to repeat an old Nanowrimo idea...

As for my suggestion to you: Do something regarding 'hunters' of shapeshifters who are from National Geographic, shooting pictures instead of bullets.

October 14 2009, 07:23:42 UTC 11 years ago

From your "National Geographic" prompt, I got the free-verse poem "Shooting the Werewolf." The plot is basically what you just described.

24 lines, Buy It Now = $10

moosl

October 13 2009, 18:34:06 UTC 11 years ago

I found more shape-shifting than horror. Perhaps one of them will spark you.

Siblings on Bench

Temple Dog

Pandaphants

Abdominal Faces

2-Door Carapace

Ogre

Walking Stick

Hedgehog and Chicken

October 14 2009, 03:50:44 UTC 11 years ago

I used "Abdominal Faces," and decided to make this the second freebie poem of the day.

October 13 2009, 18:46:29 UTC 11 years ago

My niece (the one holding the pumpkin in my recent post about making a dragon out of pumpkins) suggests "a creature out of the nightmare world"

October 15 2009, 01:06:21 UTC 11 years ago

My niece raised her arms (in the football "score" cheer and said, "That is an awesome poem!"

She said she originally got the idea from her favorite game about the dream world.

Do you have a market in mind for it?

Hmm...

Re: Hmm...

October 13 2009, 18:48:59 UTC 11 years ago

Personally, I'm fond of felines.

October 13 2009, 22:07:36 UTC 11 years ago

From this I got the free-verse poem "Felis dendrophila," which I've decided to make the first freebie poem of the day.

allykat

October 13 2009, 19:13:25 UTC 11 years ago

I always worked best from words or phrases as prompts, so...

* Woman
* White hind
* Poacher

$5 general donation to follow. Contact is allykat@gmail.unc.edu if needed.

October 13 2009, 20:49:37 UTC 11 years ago

From this I got the poem "The White Hind." It is a hexaduad, which is a rhymed syllabic form. It tells of poachers who hunt a white hind and wind up suffering for their misdeed.

12 lines, Buy It Now = $10

whuffle

October 13 2009, 19:26:49 UTC 11 years ago

Hows about abandoned places that are shapeshifters? What if an abandoned old mental hospital was actually a sleeping shape shifter (a giant? and alien?) waiting to be awoken? Would that account for abandoned places that seem to just up and disappear overnight? (yeah, okay so I know they really do burn down and get demolished etc but still, could be, might be, imagine being?)

October 14 2009, 04:20:03 UTC 11 years ago Edited: October 14 2009, 04:33:29 UTC

From this I got "Building Suspense," which is written in symmetrical verses: 3, 4, 7, 4, 3 lines respectively. It describes the habits and, eventually, origin of the old mental hospital. The tale is disturbing and rather sad.

21 lines, Buy It Now = $10

October 13 2009, 19:48:43 UTC 11 years ago

I have a few prompts for you.

plankton
botfly
pickles
stork and/or flamingo
pigeon
autoimmune reaction
toast

siliconshaman

October 13 2009, 19:57:05 UTC 11 years ago

I've always wondered what would happen if one took the phrase 'social chameleon' literally...especially in this day of hyper-social-networking.

October 14 2009, 04:58:41 UTC 11 years ago

From this I got the free-verse poem "The Social Chameleon," a humorous piece about a chameleon pretending to be human online.

21 lines, Buy It Now = $10

ellenmillion

October 13 2009, 19:58:25 UTC 11 years ago

The prompt above made me wonder how a multi-celled creature could shapeshift to a single-celled creature... and could they get back?

October 14 2009, 05:29:38 UTC 11 years ago

Indeed, I combined those two prompts to create a poem about ... wereplankton! Fooling around with formerly organic compounds in a restriction-free environment can be hazardous to your bodily integrity. "The Bermuda Incident" is free-verse and spans the boundary between science fiction and horror.

29 lines, Buy It Now = $15

synnabar

October 13 2009, 20:19:15 UTC 11 years ago Edited: October 13 2009, 20:23:31 UTC

I am a little shy to mention anything, but though I love werewolves, they are everywhere and I enjoy stories and art about other kinds even more. A lot of my art centers around this theme, and my trademark/symbol/online icon is a shapeshifter as well.

I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but with such a subject, how could I not bite?

Hm. Let's see... there are:

-Jaguar-Men of Mesoamerica
-Leopard-Men of Africa
-Berserkers/Bear Sarks/Skins

-Then there are "animal bridegrooms" ("beast", lion, bear, East of the Sun and West of the Moon)
-Or women who are "cursed" (like Melusine)
-There are the children of Llyr
-And the Püca or Pooka, sometimes helpful and sometimes not
-There are may of the Fair Folk who take any form they wish
-Fafnir was once human (or perhaps a giant) before becoming a dragon
-The dragons of Asia take many forms

I am donating $10 just because I admire you for doing this ("this" not being my suggestions, "this" being your poetry Fishbowl in general)

((Edit: not as a suggestion, but The Journal of Mythic Arts has a page I enjoyed, if you haven't seen it))

October 14 2009, 03:13:35 UTC 11 years ago

I used "the Children of Llyr." It occurred to me that swans are a Welsh symbol of the soul, and animal transformations in that tradition often have spiritual connotations. So I thought the process might shake loose past-life memories, and of course, the ones that stick are the most intense. "The Swan-Children's Song" is a cyrch a cywta, a rhymed syllabic Welsh form.

8 lines, Buy It Now = $5

kestrels_nest

October 13 2009, 21:08:04 UTC 11 years ago

Several notions

Shape-shifting great cat, where the "natural" form is the creature, and the human is the "shifted" form. Feline/ hunter/ predator mentality and ethos in either form.

A meeting of shifting deities or Heroes, like the Morrigan and Gwydion son of Don.

The Great Beasts (usually bears) of the Saami. A powerful Shaman could take the shape and attributes of a Bear; the bears also had their own Shamans (the Wise Bears) who could take human form.

October 14 2009, 05:41:55 UTC 11 years ago

From your first prompt, I got the "True to Form," a free-verse poem about a black panther who becomes a human man and explores city nightlife. The poem is slightly lewd in an amusing way ... after all, he's a big tomcat.

14 lines, Buy It Now = $10

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