The Wordsmith's Forge

Thanks to the extra people who voted, the tie has been broken, in favor of publishing the rest of "The Cuckoo's Song." Another donation also went into the general fund, so you folks currently have $11 to portion out to other poetry. A subsequent poll will cover that.

Here is the complete text of "The Cuckoo's Song" for your entertainment. This is lyrical poetry in the tradition of many ballads about romances between faery and mortal. This poem came out of the September 8, 2009 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from marina_bonomi and sponsored by marina_bonomi, dormouse_in_tea, and janetmiles plus several votes from the audience to cover the last verses out of the general fund. Thank you all for your continued support! I'm glad you're enjoying these verse-by-verse epics.

( Collapse )

Here is today's freebie poem, courtesy of a prompt from jolantru. It is a true story. Sometimes the old tales are made new again, for they live in us and we give them shape through our lives.




Old were the folktales,
Sweet on my lips as honey,
And when he said to me,
“What do you desire?”
I could not resist.

I said to him,
“Bring me the Moon in a silver cup,”
Thinking him wise enough
To know the old answer to the folk riddle.

Instead he brought me a coin –
No larger than my thumbnail,
Minted with maria on one side
And wee words on the other
Telling its own tale –
A coin struck from silver
That had flown around the moon.

And my heart overflowed.

This writing exercise is for those of you writing romance, or using romance as a major subplot in some other genre.

1) Read this list of things (many of them backed by statistics from actual studies!) that people have cited as being better than sex in some way.

2) Pick something on this list. Your female protagonist finds it more gratifying than sex. That is, she feels better after doing that than she feels after doing sex.

3) Pick something else on this list. Your male protagonist finds it more interesting than sex. That is, he would rather watch or talk about that than contemplate having sex.

4) One of these things will appear frequently in the story, available as a distraction to the target character. The other will be very hard to find, and thus distracting because it tempts the other character into great efforts to obtain it. You get to pick which is which.

5) Despite these forces pulling the characters away from each other, they have at least one strong reason to fall in love. Describe it.

6) They also have a plot-worthy force binding them together, even during times they want to walk away. Outline it.

7) You should now have two imaginary people screaming at each other and bouncing back and forth like pheromone-overdosed ping-pong balls. If they aren't, make the situation worse somehow. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

Also, am I the only person who looked at the "romantic complication" in Twilight and thought, "Gee, that wouldn't be a problem if she just chained him down really well before they started making out!" ...? And would have had exactly the same thought as a teenager?

This poem came out of the May 5, 2009 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from janetmiles (bouncing off of a different prompt by wyld_dandelyon), jenny_evergreen, and ladyqkat. It was sponsored by janetmiles and ladyqkat.




“I am the traveler,”
she said,
“and my home is the road.”

“I am the urbanite,”
he said,
“and the city is my home.”

“I bring salt from the sea
and spices from afar,”
she said. “Will you trade?”

“I bring meat from the land,
and savory vegetables,”
he said. “Will you trade?”

There in the market square,
the traveler and the urbanite
traded their wares.

They shared stories,
laughing over the wonders
that each had discovered.

“I run wide,” she said.
“Each place tells me new things
About the day before me.”

“I run deep,” he said.
“Each day tells me new things
About the place beneath me.”

So the traveler spent the night
In the urbanite’s bed, where
They made love sweet and wild.

In the morning they parted,
Their fond hands lingering
To the fingertips before letting go.

“I will always leave you,”
she said,
“but I will always return.”

“I will always be here,”
he said,
“for you to return to.”

And so they lived,
meeting and parting
like the tides and the beach.

And so they loved,
deep and wide,
bounding the world together.

This poem came out of the February 2009 poetry fishbowl, and it uses weather science as an extended metaphor for love. The February sponsors are: jenny_evergreen, minor_architect, laturner, and janetmiles.





Love is the language of clouds,
from the fluffy cumulus of courtship
to the towering cumulonimbus of the first fight
flinging lightning at the unsuspecting earth.
It is the wispy wondering of cirrus
and the slow, leaden weeping of stratus.
On rare occasions it allows a clear view
of lenticular clouds encircling a solitary truth,
or the rounded mounds of mammatus clouds
filling the sky with all that is to be desired.

Love is the weather of the soul,
and whatever shape it takes,
it always emerges where
the cool dry air of the mind
meets a warm wet wind from the heart.

Another donation has come in, so you get to vote on more poetry from the February 2009 Poetry Fishbowl. The current list of donors for this month is: jenny_evergreen, minor_architect, laturner, and janetmiles. Thank you all for your enthusiasm!

This poem came out of the February 2009 Poetry Fishbowl, inspired by this painting by flutterbychild. It was sponsored by an extra general donation.



The key to my heart is upside down.
Each candle stands for a love or friend.
They are not large, and have no renown.
I burn my candles at just one end.

This candle is red, and these ones blue.
The key to my heart is upside down.
Our lives are colored by me and you.
My soul is pink and my skin is brown.

My mind is a village, not a town.
I live for the faces that I know.
The key to my heart is upside down.
It shines like a flame through winter snow.

The world don’t know what to make of me.
What do I care for gold, or a crown?
I love without locks, and I am free.
The key to my heart is upside down.

This poem came out of the February 2009 Poetry Fishbowl, sponsored by general donations. It was inspired by a prompt from ellenmillion. I don't know if the structural spacing will survive blog posting, but I'll do my best.




The dayshift my lover came to me crying
   because the last of the flowering plants
      down in hydroponics had died, leaving only
         the vat-grown leaves and proteins to feed us,

         she said to me,
         “What shall we do
         for love-tokens now?”

I pressed her to my chest,
   and turned her face to the forward screen
      where the nebula blossomed in a dozen shades
         of purple and pink, green and yellow, blue and gold,

         and I said to her,
         “Look, my dearest,
         the stars are making love.”

This is going to be a short, simple poll as the general donation fund contains $10 and there are four poems in that range.

Yesterday's fishbowl was on the slow side; not so many people participated or donated. I started at noon and closed at 9:30 PM since no more prompts had arrived for several hours, so that's about 7 1/2 hours accounting for breaks. I wrote 13 poems, mostly medium and a few long. Two were quaterns, a form I find myself liking. There were 32 comments including mine; 8 people sent prompts.

[EDIT 4/22/09 adding poems]

Several of the fishbowl poems have already been posted:
"The Architects of Love"
"Frontal Exposure"
"The Key to My Heart Is Upside Down"
"Like the Dew on the Leaves"
"Silicon Skin and Carbon Hearts"
"Starblossom"
"Stronger Than Concrete"

"Like the Dew on the Leaves" happens to be one of the quaterns, a form that works well as lyrical poetry, and indeed a discussion has arisen about its suitability for performance. If somebody wants to set it to music and sing it, that would be lovely.

This month's donors are: jenny_evergreen, minor_architect, laturner, and janetmiles. There will be a poll shortly to determine the poem from the general sponsorship. Thank you all for your support.

EDITED 2-21-09 to add donors and poems.