Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “write a remix poem. That is, take one (or more) of your poems from earlier this month and remix it. Make a free verse poem into a villanelle. Or condense a sestina into a haiku or senryu. Or forget form. Just completely jumble up the words Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt today can only be described, not quoted. She suggests following Hoa Nguyen’s exercise called “Writing After James Schuyler’s ‘Hymn to Life.’” This poetic algorithm is based on the Schuyler poem named and includes such instructions as “Bring your perspective and verbs back to the present tense, even when addressing memory,” and “Introduce a swerve or observation that serves as interjection, non-sequitur,” and “Animate the landscape or nearby object, imbue it with expressiveness of action or address,” and so on. One of the options in Robert’s prompt today is to “respond to the original poem.” Today’s poem is a response to my aswang poem from April 22, “The Truth.” The NaPoWriMo prompt that day involved including a proverb. My curtal sonnet today begins with the proverb I used, echoing that earlier poem’s ending in this current poem’s opening. (A bit of background on the aswang poems here.) As far as today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is concerned, I haven’t fully engaged the Nguyen exercise, but I did incorporate the three instructions I cited above as examples. The Future: Clara’s Dark Night How I followed the selected Nguyen instructions: (1) I restricted myself to present tense; (2) Clara interjects by swearing: susmariosep is an abbreviation for “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph” (common cuss words in Filipino), and putang ina is equivalent to “son of a bitch,” literally meaning “whore mother”; and (3) I’ve animated the clock on Clara’s wall, even giving it some dialog. Today, Alan is remixing "Ode to the Shop Vac" from April 18. Click here to revisit that poem. Ode to the Oldsmobile So interesting to compare the two poems; the earlier poem is in blank verse and this one is a Petrarchan sonnet. Details cross over between the poems but the thematic focus is so different between them. I wrote a second poem today, a remix of the tanka I composed for Day 7. Since it's small, here's that poem again: Hydroxychloroquine Tanka I've remixed this tanka into a hybrid sonnet, mostly Shakesperean but with one Petrarchan envelope quatrain. Follow the Money Trail Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. To comment, look for a red line below that starts Posted by, then click once on the word comments in that line. If you don’t find the word “comments” in that line, then look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. Thanks! Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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4 comments:
Interesting as always Vince. I'm really liking these posts. This one sparked off a poem --- all about our old Estate car (Station Wagon in USA).
Kim, thanks! I'll tell Alan that happened!
Yeah, Vince, I found the Nguyen prompt rather daunting too (though I did listen to Schuyler's poem and really got drawn into it, despite its length). I am really enjoying these "aswang" poems.
We finally could not afford to repair that Oldsmobile any more, so I gave it to the good ol' boys at the garage so they can run it in a demolition derby. The plan was to compete this summer, which I imagine our backward Governor of the State of Tennessee will permit during this summer of social distancing, but my concern lies in the fact that that car can run like a sewing machine and then suddenly quit. I think the driver will make it to the intersection of the figure eight and wind up stranded, symbolic of the straits Tennessee citizens endure with our so-called leaders.
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