Glad to see you back! Today's Day 3 poem is #77 in this year's Stafford Challenge (and #442, counting last year).
Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, we challenge you to write a poem in which a profession or vocation is described differently than it typically is considered to be.”
Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day suggestion: “[T]ake the phrase 'Open (blank),' replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.”
Here's my poem today, melding the two prompts again. Back to my usual go-to: the curtal sonnet, decasyllabics, some slant rhyme.
Open Season on Weathermen
—curtal sonnet
Have you ever wondered why the weather
seems so unpredictable, the season
notwithstanding? Meteorologists
are not, as you may have thought, predictors
of weather. They instead are magicians
who witchcraft the weather, not scientists.
You ask why are their forecasts not always
right? They’re fiendishly clever, weathermen
are. They fake errors! Make intended missed
forecasts. Say one thing, hex another. Ways
they keep you sheep confused.
—Draft by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
https://www.sciencing.com/info-12112230-meteorologists-daily
Alan's poem today also melds both prompts, with a title borrowed from The Boss. Also, this is a Petrarchan sonnet.
Open All Night
Imagine leather patches on tweed sleeves,
a leather wing-backed chair, a cup of tea,
and book-packed shelves with some few spaces free,
a well-lit desk—Professor Me conceives
well-crafted prose by hand because he leaves
transcription and revision all to be
light labor of the morning; he will see,
well-rested, to each insight as it weaves
persuasive, certain, masterfully sure,
self-deprecating, honest, true, and pure.
I wake. The text from automated thieves,
promoted as the stressed-out student’s cure,
shifts burdens from enrollees it relieves
and makes an AI slop cop out of me.
—Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Yes, indeed, our profession has changed. I had those same images you started with when I began my career in the '80s. I'm glad I'm now retired. Sorry, Alan.
Thanks for coming by and reading our poems. See you tomorrow?
Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks!
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5 comments:
LOL, those crafty and deceptive weather forecasters! And I’ll have to show Alan’s poem to my son the college professor, who is indeed fighting his own battle against AI. Excellent sonnets today, gentlemen!
Oops, sorry I posted that as “anonymous.”
Thank you, Bruce. Nothing has changed the nature of my job so much as the introduction of generative AI and its irresponsible promotion and use among undergraduates, particularly those who see general education classes as obstacles rather than opportunities. I'm returning to blue books in the fall.
Thanks, Bruce!
I’ve heard that a lot. I think my son has broken out the “blue books” too. Pretty sad. I guess it’s this generation’s version of Cliff’s Notes.
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