Poetry competition CLOSED 3rd February 2019 00:49am
WINNER
Hepcat61 (geoff cat)
Hepcat61 (geoff cat)
RUNNERS-UP:
Heaven_sent_Kathy
and Eerie
Poetic Medic #2 : To The Poem's Rescue
Sorry for the delay in response -
I am truly deeply humbled by this recognition. I remain somewhat still in shock. This was a wonderfully wicked challenge - reassembling someone else's 80 words into a poem. After JohnnyBlaze's thoughtful announcement, I thought I would explain my method in constructing the poem to its final form:
First, I wrote the poem in pieces - putting together ideas from the given words - almost like constructing Japanese short form . And, as Johnny mentioned, utilizing the comma to add sense to what would otherwise be nonsense lines - take the opening stanza - "water rose full dark river my thoughts seeds perfect" - without the commas, it's almost gibberish.
I also used a leading apostrophe as a tool in fifth stanza to indicate unwritten words - " 'times 'thought, I fell into darkness" - with the reader understanding "(at) times (I) thought I fell into darkness."
And one of the other "tricks" I used was in stanza placement, I shuffled the stanzas numerous times placing finally what I considered to be the strongest stanza to conclude the poem.
I wanted to respond this way to show my fellow poets - much like Penn and Teller - the mechanism behind the illusion.
So much of poetry is not words, but the manipulation of words, of using words to mean something other than what the words mean. It's this aspect that keeps me writing poetry - this ain't prose, it's loquacious mysticism.
So thank you so much for this honor, and congratulations to my fellow winners - Eerie and Heaven_sent_Kathy. Well done with the torturous challenge these two thought up.
And to all who shared these words - "we few, we happy few" - well done!
geoff
I am truly deeply humbled by this recognition. I remain somewhat still in shock. This was a wonderfully wicked challenge - reassembling someone else's 80 words into a poem. After JohnnyBlaze's thoughtful announcement, I thought I would explain my method in constructing the poem to its final form:
First, I wrote the poem in pieces - putting together ideas from the given words - almost like constructing Japanese short form . And, as Johnny mentioned, utilizing the comma to add sense to what would otherwise be nonsense lines - take the opening stanza - "water rose full dark river my thoughts seeds perfect" - without the commas, it's almost gibberish.
I also used a leading apostrophe as a tool in fifth stanza to indicate unwritten words - " 'times 'thought, I fell into darkness" - with the reader understanding "(at) times (I) thought I fell into darkness."
And one of the other "tricks" I used was in stanza placement, I shuffled the stanzas numerous times placing finally what I considered to be the strongest stanza to conclude the poem.
I wanted to respond this way to show my fellow poets - much like Penn and Teller - the mechanism behind the illusion.
So much of poetry is not words, but the manipulation of words, of using words to mean something other than what the words mean. It's this aspect that keeps me writing poetry - this ain't prose, it's loquacious mysticism.
So thank you so much for this honor, and congratulations to my fellow winners - Eerie and Heaven_sent_Kathy. Well done with the torturous challenge these two thought up.
And to all who shared these words - "we few, we happy few" - well done!
geoff
Thank you so much, I'm honored to be part of the outcome of this 2nd Poetic Medic installment - an amazing experience!
I congratulate our sister Eerie, and am out of my league but I have to let Hepcat know that what he achieved seems practically ground-breaking! My respect to you, sir.
And to all - lovely hosts Ahavati & Johnny, and all the entrants with their contributions , go my sincerest wishes, and I hope I survive to see you in #3.
Kathy
I congratulate our sister Eerie, and am out of my league but I have to let Hepcat know that what he achieved seems practically ground-breaking! My respect to you, sir.
And to all - lovely hosts Ahavati & Johnny, and all the entrants with their contributions , go my sincerest wishes, and I hope I survive to see you in #3.
Kathy
