Oct. 21 Prompts: Hiding in the Swamp

The Swamp by Maria L. Berg 2018

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

Fear of Science Run Amok: Write today’s poem as a mad scientist. Your poem may be the formula for your greatest discovery or invention. Your poem may be your manifesto, or your frustrations with limitation, or just the rantings of a mad man.

I think today is a good day for “Twenty Little Poetry Projects.” I’ve really enjoyed this prompt in the past and it seems like a good way to explore the mind of a mad scientist. This exercise was created by Jim Simmerman and published in The Practice of Poetry.

His instructions are, “Give each project at least one line. You should open the poem with the first project, and close it with the last, but otherwise use the projects in whatever order you like. Do all twenty. Let different ones be in different voices. Don’t take things too seriously.”

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.

Writober 2023

Today’s image prompt is a super creepy clown reminiscent of the clown, standing in the doorway of what looks like the entrance to an underground bunker of some kind with free hugs spray-painted next to it. How would someone happen upon that clown? Why is it there? So many questions.

Halloween Photography Challenge

Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

For today’s peril of the screen I highly recommend the 1982 version of Swamp Thing with the great Ray Wise as your mad scientist and Adrienne Barbeau as his love interest.