Today is Quadrille Monday over at the dVerse Poets Pub and De Jackson served up the word: box.
Stacked Boxes
Stacking larger boxes on small boxes
A heavy head bobbles upon a lilting middle, teetering on a poor foundation
Functioning intelligence, serpentine systems based on a corrupted piece of code
The hypocrisy covers lies told to disguise the fib
A whisper topples the tower.
For anyone who has been following my writing adventure, you will not be surprised that “Puzzle” inspired me to write many poems. I wrote three dVerse Poet Quadrilles in the first 25 minute sprint of #MagicMon over on twitter. I am excited about this one.
Bronchial Birch Trees
I asked for the box because I need to see the corrupted result
Pieces will fit together, but not to my vision
My passion for this puzzle used to excite me into the night
I can’t open this mangled mutation of my aborted dream.
I want to say THANK YOU for this prompt for dVerse Monday Haibun. It is so easy to feel like I shouldn’t forgive because no one else shows compassion, or responds in kind, but that’s the wrong way to look.
A friend of mine helped me see that even when I want to give up on a human, there are so many reasons why people are what I see as mean to me and don’t understand me. It has nothing to do with me. My compassion is needed elsewhere.
Not By Choice
I did not come here by choice. I lost everything by staying and everything else by complying. But somehow I am now for use, the modern day Cinderella. That is how you are obtuse: You don’t remember. You didn’t see it; It is timing; I could not make it my fault: again.
Swimming in the lake
We came here every Summer
You are equal; too.
Today’s dVerse poets prompt is a fun one. The challenge is to pick a line from two books then start your poem with one and end with the other. I just so happen to be reading Rum Punch: A Novel
Always On The Grift
Sheepishly she displayed the razor
as she lowered her skirt
Flashing her wide whites and woollies
innocent as a lamb while
Hiding her black sheep, freshly shorn,
back into the fold
But he keeps visualizing
a fresh, pink clam
The wolf in sheep’s clothing
so well disguised
Even the shepherd was blinded
if only long enough for the crime
He follows her bleating
until he is fleeced
No apology or acting sheepish
about it, wanting to explain
She re-opens the straight blade
Just like that, back in the game
The first line, “Sheepishly she displayed the razor as she lowered her skirt,” was taken directly from Razor Girl: A novel
quadrille: noun – 1. a square dance performed typically by four couples and containing five (or six) sections, each of which is a complete dance in itself. A piece of music for a quadrille dance. 2. each of four groups of riders taking part in a tournament or carousel, distinguished by a special costume or colors. A riding display.
The dance took its name from square formations executed by four mounted horsemen in 17th-century military parades. The dance was executed by four couples in a square formation.
The following table from Wikipedia shows what the different parts of the Viennese six-part style look like, musically speaking:
All the themes are 8 measures long.
I started this study of quadrilles today because it’s Quadrille Monday at dVerse Poets Pub and I wanted to participate for the fist time. The connection between the quadrille dance and poetry began when Lewis Carroll lampooned the dance in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’s
The dVerse Poets Pub Quadrille is a poem (or short prose) in exactly 44 words that incorporates a given word. To quote from the original post from Björn Rudberg, “The challenge combines two essential elements to have fun.” Today’s word is muddle and the quotes on the site are great!
I headed over to Shadow Poetry to see if they had a poetry form page for the quadrille and the closest I found was an invented poetry form by C. G. V. Lewis called a quadrilew.
Over at Poetry Soup I found a page of links to poems about quadrille that they call Quadrille Poems which I thought was interesting.
And now that I have some understanding of quadrille (at least the word), here is my first attempt at creating my own:
The Dance
Lace and denim muddled
space in a rat race
Grace; a muddled mint
in a julep glazed
Chase a hint
of mace-muddled flint,
a warm taste
Face the phenom
of muddled voices
venom without trace
Time is a climb of thirsting,
bursting rhyme sublime
and dancing and horses and costumes
I want to start by saying thank you to all of the organizers of NaPoWriMo and A to Z Challenge and the poets of dVerse. And the poets that included my poems in their lists, especially David Ellis at Too Full To Write.
I also want to thank everyone who read my poems and left such lovely comments. Everyone was encouraging and made me feel my efforts are worthwhile.
This was a long month for me with some very high points and some low points.
The high points were: my birthday evening seeing Anne Lamott at Benroya Hall; scrolling up some of my poems for Poem in your pocket day and having them on the counter at A Good Book Bookstore; and, of course, completing the challenges while learning so many interesting new words and facts.
The low points all had to do with short story rejections, but I think my very negative feelings had to do with a bout of the flu, so actually, the low points should have been seen as high points, as in, “I have new stories to shop around.”
This month hit some milestones for Experience Writing:
♦ Most views ever: April 30
♦ Most likes ever: April 16
Now to the recap.
I found all of the different prompts inspiring. I learned so much from the resources and examples, the great interviews and unique ways to approach the page. This was a great experience and I’m glad I did it. To my readers who didn’t participate this year, I recommend giving it a try next year. And you can dive in sooner with OctPoWriMo this fall.
My favorite prompt: I think the haibun prompt was my favorite. First, because I had never heard of haibuns before. Second, it adds another element to haiku that I really enjoy, and third, because it opened up participation in dVerse’s Haibun Monday. I wrote three haibuns during the month:
The Lingering, Long Spring Day
My favorite poems I wrote:
Why Stand By? This poem, inspired by a forensic psychology course I’m taking online, really seemed to resonate with readers and spur discussion.
Contemplating The Other This poem, inspired by the Polish poems from Here
Then I think it’s a tie between the poems I did the most factual research for :
An Apple Is An Apple – noosphere
The Next Pasquinade – Pasquino
Flawed Reflection – Pulitzer winner Frank Bidart
The Reliquary for the Miraculous -Saint Sidonius
I really enjoy learning new and interesting things.
I think doing the A to Z Challenge as part of my NaPoWriMo experience was a great idea. As I learned last fall, I like to use multiple prompts to enhance my creative efforts, and the word of the day often lead to more interesting poetry challenges.
My favorite words were: xanthic (xanthodont), wayzgoose, wazzock, and atresia. All of them really.
Favorite poetry books: Here
Brown Girl Dreaming
Favorite writing book: FLASH!: Writing the Very Short Story
So what comes next? It’s time to turn my attention back to my novel. I have scenes to draft and then another full edit. While I work, I will hopefully find inspiration from:
Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing
Writing 21st Century Fiction: High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling
The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing
How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method (Advanced Fiction Writing) (Volume 1)
I also have a great stack of fiction and poetry to inspire me as well.
I’m hoping to continue to blog three posts weekly:
Site stats tell me that my most popular day and time is Thursday at 1pm. What would you like to read most on a Thursday at 1pm: a poem, some insight on the craft of writing, or a book review?
Or is there something else you would like me to share this May?
I have decided that the photography focus for the next Gator McBumpypants picture book will be using filters. I’ll be studying an old KODAK Workshop Series book called Using Filters, so you may see some odd photos to illustrate my posts.
If you have a poem, a micro-story, a book review, or a guest-post you would like to share on Experience Writing let me know in the comments or head over to MBer Creations and write to me on the Contact page.
And as a treat for finishing NaPoWriMo and the A to Z Challenge, I took the advice of the prompt at dVerse Poets Pub and took a walk.
Self and Setting
For this respite, my reward for diligence, I grab my lens, aspiring to share my view. I find myself not walking, but squatting, twisting, turning and reaching for the space and light. Pushing buttons, twirling knobs, zooming in and out to capture contrasting colors in secondary stewardship. Wings flit seconds before the click. I debate if taking a walk had to mean wandering the neighborhood. A pedestrian coming toward me, a man in a red jacket, whom I would have to pass, answers my question for me. I do not have to wander to break a sweat and hear my muscles sing their discordant threnody.
Am I of this place
A loop of known origin
The last or the next?
zenography: noun – the study of the planet Jupiter
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinating fact. It says to take a cue from Borges. I tried to read Ficciones
Image of Jupiter’s Giant Red Spot, taken on March 5th, 1979. Credit: NASA GSFC/NASA/JPL
The Reliquary for the Miraculous
Admiring your reliquary,
a hand in pose to bless,
I imagine the virgin hovering;
A congestion of moons encircling
the widened waist, if any more
dense, would grow smaller
I expect your holy death, your martyrdom
severe and righteous, but my work
becomes zenography; observing the untouchable;
coming to conclusions from afar
Your works are panegyrics to emperors
documentation of political events
You married the daughter of an emperor
and through sycophantic acclamations
rose in wealth and rank
Admiring your reliquary, I ponder
the moment a person recognizes her true nature
Its riveted repairs testify to eternal renewal
A hollow shell in saintly repose
This poem was inspired by:
Just Looking: Essays on Art
Borges lectures from openculture.com
40 interesting Jupiter facts from factslegend.org
Saint Sidonius from Wikipedia
Want to read more? You may want to take a look at:
The Secrets of Jupiter (Planets)
The Letters of Sidonius: [Oxford Library Of Translations]; Volume 2
The Trophies of the Martyrs: An Art Historical Study of Early Christian Silver Reliquaries (Oxford Studies in Byzantium)
wazzock: noun (mildly pejorative, slang) – a stupid or annoying person (Britain, originally Northern England).
Today is not one of the days of the A to Z Challenge, but I finished Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is to find inspiration from the Sylvia Plath Poetry Project. I think I can see her calling philandering Ted Hughes a wazzock, but it could prove a challenge to fit into poetry. The poem I chose as inspiration was Crossing the Water.
A Disturbed Crossing
His screech cleaves the oyster sky
The all seeing eye perches above
Carefully observing in anticipation of brunch
Ghosts musing on the surface
Are broken by the leap of a hungry bass
Echoing the circular chase of life
They tempt us to follow them
Further from assured asylum
Ever morphing into more frightening forms
The wazzock roars through
A shirtless xanthodont of excess
Leaving a shimmering, swirling rainbow trail
Riding the slowing saccade
You wipe the spray from your face
I take an oar and pull to turn the world
Want to read more Sylvia Plath? You may want to check out:
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar (Modern Classics)
yawping: noun – a strident utterance. strident: adjective – characterized by harsh, insistent, and discordant sound.
urban dictionary: verb – the act of bellowing at someone down the street, especially from a window.
yawp/yaup: verb – to make a raucous noise 2. clamor, complain: noun – yawper
yawp: noun – a raucous noise 2. something resembling a raucous noise like rough vigorous language
from The Story House https://mollandmostin.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/wish-you-were-here/
Cascade du Château
She turns back toward the rushing water and takes a step forward, letting its yawping fill her senses. The chorus falling, rushing and crashing out the many crises she would soon face and would also leave behind. She lets her worries of how little Aileen acquires trinkets and Liza’s new imaginary friend makes her cause mischief mingle with the water and drown in the pool. Her husband’s yawping from their window now falls on deaf ears, but she feels the grit of his complaints like gravel spitting on her back. She takes one last look at the pure azure sky mingling with the rose of the horizon and takes Liza’s hand. Vacation ends, as does the Summer, with the turning of the leaves.
