Sunday, May 22, 2011

Communal Poem

A small group of poets, myself included, got together on Twitter this past week.  @moltoassai,@akischilz, @gustavojmata,@poeticalpsyche (me), and @isabelmbush.  These are our handles on twitter, feel free to follow us for our own unique blend of poetical musings.  This is also the order for this first #Communalpoem, the hashtag where you can see how the process evolved, every line, inspiration and bump of it.

This first Communal Poem is a ten line piece.  Lines 1-5 are composed in the order listed above. Lines 6-10 are in reverse order.  Snake-like winding for any of those familiar with Fantasy Sports drafting.  Each of the lines in this poem also serve as a portal to the website of the poet who composed that line.

The Green leaves tremble feeling shy
Until shivering their blossom into flight
On a magic mushroom the grasshopper chants
Lines of wisdom, lines of rhyme, lines over ten-thousand times
He continues his solemn chant, until the moon rises and casts its light over the misty river

Hearing the call, the giant white eagle wakes, from his decade long slumber
Wings expand, tufts breathe, talons release its dreamtime grasp

Anaba sweeps the Hogan floor-Manaba whisper "Our time is come"

The eagle knows; wings fan a moon into the eyes of the grasshopper at Manaba's feet

Sweet sounded words the poet's glory; that was our little springtime story


Please check out each of the links and enjoy the contributing poets personal sites.  I'm sure there will be plenty for you to enjoy.

Finally, if you're on twitter, grab some friends and compose a communalpoem of your own.  Feel free to save all your project posts to #communalpoem so the world can watch your creativity unfold.  All I ask is that if you see a current communalpoem in progress you watch as it unfolds before starting your own, just to cut down on any confusion.

Thanks and hope you all enjoyed.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for getting us all together to write this .

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  2. Isabel, it was a spur of the moment Idea I got after reading about communal style poems, particularly Renga, and thought Twitter had the perfect medium for getting this done. I'm thankful the four of you decided to join me on this little quest. It was fun and I'll certainly do it again, hopefully now that we've all done this first one, we'll have many more to join in the next time. Thanks again you had a tough spot, the last line for Stanza 1 and the Start of stanza 2, having to effectively end the first and then begin the second. But I think you hit it out of the park. :)

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  3. A fertile spur of the moment Idea, Fred.

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  4. Gustavo, sometimes it is those ideas that just appear, seemingly out of nowhere, that turn into the very special ones. It was fun and I look forward to working with each of you again in the near future

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