2009 ILE poetry CONTEST giggity goo!

Alright, the poem must be 4 - 40 lines. That doesn't include line breaks. One entry per person. Post your entry here. I'll move them all later when the poll starts.
Tentative closing date is May 1st so get cracking

gonna place an early bet on Edward III

jesus for a second i thought i was on this thread somewhere.

i have my scribblings and i have ilx. never the twain etc

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 19 August 2007 00:40 (1 year ago) Bookmark

man up HOOS

between this and ILC Novelists' Club the creative talents of ILX are gonna be busy in April!!

I guess I will have to bookmark this until I can come up with an entry. The way it is set up I don't think it will stay up in New Answers very easily.

I could be wrong. But by putting a competitive spin on it, without making it obvious that the whole thing is for funsies, it may cause the prospective entrants to pause, agonize, and keep their poems "under their hands" for a bit longer than if it were just for a lark.

Young poets are especially hesitant and tender-skinned about displaying any of their more personal stuff -- and that is most of what they write. Old hacks like me are more thick-skinned about it. They's jus' words.

Young poets are especially hesitant and tender-skinned about displaying any of their more personal stuff -- and that is most of what they write.

can't speak for everyone but this is doubly wrong as far as I'm concerned

im gonna write about wind

do you ever think about the waves
and how they just keep on coming
and coming and coming and coming
and waving to the shore WORDPLAY!!!

an ode to l0u1s jagg3r

doubly wrong

I do things in a big way.

ABOOTT'S EPITATH

a poem
by
ABBOTT

I'm addicted to scratch lotto, I hope you don't mind.
My dog llikes to fart while the family dines.
If you could take my dirty uncle to the laundromat tomorrow:
That would be just fine.

Also how do you measure # of lines if line breaks "don't count"?

Channelling Rik from The Young Ones for my entry:

Pork pies.
Pork PIES,
You are full of LIES!
Your pastry covered meat
is the result of mistreat-
ment of swine!

But have you thought about
how your
petite bourgouis
food funds facists
and dictators?
Far worse than
potatos.

So next time you at
the supermarket.
Have a think
about it.
And stop buying
PIES that are full
of LIES!

captain lorax why did you 100% disqualify haikus from this contest?

captain lorax, can you bring the closing date forward? may 1 is too long imo

kind of want to do this but I am less concerned about my poetry being too personal and more about it being really shitty

I'm concerned that my poetry will just sound like GBV lyrics, or more likely I will realise that they are GBV lyrics at a later date. I won't give back the prize though.

maybe I'll just submit this poem I made out of facebook sidebar ads:

Live the life you want and make your dreams come true.

How does this sound
Have you ever visited our website?

Help us stop the flood and save America!

Generate unlimited wealth

The Most Addictive Game
Warning: this game is addictive!

Own Your Home No Mortgage

58% of Americans get this wrong. Can you get it right?

You won't go broke again.

Even red ring of dead can be fixed.

We can make that happen!

Elderly Living Alone?

It has been over 50 years

What is missing?
Think you know? Are you sure?

The results will shock you!

A bundle of marvelous things, including good health and the hope for better communication.

:D

im gonna write about wind

― CaptainLorax, Sunday, March 29, 2009 8:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

<3 <3 <3

Here is a poem I wrote in October of last year, I'm not even gonna look at it before posting or I'll get stomach acid going on. Here it is:

INSECTS AND YOU

Have you ever seen an insect?
You probably have eyes
and they probably work
and you probably look at things
so you've probably seen an insect.

Have you ever eaten an insect?
You are probably in an English-speaking country
and you're probably revolted by touching an insect let alone eating one
so you've probably never eaten an insect
unless you went to a foreign country where they eat insects
and they asked you to eat one and you were too polite to say no
or it was a dare and you didn't want to chicken out.

Have you ever heard an insect?
You've probably heard a fly or mosquito when it's close to you
(I think flies and mosquitoes live everywhere in the world)
and maybe you've heard an insect of the order Orthoptera, like a grasshopper or cricket or cicada
and maybe you've heard one of those screaming moths – I hope you haven't –
so you've probably heard an insect.

Have you ever killed an insect?
You probably have,
and I bet you've killed spiders too.
It's not my place to editorialize here.

abbott u rock

captain lorax why did you 100% disqualify haikus from this contest?
― goaty (harbl), Monday, 30 March 2009 16:15 (3 hours ago)

someone figured it out

That doesn't include line breaks.
----------------------
that means (to me the rulemaker)

blank lines
don't

count
----------------------
total = 4 lines

wowowow Abbott

Presumably, a set of two or more linked haiku would be fine and dandy.

i'm gonna write about breaking wind

knock yourself out

Here you go, cap'n:

Love in a Time of Everything

I love everything, it's true,
but I struggle with
certain demands it places
on my weakest struts. For example,

I love the buckskin reek
of the flayed hide
nailed to the barn door,
a little, perhaps,

by not rejecting the
raw sequence of ownership
imposed roughly, but rectified
by the logic of use and need.

But too much of what's to love is recondite
in this sad way, or more so.
The melon is quite easily loved
with a knife and a spoon,

but what of leeches, flies who,
spoonless, eat the melon
of our flesh and red juices?
Love shies and shudders at the thought.

Yet I love everything. I do! I do!
And you must imagine this to be the truth,
if we are meant to get anywhere together.
I think I manage it very sweetly, at times,

Persuading my mind to the abstruse art
of watching the insides of stones,
or curling and uncurling my toes
employing nothing but thin air.

Now, love, this is the part
where you come in.
Quick! Give me a stick to whittle,
for I have immortal longings in me.

I am the thread killer, par excellance.

In that case, maybe I should go for the whole hog.

Bump bump bump

Bumpity

Bump bump bump

Bumpity

Bump bump

So sayeth the Lord…

Googly goo

Googly gee

Googly gaga

Googly me!

Said the minstrel to the friar….

Freeky fro

Freekly free

Bump bump

Skiddly dee

The word was made flesh

Flesh as in clay

Clay as in Aiken

Achin' breakin' heart

Dart, shopping cart, K-Mart

***

here are two cats sleeping on a pair of thrift shop sofas
but the similarities end where their white bellies do.
separate parents entirely, even the paw pads are distinct.

examining a group of individuals
--though it's most evident in youngsters
and some other wild mammals--
a certain degree of organization can be seen.
but when the group breaks down

***

the moment of silence is over,
although the flags remain at half-mast
having been there for what seems like forever
they are learning, without encouragement,
to dance a little in the stronger breezes.
still, as we continue,
let us be appropriately solemn.

if you turn your head to one side
and are a cow standing in the field behind my girlfriend’s house
you will see exactly what I mean:
it is in the workings of the street,
and all the people who come and go along it.
now turn the other way, and I am there,
I am waving.

I won't post my poem till I'm in my right mind

ilx when will you be angelic?

elmo where you at

you need to be in dis ting

Still waiting for Edward to regain his right mind... (taps foot, drums fingers, fidgets, goes to refrigerator and opens door to stare inside, closes refrigerator door)... aw, fuck it... (absents himself)

i am on this, perhaps today or at least this coming week

YES

Yes?

i haven't neglected this. not ready yet. soon?

we suggban'd contest administrator

still wanna see yr pome, elmo

I can't go on, I'll go on

These here are pomes, young fella:

http://visual.merriam-webster.com/images/food-kitchen/food/fruits/pome-fruits.jpg

T'ain't no how like what you was thinking of, I reckon.

This is a couple years old, and I may not write anything new for the Giggity Goo 2009 contest, but in answer to well-intentioned goading:

"A Girl In Four Movements"

I.
in the darkness of the bar
she smirks and exhales
it occurs to me that
her smiles are crooked and smoky,
like chairs around the table
after poker night

II.
as she leans forward to
take a sip from her straw,
a strand of hair falls in front
of her face. she moves to
brush it away, but then
sees the expression on my face
and decides to let it stay

III.
while we're dancing
she pivots her foot just slightly
and spins on her toes
the white polka dots
on her red dress swirl and
blur together.
i get wonderfully dizzy

IV.
as i'm walking her home
she tilts her head back
and laughs. her mouth
opens wide and she
echoes

wau

a hoos posting poetry is like hailey's comet, ppl

isn't beth parker back? she should be up in here too.

silly rabbit, pomes are fruity fresh flesh, not fresh fleshy fruits

omg HOOS you manned up (and how!)

Isn't a plum properly a drupe?

I may try this thing.

Wow Beth, you're still on ILE!? Thought you'd left for good, glad to see that isn't so! Couldn't resist the lure of a poetry contest ey? :)

I post about twice a year. I'm like the Halley's Comet of ILE.

or the 17-year locust.

Beth Parker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you.

Also when I saw this thread the first thing I thought is 'damn why is not Ms. Parker around?'

!!!!!!!! (basking) !!!!!!!!!! (returning the love) !!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god, I unwittingly plagiarized Edward III, re: Halley's Comet. Starting off in style!

but you spell it correctly, so points regained

Paul Was Saul Until He Was Blinded

Each sound finds its way
near the end of winding days
so silence calls with large teeth
asking not What may I bring you?
but What may I take away?

There’s nothing to do but allow it.

Bike bells and umbrellas cannot save us
for there is no road and no rain here,
only ankle and rattle and a model of savoir-faire
vigilantly ensuring the chain gang moves along.

Here’s a riddle:
What color drains from the face,
and, by the way, what is joy?

If you can’t answer, everything changes.
At daybreak we will ride together to the sea.
In time we’ll fail among gulls and sand,
bodies pitched like ballast into anonymous night.

Few haruspex have gazed
on augury as plain yet
all the amor fati in the world
is small recompense.

No, no, no.
What I mean to say is this:

Will you hold my hand?
Will you tell me you love me?

It’s a great thing, they say,
the consolation of those dying.

After a week of honing and polishing my contest poem I've decided I don't really like it. Started another one. Still have all the time in the world.

if you mean until captainlorax gets unbanned, then yes, you do have a lot of time available to hone and polish yr masterwork

i'm still working on this

i need the writerly equivalent of bulk fiber because man, i am feeling a bit constipated trying to squeeze one out

^^this is very well-put

an inauspicious start for the armory salon

surely you can strain out a few steaming nuggets of poesy

unfortunate that my formatting and spacing and line-breaks won't come out here, but hey, here's a more recent one from me.

denver airport advice to a member of the passeridae by the table is the table

Smack at the glass.

Bird, understand
that mountains

unshift. This

thinning of the clarity. Your view

will never bring horizon,

make mountains glare back

into this recycling of flesh

and habit,

the echo hollow here machine reverb.

Everb. Verb. Erb. Rb. rb. b. b.

(The security threat level remains orange. Range. Ange. Nge. nge.)

Scape.
The panes pull entrap

the view with ‘pre.’ No coaxing it,

wing-flail doorward then mountain-ward,

the mountain’s words’ ice refrain

richochet.

(Your skeleton. Your range.)

On mountain. Itself

a mountain. Fly.

I love passeridae

Of all the things I've posted 
here and wish
I could take back, this
poem leers atop
the mortifying heap.

I love non-passeridae almost as much tbh but yeah passeridae are pretty much the bomb

I'm liking that airport poem

MY POEM
TITLED
TUESDYAS

I unlit my cigarette
in my ear
Tilted my head
drank a beer
with my ear
with my ear

was it a forced urban head tilt

no diplo

poetry outtie

the ol' T.S.

at the very bottom
of my bottle of wine
there is a bump

it rises from the edges
like a bored parabola
unmotivated
and barely an interest
in bending at all

^^^^ based on actual irl right now experience tbh

Edward III likes Ashbery!

And writes a damn fine verse imo.

seriously that shit is fire

boring job

incredible returns next year
says the business section.

oh good. finally.

an end to uneasy equations,
and obligatos over dusty keys,
prying against these enemy hours,
these hollowed, frozen trees.

consolation reasons kindly
with the pull of greener dreams,
so memories of happy backyard
autumn river screams

go glancing off, again again
this late, this echoing screen.

optimism for gold futures fading it says.

i dunno

this echoing screen

i see what you did there :-)

its the lolcollege way

heck I'm just giving you props and letting you know at least one reader caught it

sorry just being self-deprecating. thanks for the props!

April Has The Cruelest Poems

I keep writing poems
too mean to put out in the world.
Little girly stabs at people
who love me, who are readily identifiable,
the poems pulled from a field guide
of my resentments, written down
to spare my husband the tedium
of one more spoken version.
Not that I’m not
making him read endless drafts.

You always hurt the ones you love,
bite the hand that feeds you,
tell all.

My victims—
one whose hypochondria sours
every dinner conversation, another
whose slathering greed for goods
is the nation’s soul-rot writ small.

I could keep the poem a secret,
like a love-child of shameful parentage.

Fictionalize—turn dog-trainers
into lace-makers, unfaithful boyfriends
into treasonous atomic scientists.

The subjects would fail to recognize themselves.
After all, why would I do such a thing?

If all else fails, lie. Tell her or him
the poem is about some other person
named “Janice,” or “Dad.”

But what if, despite all this coyness,
the poem became famous? It could happen.
And these very people, my loyal supporters,
would be the first ones I’d tell. What then?

Oh, scabby wretch, festering in grievance,
whose friends and family lack all perfection—
how I made it this far will surely puzzle my biographers.

The experts advise to write what you know.
But what if you can’t? What if your one
quickly-dimming filament of decency
mandates that you hold back?

Even monsters deserve compassion.

o hai, thx rogermexico

I am expecting verse from the following ppl by close of business tomorrow

elmo argonaut
beth parker (hey look she posted synchronicitiously while I was writing this message!)
beatrix kiddo

o shit

okay well i guess i know what i'm doing tonight

This is a guest post from my dog

TUGJBHHINGS III CAN MN SMELL;

bBY SNITTER

RAINBOLSW

LOVE

ABSZTARCT CONCEPTS SUCHY ASD PI
BUT ONLY TO THESD TENTHV DECIMAL

am having a major crisis of confidence here

EIII, just so you know, my poem upthread was a serious entry.

Are the spelling errors '(sic)' or do you want them corrected? ("bourgeoise", "fascists")

Sorry to be a bastard but these are important aesthetic choices dude

leave the mistakes in - I feel that the immediacy is more important

louis stop editing and start writing

(xpost) 'cause that shit was straight of the top of the dome, yo...

BethParker, glad you are hear. your last entry brought to mind a line from Ashbery: "He is a monster like everyone else but what do you do if you're a monster?"

*here. jesus. just woke up.

1 Minute of Decadence

I want a parrot.
I want a parrot and some pistachios.
Sure, I could ask for world peace
But all I really want in life
Is a parrot and some pistachios.
(Actually, fuck a parrot)
I want some pistachios,
A lion bar,
(Maybe two lion bars?)
Yr lovin’, a cup of tea
And some new shoes.

who is this ashbery person you keep talking about

EIII, just so you know, my poem upthread was a serious entry.

― snoball, Thursday, April 30, 2009 12:14 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

also how did I get elected MC of the 3 ring circus

just cuz I yell at people doesn't mean I want to be the boss I just like yelling at people

hey elmo are you going to sneepo de mayo this sunday

if you finish yr poem I will buy you a beer and a smoke

dude I basically nominated you as thread champion with the first response, now act like it

champions don't walk they get carried

some have said ODB should not be a model for my behavior but there it is

I couldn't actually think of a good response to that one, so in a way I suppose you have won the thread already, if not the poll (although you've got a pretty good shout imo)

Now excuse me while I fashion a litter out of discarded sheets

gold and plat'num laurels on my wall

We Staggered Like Bonsai

We staggered like bonsai through the general
assent of glasses, trailing streamers
from our heels and freshening
drinks with a vengeance.

Understand, we expected this
to happen to other people. There had been no call
for laughter, nothing insidious at the get-go
to suggest that we would find our tongues

So soon. We were twins, and fatherless,
standing on our own feet under the gaunt
lanterns, plumped up with savoir-faire, game now
for skinny-dipping and all sorts of June buggery.

The wind came up and blew the crows clean
Out of the pines.

nice!

but we all know in our heart of hearts abbott's dog is taking this thing in a walk

figured if i'm going to peanut-gallery i might as well show u mine... but yeah, abbott's dog pwns. holding out hope for a dramatic late entry from a puppy to make it a contest

ok i have gone from 0 poems to 2...one of which is a discretable extract from a longer poem i was working on recently, the other of which i completed pretty much just now...not sure which one i prefer

can i be a sneaky bastard and submit both? or will i have to give my dog all the credit for one? or will i have to choose? :(

p.s. i do not have a dog

edward i certainly hope that you are kidding about the Ashbery thing.

as in:

Soonest Mended

BY JOHN ASHBERY

Barely tolerated, living on the margin
In our technological society, we were always having to be rescued
On the brink of destruction, like heroines in Orlando Furioso
Before it was time to start all over again.
There would be thunder in the bushes, a rustling of coils,
And Angelica, in the Ingres painting, was considering
The colorful but small monster near her toe, as though wondering whether forgetting
The whole thing might not, in the end, be the only solution.
And then there always came a time when
Happy Hooligan in his rusted green automobile
Came plowing down the course, just to make sure everything was O.K.,
Only by that time we were in another chapter and confused
About how to receive this latest piece of information.
Was it information? Weren’t we rather acting this out
For someone else’s benefit, thoughts in a mind
With room enough and to spare for our little problems (so they began to seem),
Our daily quandary about food and the rent and bills to be paid?
To reduce all this to a small variant,
To step free at last, minuscule on the gigantic plateau—
This was our ambition: to be small and clear and free.
Alas, the summer’s energy wanes quickly,
A moment and it is gone. And no longer
May we make the necessary arrangements, simple as they are.
Our star was brighter perhaps when it had water in it.
Now there is no question even of that, but only
Of holding on to the hard earth so as not to get thrown off,
With an occasional dream, a vision: a robin flies across
The upper corner of the window, you brush your hair away
And cannot quite see, or a wound will flash
Against the sweet faces of the others, something like:
This is what you wanted to hear, so why
Did you think of listening to something else? We are all talkers
It is true, but underneath the talk lies
The moving and not wanting to be moved, the loose
Meaning, untidy and simple like a threshing floor.

These then were some hazards of the course,
Yet though we knew the course was hazards and nothing else
It was still a shock when, almost a quarter of a century later,
The clarity of the rules dawned on you for the first time.
They were the players, and we who had struggled at the game
Were merely spectators, though subject to its vicissitudes
And moving with it out of the tearful stadium, borne on shoulders, at last.
Night after night this message returns, repeated
In the flickering bulbs of the sky, raised past us, taken away from us,
Yet ours over and over until the end that is past truth,
The being of our sentences, in the climate that fostered them,
Not ours to own, like a book, but to be with, and sometimes
To be without, alone and desperate.
But the fantasy makes it ours, a kind of fence-sitting
Raised to the level of an esthetic ideal. These were moments, years,
Solid with reality, faces, namable events, kisses, heroic acts,
But like the friendly beginning of a geometrical progression
Not too reassuring, as though meaning could be cast aside some day
When it had been outgrown. Better, you said, to stay cowering
Like this in the early lessons, since the promise of learning
Is a delusion, and I agreed, adding that
Tomorrow would alter the sense of what had already been learned,
That the learning process is extended in this way, so that from this standpoint
None of us ever graduates from college,
For time is an emulsion, and probably thinking not to grow up
Is the brightest kind of maturity for us, right now at any rate.
And you see, both of us were right, though nothing
Has somehow come to nothing; the avatars
Of our conforming to the rules and living
Around the home have made—well, in a sense, “good citizens” of us,
Brushing the teeth and all that, and learning to accept
The charity of the hard moments as they are doled out,
For this is action, this not being sure, this careless
Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow,
Making ready to forget, and always coming back
To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

well done "john ashbery" i think you might be red-hot favourite now :)

oh shit wait you have broken the 40-line limit sorry DQ'd

i mean, i just don't get how someone couldn't know who Ashbery is, that's all.

I think kidding was occurring.

Ed III not only totally knows Ashbery but has probably written essays on him. I think he may have been telling you to chill with the JA lovin' :-P but hey I could be wrong, you never know with ILXors

er yeah Beth put it much more succinctly

see, this might be why i only have a few fellow friends who are writers-- you guys suck at sarcasm. for reals.

and btw, i am no john ashbery lover.

as in, there was no way anyone could have read sarcasm into that post without knowing something about edward, and i know little.

(i wrote many many pages on Ashbery in my day. and have read Flow Chart twice. have since moved on.)

I never got round to studying Ashbery. The focus of my attentions was a small facet of American Modernism circa 1930 which I have been unable to since stop banging on about.

Ashbery obsession undergrad went into serious Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge obsession. by the time i finished it was all Susan Howe and Jorie Graham.

OMG Susan Howe had a pivotal role in my 1979-present day paper! "Singularities"! What a goddamn text! The Adirondacks occupied me

Susan Howe is my girl! Defenestration of Prague is one of my personal favorites. Also 'My Emily Dickinson,' which is awesome.

An essay I wrote tying in "Singularities", Lyn Hejinian's "My Life" and Deleuze/Guattari "Nomadology" was like one of the sweetest things I ever basically wrote in an academic context

OK I totally need to read more Howe, cheers

i'd get a hold of "The Europe of Trusts" next. it's a three-book collection of some of her best work aside from 'Singularities.'

groovy stuff :)

I think I should probably post my poetry now, although I am absolutely torn between the two possible pieces

this is about the only thing I've written lately that's anything, and I put about 5 mins of effort into it so I dont expect any compliments.

(emotions)

they may not be focussed as much as they should
or turned into a nice portrait, lamp or flowering garden bed -
sometimes I just throw them like plates
against a wall
and regret having to clean up the mess afterwards
and perhaps I don't discipline them well or
often enough
How dare she, they say, such rowdy misbehaviour
But they are the engine room of my creativity
the children I don't have
the fuel that makes my head keep burning
when all around the rest of me is ashen
get away from me with that firehose

post it country matters!!!

also, i encourage all of you to look into the poet Lisa Robertson-- i have been in a workshop with her this semester, and she is a wonderful woman and smarter than most any person i've ever met. here's twenty minutes of her reading: http://www.archive.org/details/Books_Bookshelves_Poetry_120508 .

ooh awesome! am listening now. sensations shall formulate...

meanwhile, here's a completely brilliant British poet reading his masterwork, a poem described by J.H.Prynne as the most important of this millennium so far (in four parts):

Ooh, sorry, that's quite a bit to scroll past. Way to derail the thread :-/

Am liking the Robertson! Too dense for me to unpack or even describe on first listen, but a sustained and echoing chamber of angst swaddles her careful syllables...it engages, alarms. Will return to her. Wish I knew of such workshops on this side of the Atlantic. Not sure they really much exist.

"Angst" meant positively, not as the dirty word it's become.

OMG lj, that's my MA tutor. Just saw him read on Tuesday.

I have also only just recently discovered Susan Howe. I only really like visual poetics/typographical poems, and I can't contribute to this thread... but I do have plans to start writing some stuff for a performance piece sometime soon. (I will very likely chicken out of this.)

:D !! I met the dude once after a Peter Manson reading in Cambridge, he was quite reserved but very pleasant, and quite clearly he has a planet-sized brain for poetry. I ought to find out about his readings sooner...or apply to his MA course ;)

xp

The final part of Susan Howe's "Singularities" totally messes around with typography, I'd imagine that's one of the things you're getting into...

emil.y, you might like Adriano Spatola. do you know his work?

i heard Marjorie Perloff lecture on visual/concrete poetic emergences in Latin America in late 2007-- she spoke for two hours and i felt like my brain had been collapsed thoroughly by the lecture's end.

Yes, I saw David Grubbs do a talk, part of which was about his work with Howe, and the bit that entranced me was not the musical work but the bits of her typography he showed us.

Don't think KS is that reserved, whenever there's a student piss-up we always end up back at his playing godawful cacophonies on random instruments and stuff. Prynne was at one of them, too! I think KS was a Cambridger himself, which may explain the connection. He is a truly amazing poet, though, even for someone like me who is usually entirely prose-bound or textual.

xpost don't know Spatola - anything in particular I should check out or should I just google?

try to get a copy of the (admittedly rare) 'Zeroglyphics.' there are a couple samples online, but they don't do him justice.

bpNichol is also a good intersection of the visual and the more experimental side of poetry. and Christian Bok's 'Crystallography' is possibly the most interesting and beautiful example of visual/lyrical/scientific hybrid forms of this century.

i am excited about Keston Sutherland now! awesome stuff.

Anyway, here is my poetry. Am posting two, whoever polls the competition should just pick one. Sorry to be a chicken about it but I really can't split 'em. Call it vanity. First one I wrote just now, second is an extract from a (possibly unfinished) longer poem I wrote fairly recently.

yeah for rotational symmetry!

the revolving signs are positive
tunes running through
cities wearing earphones

and all around the bridge
over the elapsing river
dances the music

files turning tunnels
tuning an immersion
to stave each other off

the city as subjective construct
telekinetic realisations
download each other

from the playlist
one song is chosen
facing north or south

the same story is told
in the eyes of passers-by
attuned to their song and yours

project horizontally
with a complacent fixity
of noting

and this is the symmetry of it:
nobody needs to acknowledge you
to be in your music video

they could shout or swivel
and only fall out of harmony
with unseen dials

citing answerphone damn
exciting here down
phone city areas

i’ll bring gold frankincense and myrrh
and you'll just take the donkey
haphaw spun into mayday

until once again
ensconced contently
within our orb

we look outwards
at the endless random
cycle home

*
*
*

The Guerrilla Projects Poetic

we are the unheard propagandists
of a generation that was never
and I stress found
in every book on the shelf
bad verse for whatever reason
lost in the first place

a poet could think of
soaring buzzards above asphalt
the final effusions of a spayed earth
borne heavenwards to carrion everlasting
road-tested rocket-lorry ascension
souled them a disintegrating dummy

the split pages blown through in a wet scream
flushing these incontinent hubristic missals
whose updraft lay dormant
and whose authors will never suspect
how callously they were disposed of
burned en masse in their cerulean tome

so write not buzzards but zitting cisticolas
let your words bounce on a string
everpresent and audible
occasionally sighted with patience
do not let them soar as you parch
keep the fields fertile and well fucked in

I would say enter the first, if the second is an excerpt.

Thing is, the second was a discrete part of a rambling, loosely-connected panorama, and I consciously wrote those 4 stanzas to hold together as (among other things) a critique of http://www.guerillapoetics.org/ ...I reckon they stand alone quite nicely, but you may disagree.

Your poem is fabby btw Beth! :)

Thank you! But xposting to yr message, They do hang together as a poem (zitting cisticolas! I never knew!), but I think you should sleep on it, depending on your time zone/biorhythms, and then choose your entry. Otherwise, if you don't take home the gold you will blame the person who chose your entry, forever and ever. Blood will run in the streets for generations. WE CAN'T HAVE THAT.

Biting of the bullet may have to occur tomorrow, especially if Ed III insists. As he probably will. Hmm. It's certainly timorous of me to leave someone else to make the final call. FWIW I'm primarily (nay, exclusively) in this for the taking part, although I will of course SB you if you don't vote for me. Or something.

FAO "the table is the table", you CAN format your poem with indentations etc by using the {code} {/code} tags. If you want to post it again in its pristine form, I encourage you! :)

"SB" me? Septically bite me? Sadly birdwatch me?

Spuriously badmouth (in the form of pentametric epigram) (maybe in Latin)

I see your spurious badmouth and raise you a scurrilous bathhouse.

A sidewinding baguette! Amidships! Take zat, mon ami(e).

Feh. You slack bag.

You saucy blaggard!

Suppurating bunion!

Slouching bedward.

*softly bawling*

Splenetic boor!

this could use more work but it's the first i've attempted in forever and it's time to keep moving /obligatory_hedging

On Inducing Retinal Hallucination During Mass

I wouldn't pray, or couldn't gloss my syllables like them,
their tongues loose as clappers in a lolling range of bell-buoys,
wakened by the Spirit. More simple to assume the prayerful attitude:
the fingers herringboned across my forehead would seam the suction
of the diving mask. Meek jelly eyeballs, pressured by the blunt palm,
would oblate: across the purple lids, a sudden bloom of algae.
Even in want of stimulus, there comes perception; in this fluid darkness,
a worm of light angles. Each phosphor germ inhabits this, only this,
atmospheric compression. The man speaking from the pulpit that day
was one of those visionaries who has seen the Blessed Virgin,
conjured by crisis. As he chanted to the congregation "Present,
She is present, she is present here now," I saw her, too,
carbuncular Star of the Sea: hard radiance honed into mobile spines
to stilt astride the faithful, mouth stooping in mercy
to scavenge with its grasping tongue, taking into itself
the dissolving flesh from the fissures of men.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8027767.stm

[only cos its a recent poetry thread]

I've never read any Duffy - obviously its great for a lady to finally become poet laureate and all that though - should I? and if so, what?

okay, i have realized that i inhabit a weird american perspective-- i had to look up Duffy to get what the hell you were talking about.

there is not enough intellectual work with the line as i feel there should be. some poems that i would consider lyric are not considered as such-- simply because of the line that the poet uses. blah blah, there's the lyric narrative, but so many people working outside of the new sentence/paragraph field have been creating quite resonant poetry whilst using completely untraditional line and visual strictures.

elmo, i love your poem and want to break it up. so much lovely space in your words, so much room to move.

oh and in terms of Duffy, i say nay. poet laureates are like pulitzer winners-- the work (and the body of work) can be great, but really, there are better poets working.

it's like you kept on buying cracker jacks and never got a prize until the moment where a box was bestowed on you and the prize was excellent.

buying lotto tickets before a funeral.

Yeah, that's what I expected. Just never been concsious of a new poet laureate before and it had me intruiged.

(Sorry for derailing the thread btw.)

(Also, i've decided to actually take up poetry so for next year's comp, i will actually not suck.)

roman knockwell (elmo argonaut), Friday, May 1, 2009 4:16 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

I say this was written in April, as it was still April in Samoa, Hawaii, Tahiti and various other places where we should be having our instantaneous teleportation tropical time zone poetry FAP.

omg elmo that is fantastic

agree w/ the tab is the tab that you could use some breathing room/judicious line breaks in there but dude don't ever stop

also per captainlorax RIP closing date is may 1 and I interpret that as today being final day for submissions so get posting kids, it's already may 2 in japan

also also not knowing who ashbery is is not the most terrible thing that could happen to a person I bet abbott's dog still beats him

can i be a sneaky bastard and submit both? or will i have to give my dog all the credit for one? or will i have to choose? :(

Don't make fun of SNITTER, LJ. Do you think I'd write that poem? I don't even HAVE a sense a smell. Plus I can actually use my fingers to type; I don't have typos caused by horribly oversized paws.

elmo your poem is wonderful

table, e3, & abbot: thanks for the thumbs up! looking at it now i realize it is a pretty dense chunk of text -- if i ever re-work it i'll give consideration to line-breaks.

although i admit that i have a mild antagonism to creative line breaks for no good reason except that
it makes me think the
stil-
ted
way
that some people

read
poetry

aloud (?)

Elmo you are a man of words and I approve also. Re: your point about spoken poetry, I much prefer it when poets launch into their compositions without any heed to line-breaks or even stanza breaks. As the discrete, unbroken chain, it gathers aural force much more effectively. Obviously this doesn't apply to every poem, but a torrent is always more effective than a dribble.

to be honest i have a hard time justifying to myself the placement of line breaks in what i've written -- it has a tendency to feel arbitrary to me, or even worse, forced. but that's my own internal prejudice, nothing more.

ideally, line & stanza breaks serve the internal rhythm of the poem and guide the reader into the flow. I probably spend as much time (if not more) working on line breaks as I do on word choice. it's a pain, like the drudgery of mixing a song after it's recorded, but when done well the effects are worth it. it's the price of writing free verse. or the vice of righting the perverse.

can't remember who said it but it always bears repeating - "writing free verse is like playing jai alai without a net"

mixing a song after recording? i never really restructure lines after writing a mass of text...the writing process for me incorporates structural choices. each to their own i guess. nice reconfiguration, though

"writing free verse is really like playing jai alai without a net" - marvin bell

thank u google

mixing a song after recording? i never really restructure lines after writing a mass of text...the writing process for me incorporates structural choices. each to their own i guess. nice reconfiguration, though

― sorry for british (country matters), Friday, May 1, 2009 11:34 AM

what about the rewriting process?

True, but I tend to start with a poem in the same rough shape it's going to end up in, otherwise I completely restructure both form and content in the rewrite. Never really form on its own.

huh. forever fine-tuning enjambments here.

Oh yeah, but no grand-scale "shape this text into a poem" construction, that stuff comes as I write. I think it governs my writing-style and content to do it that way round.

“Dutch Schultz, duh,”
Chuck blurts.

Hubbub. Ruckus.

“Hush up,” Buck murmurs.

Dumbstruck: “Uh, sum up.”

“Truth? Drunk trust-fund
numbskull slung guns.”

Lunch truck turns up: crumb-buns,
hummus, spuds, Busch.

Chuck shuts up,
stuffs flush mug full.

But: Lungs burn.
Chuck curls up. Hurls.

Succumbs.

Flu bug? (Shrug.
Stuff hurts.)

Tut-tut, brush-cut skulls.
Drug-bust dust-ups bug
us punk fuck-ups.
Humdrum suburbs suck.

I regret posting mine now, it was a throwaway thing compared to everything else here :/ and no one said anything about it oh well. I have a great sestina! But I wrote it years ago.

Just to jump in on the line break talk upthread: I used to break at points where, while reading aloud, I would pause for breath or effect.

I am not an athlete
Look at me
I'm scrawny and
I've got a limp

etc

These days I think of lines like phrases in a solo.

Whoa Jaymc! U rulz!

Line breaks—I try to use them to help the rhythm, the humor, the narrative. I am stodgy.

If I see a poem that's a big blocky mass of long long lines, I have to fight the temptation to skip over it.

if that was a cannes-like attempt to screen your work out of competition it's not gonna work mr xls

you are in this thing

also beth parker your pome exceeds the 40 line limit and is therefore disqualified from competition

however I am invoking super secret clause 134 of the lorax code which states that beth parker is in perpetuity exempt from all length restrictions of ilx poetry tourneys past present & future

Huh, I wrote that stoned last night -- in the cold sober light of day, there's a couple edits I might make. But thanks!

jaymc that is my favorite thing so far on thread.

duplicate submitters, plz to identify your official entry

"ABOOTT'S EPITATH" by Abbott
"INSECTS AND YOU" by Abbott

"Live the life you want and make your dreams come true" by bernard snowy
"the moment of silence is over" by bernard snowy

"A Girl In Four Movements" by big HOOS aka the steendriver
"at the very bottom" by big HOOS aka the steendriver

"yeah for rotational symmetry!" by country matters
"The Guerrilla Projects Poetic" by country matters

I went to the Donuts a-Dunkin
And thought I would buy me a munchkin.
When asked to describe
What they were to my eyes,
I said they were donuts a-shrunkin'.

Everything Edward III mentioned needs to be accounted for.
Also how about we have an extension until the end of Sunday the 9th?
Lorax came to me in a vision and he nominated Edward III to be in charge of this contest.
Then he farted in my face and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

beth parker your pome exceeds the 40 line limit

The title is a line? Oops. Sorry!

okay, the title shouldn't be a line

"INSECTS AND YOU" by Abbott is my submission

Also how about we have an extension until the end of Sunday the 9th?

Yes please!

i'm more of a reader of poetry than a writer of it, but here is my strange, meager contribution i just wrote for this thread:

Spandrels

Obsolete black boxes turn quietly,
light golden glinting spinning
on a slanted lazy susan.

Discarded heaps of furniture fill a P'up,
red-brown and chrome rusted junk,
in late afternoon on a Tuesday.

Glare in the rearview on the way to the dump:
the reflection on my cargo is bunk,
vestigial, but nicely decorated.

elmo's and abbott's contributions are really great, my favorites so far

beth parker your pome exceeds the 40 line limit

The title is a line? Oops. Sorry!

― Beth Parker, Sunday, May 3, 2009 10:59 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

no, the administrator is a fool

never mind me, your poem is exactly 40 lines

Jaymc that was killer..

Also how about we have an extension until the end of Sunday the 9th?

if there are folks who still want to throw their hats in the ring I don't mind

"INSECTS AND YOU" by Abbott is my submission

thx abbott!

the following participants should voice their preferred submission or risk selection by fiat

"Live the life you want and make your dreams come true" by bernard snowy
"the moment of silence is over" by bernard snowy

"A Girl In Four Movements" by big HOOS aka the steendriver
"at the very bottom" by big HOOS aka the steendriver

"yeah for rotational symmetry!" by country matters
"The Guerrilla Projects Poetic" by country matters

when's the deadline for this? because if there is still a couple of days maybe i could try to write something more than the bullshit 1 minute piece of toss upthread.

new deadline of sunday may 9 has been requested + granted

I'm thinking this window should be open to new entrants only tho?

if we extend deadlines on the basis that ppl want more time to up their game then this thing will never end - what do y'all think?

btw I like yr poem a hoy hoy - there's tossed off and sloppy vs. tossed off and stylish (a la o'hara) and I saw yrs as falling in the latter category fwiw

ha ty.

fair enough on it only being for new entrants.

What about for entirely new poems by people who have already entered but aren't entirely happy with their poem(s)?

anyone who is happy with their poems should be taken out and whipped imo

taken out and whipped

after reading, remove the culprit
he is to be taken out and whipped
he dared to sully our sacred pulpit
he failed to wow us with his wit

fwiw i choose from those two "the guerrilla projects poetic", but if i've written something i'm genuinely happy with by this time tomorrow, then i'll submit that instead. neither of my recent submissions are remotely among my best work, but i'm determined not to rest on past laurels for this one. plus, most of my best stuff is k-long :-/

basically even i'm admitting my submitted shit doesn't hold much of a candle to the best stuff posted here so i'd better sharpen up pronto tbh

oh well a girl in four movements is the better of the two but it isn't fresh so i'm obligated to go with the other

hang on "sunday may 9" waht

ok, if it's allowed, i would like to substitute in the following poem which i wrote just now

self-deprecation is a brutal art

being taken out and whipped
intrusions extracted

a scenario where being taken out and whipped is an adventure

to be tortured
parallels with a peculiar effete stoicism, ravaged

shards of pain but they are ornate and decorative

human construct as effigy
all the while, natural systems exhume old warnings

the act of self-deprecation is a solid state, immobile

crimp the face into caricature
undulations of crowd dispersal, permit solitude

fleeing an English cortex
morbid and mild

divining for water with elm twig and uncrossed palm

water divination as the exhumation of weakness in self
stately bathe as if in deer’s blood at royal appointment

beneath a photon shower of punishment
unhappy in shafts

the new propulsions whittle off the bark and prepare
this poor, forked animal
for psychophysical inclination

bent double over passed water

given only force food
gelatinous hurled vertical
bodymass

unwanted
annex to a sidecar
two spare wheels banished

yips:

reconcile dying parasites to the host’s lover
winkle-picked on the table like metal teeth
meet my friends dear

sun may 9 2010

you have a year to step up yr game

Seriously? Don't do that to me.

kidding is occurring

Gullible is written on the ceiling.

the official submission period has ended

unless an act of fortuitous appeal transpires, here are the final competition entries:

01) "do you ever think about the waves" by G00blar
02) "Pork pies" by snoball
03) "INSECTS AND YOU" by Abbott
04) "Love in a Time of Everything" by Aimless
05) "Bump bump bump" by latebloomer
06) "here are two cats sleeping on a pair of thrift shop sofas" by ian
07) "the moment of silence is over" by bernard snowy
08) "A Girl In Four Movements" by big HOOS aka the steendriver
09) "Paul Was Saul Until He Was Blinded" by Edward III
10) "denver airport advice to a member of the passeridae" by the table is the table
11) "Of all the things I've posted " by M.V.
12) "MY POEM TITLED TUESDYAS" by uh oh I'm having a fantasy
13) "boring job" by rent
14) "April Has The Cruelest Poems" by Beth Parker
15) "TUGJBHHINGS III CAN MN SMELL;" by Abbott's dog
16) "1 Minute of Decadence" by a hoy hoy
17) "We Staggered Like Bonsai" by rogermexico
18) "(emotions)" by Trayce
19) "yeah for rotational symmetry!" by country matters
20) "On Inducing Retinal Hallucination During Mass" by elmo argonaut
21) "Dutch Schultz, duh" by jaymc
22) "I went to the Donuts a-Dunkin" by EZ Snappin
23) "Spandrels" by later arpeggiator
24) "taken out and whipped" by darraghmac

to be swiftly followed by brief notes on selection rationale

i appeal

bernard snowy did not make clear his selection, however I felt that facebook sidebar ads were not the way he would wish to secure his place in history, so I chose "the moment of silence is over"

hoos, I have chosen counter to your expressed wishes, but only because I felt your nominating note smacked of self-sabotaging motivations... so if you will allow me to save you from yourself, I have selected "A Girl In Four Movements"... please forgive me this violation of sacred administrator oath to honor the wishes of the artiste.... however if the texan doth protest I will reverse this fiat

lj, as is your wont you have said three things when one would suffice, and my selection of "yeah for rotational symmetry!" is based on a) best title, b) the expressed opinion of ms beth parker, which is not to be sneezed at, and c) your 3rd poem violates the deadline extension guidelines and as such will have to be reserved for other, less august competitions

I will be constructing the poll forthwith pending a sensible period of appeal and de rigueur ILX haranguing debate

thank u gladiators, and good luck

I will be constructing the poll forthwith pending a sensible period of appeal

"Who is the most appealing?" is a separate poll.

having just deleted quite a lot of text from the "add a post" box, i retract my appeal

An lonely inquisitive stroll down lover's lane

I really wanted to write a great poem
Before the deadline was due
I ended up procrastinating
Or maybe I just struggled a lot and came up with nothing good.

I never had a god but I sure wish I did
He would help me achieve simple goals
So that I could be the man I want to be
And I could do the things I want to do.

Alas, that's not going to happen.
So I should be happy with what I am.
233 lbs of weak, pathetic, realistic,
generally optimistic, fat and bones.

Some people think I'm a barrel of laughs
They think I'm a great funny guy
So maybe I should end this (uhh) poem optimistically
and admit that I like myself the way I am.

I like myself the way I am.
(This poem isn't very good though)

I should have wrote that the poem about a possibly suicidal jump at lover's leap
but I never got past the title
And if you like this poem then FUCK YOU.
And FUCK ME too. I wouldn't mind being fucked.

THE END

DQ'd for not being about wind imo

unless it is about wind and i am being dense

hold on, I need the mods to edit a line

2009 ILE poetry CONTEST giggity goo!

'I should have wrote that the poem about a possibly suicidal jump at lover's leap'

to

'I should have wrote out the poem idea about a possible suicidal jump at lover's leap'

(i've been barred from moderator request forum for some reason)

I'm serious about that entry btw. and it's still Sunday

fyi i am genuinely saddened that my best poem won't be represented here, and that my late-night gouging of inspiration has come to a temporary nought, but i accept that it was created via a slightly dishonest opportunism, and that sans extension i'd have been forced to choose between the two i originally submitted anyway, in which case beth is OTM, and the non-hypocritical choice would indeed be "yeah", being as it was written with this competition in mind, unlike the other. plus, it's not about the winning, it's about the taking pot-shots at everybody when their poem does better than mine ;-)

here is something (lame) I was playing around with yesterday but it had so many annoying rhymes
the blanks are where I was stuck

-----------------------------------------
I took a jump at lover’s leap
Because I’m suicidal, suicidal
I hooked a broad in her back seat
Because I’m homicidal, homicidal

I went to church and kissed Christ’s feet
He was my dying idol, prying my soul
Confessed sin______________________defeat
He was_______________________________

eeh not that it matters or anything, but in no way was mine an entry.

how about this?

I went to church and kissed Christ’s feet
He was my dying idol, prying my soul
I confessed my sin, the agony of defeat
Nonetheless impressed by my own folderol

we will all speak thus when abbott's dog lords its supremacy over us

I guess it is still sunday for a while? will my preemptive call of deadline shake the final hesitants from the brush?

I guess the internal conflict of "Sunday the 9th" should be resolved by erring towards sunday

hoos, I have chosen counter to your expressed wishes

no worries

it's for the best iirc

U DO

lol sry for caps

really there's no need to yell

Edward III, I don't mind you trying to help me with that poem at all (anyone can try if they want) but somehow I wanted the last two lines to incorporate why I lost faith in Jesus (and/or self-deprecation) in a format like this:

(I went)_____________________(feet)
He was_______(my soul),_____(idol)

*filling in rhymes for the stuff I put in parentheses

Obviously you wouldn't have known that's how I planned on finishing that part of the poem (especially since I left misleading notes in the original poem I copy pasted above).

"help"

actually if you left it like this

(I went)_____________________(feet)
He was_______(my soul),_____(idol)

you could play the experimental card and stroke yr beard mysteriously

it is not sunday anywhere anymore and here are your final contestigants

01) "do you ever think about the waves" by G00blar
02) "Pork pies" by snoball
03) "INSECTS AND YOU" by Abbott
04) "Love in a Time of Everything" by Aimless
05) "Bump bump bump" by latebloomer
06) "here are two cats sleeping on a pair of thrift shop sofas" by ian
07) "the moment of silence is over" by bernard snowy
08) "A Girl In Four Movements" by big HOOS aka the steendriver
09) "Paul Was Saul Until He Was Blinded" by Edward III
10) "denver airport advice to a member of the passeridae" by the table is the table
11) "Of all the things I've posted " by M.V.
12) "MY POEM TITLED TUESDYAS" by uh oh I'm having a fantasy
13) "boring job" by rent
14) "April Has The Cruelest Poems" by Beth Parker
15) "TUGJBHHINGS III CAN MN SMELL;" by Abbott's dog
16) "1 Minute of Decadence" by a hoy hoy
17) "We Staggered Like Bonsai" by rogermexico
18) "(emotions)" by Trayce
19) "yeah for rotational symmetry!" by country matters
20) "On Inducing Retinal Hallucination During Mass" by elmo argonaut
21) "Dutch Schultz, duh" by jaymc
22) "I went to the Donuts a-Dunkin" by EZ Snappin
23) "Spandrels" by later arpeggiator
24) "taken out and whipped" by darraghmac
25) "An lonely inquisitive stroll down lover's lane" by Mulvaney

I dread that I was too late to participate :'(

Will poll though.

Launch a write-in campaign.