Monday, March 17, 2008

123 Acrostic Poetry meme

H-Acrostic 123 Poetry Meme

This is for Andree, it's a variation on the page 123 meme for
poets--anyone can do it but it does take some time. I did this today,
this morning, but I recommend taking more time with it for best
results.

1)choose a book (mine is Marge Piercy's Three Women (Excellent book!)
2)go to P 123, Look for the first interesting word or phrase:
"Increasingly Silent All Day" (you can go on to the next page if
necessary)(Short words are quicker!)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V
W X Y Z
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26

For each letter of your word or phrase, add that letters number of
pages and count down that letter's number of lines and write down the
first interesting phrase BEGINNING with the LETTER. Continuing adding
pages, and if you get to end, continue from the beginning. Or just
open any page randomly. Do NOT use a poetry book.

I=123+9= 132 p132, 9 lines down: insane desire to flee, to run off
into the misty morning and vanish
N=132+14=146, p 146, 14 lines down: nothing else, she waited until
Monday afternoon when everyone else was out of the house.
C=146+3=149, p149, 3 lines down: could no longer handle ordinary (clothes)
R=149+19=168, p168, 19 lines down: religiously, full of tales and dreams
E=168+5=173, p173, 5 lines down: Expect the brightest spot in her life
A: All he needed he could fit in a backpack
S: Sensible and cool. She liked to keep him on edge
I: I'm good for you, I only have to charm everyone, it was the
excitement she craved
N: Nothing's going on, not something she should spring on him, not fat
G: gently by the elbows as if she might fly apart. Grinning

S: Stood staring, seeing through her lashes. Scared. Bleak
I: I was innocent. I was depressed
L: Love had been a roaring inside her
E: Enjoy other people's pretend lives
C: Coward. Failure. Tried to kill herself.
E: Eyelids fluttered several times. Opened a slit. Moaned.

(Yours of course will look different.)

Now comes the hard poetry part. Now that you have a start, you can
change anything you want, look up new phrases. You can keep the
acrostic form, but if you do, try to make it not be obvious. Or get
rid of it. Revise and Edit till you have a poem. Feeel free to take
a week or two at least with this meme. Try to keep at least some part
of the original words or phrases.

Increasing Silence

I want to flee, to run off insane and vanish into morning, into mist, as if
nothing else mattered, as if everyone was gone from my life, as if I
could no longer handle ordinary relationships, as if love didn't exist. I am not
religious, but spiritual maybe and full of tales, dreams and fantasies, always
expecting love to be the brightest spot in my life, and full of laughter. If only
all I needed could fit in a backpack. If I could just be
sensible and calm. But life keeps me on edge. Remember love? Why can
I no longer charm you? Once I craved excitement, adventure.
Now, nothing happens. At bedtime, only sleep. Not even sleep. Hold me
gently by the elbows—I might fly apart. Stop frowning. I'm

scared. And bleak. I stand staring, seeing your lips through wet lashes.
I'm not innocent. I'm depressed, angry, hurt. Lonely.
Love roars inside me. Of course I still love you. But I don't
enjoy pretend lives, and silence! Distances. Touch me. Am I a
coward? A failure? I want the opposite of suicide. Give me life! Kiss my
eyelids! Butterfly kisses, moans of delight. Shhh, just hold me.


And here's another:

Complaints

Crazy you mutter the blues festival city's a mess ugh such a mob you look
over the boisterous crowd from a frowning face frown more deeply your
main gripe's the noise the surging swarm of humanity your
principle goal's to keep from slipping into the unruly streets
listen blues and laughter shrieks of joy but you shrink back
anticipate jostling pickpockets thieves and hustlers
insist always on security on your own way you would
never admit you'd prefer to hide inside turn on the TV watch the whole
thing canned later say yes you saw the sweat on the bass player's lip come on
stop grumbling lean closer enjoy with me this dancing pageant of people.


(Both poems by me, Mary Stebbins Taitt. the first one is brand new.)

on regular paper, these have an acrostic form but it is lost in the blog, which is too narrow. :-(

The H in H-Acrostic is from HARVESTED--meaning you start with harvested phrases.

The robin is from Thursday--they've been here about two weeks now.

I tag Andree, Michael, Pam, Leaf Lady, jo(e), Blue Rose and anyone else who would like
to play along. I may add links later, don't have time now.

(Oh, and of course, Happy St. Patrick's day. See next post.)

I said I didn't like memes all that much but I guess I like them better than I think--this is the third in a week--AK!

9 comments:

Coffeypot said...

I think I will go to the funny papers. Pictures are easier to read.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

I'd love to see the poem you write, coffey, using comic strips, how fun!

Andree said...

OMG
This is a challenge. A vaulting challenge. Overwhelming challenge.

But I do have this mathematics conference this week I have to go to . . . so if I take the rules with me, and a good book . . .

This may be the most interesting conference I go to.

Andree said...

oh I forgot.

Thank you so much for this. I think you are feeling the doldrums that are here because of the snow and non-stop storms. I need this stimulation.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

These are really fun, Andre, and although the take a little time, they can be addicting! I have revised that poem more since I posted it--was going to post it elsewhere and link it but haven;t had time--my computer crashed trying to get to your page to let you know--dunno why--scary. Crahsed twice--this was a computer that rarely crashes.

I have a ton of these H-Acrostics and others.

The reason you should not use poetry is the lines are already very refined which makes it harder to change them and they are sometimes recognizable to the poet and people who have read the poem whereas phrases harvested from novels are less poetic, usually and have to be strongly revised and thus become your own.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

oops, needed to proof that last comment! Argh~!!

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

that should say Andree--with two Es

bluerose said...

Oooo! What fun! I'm working on it right now. My favorite books are in a box somewhere in storage right now, so I'm using a book about gardening that's actually quite poetic. I'm having to work at making the phrases my own, though. I'll let you know when I post.

bluerose said...

Ok, done. I hope I did it right. I wasn't sure about how much to change or keep the same. I'm open to some constructive critisism, if you get a spare moment. If you're real busy, don't worry about it :]