Companion to the 5 Senses Challenge

Tzara

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I frankly don't remember if there is a companion thread to The 5 Senses Poem Challenge. I don't think there is, but there sure should be one as bogusagain, Desejo, njoyjade, and Tristesse2 are really rocking it, right now, poetically, and I want to talk about their poems without mussing up the original thread, which is a chain poem, so to speak.

Because I want to tell them that their poems are wonderful, and yet not mess up the original thread, we now have this.

Commentary Central.

Feel free to comment, 'K?
 
Thanks Mr. T. I have to add that this challenge has been a great stick to prod my muse with.
 
Home in Sixty-three Days

Our tongues mingled together with
the taste of black cherries;
you chose the filling...
I thought this worked very well as a poem about a wife (or lover, it is not clear to me in the poem) welcoming home a soldier from duty elsewhere.

Of course, I don't know that is what the author is writing about.

Still, a good poem. Lines like
We’ve written to each other for the past
Three hundred and one days;
You chose to serve​
while straightforward, are evocative of the Narrator's situation. How hard it is to wait for one's love to return from overseas.

Of course, if this poem is not about a military relationship or something similar to that, I'll look like an idiot.

Since I am an idiot, I guess I'm OK with that.
 
Thanks Mr. T. I have to add that this challenge has been a great stick to prod my muse with.
Thank Neo for it, not me. I think he originated the thread.




I hope your weather is better than ours. We are like looking at a very, very sucky Independence Day.
 
Thank Neo for it, not me. I think he originated the thread.




I hope your weather is better than ours. We are like looking at a very, very sucky Independence Day.

I was just going to edit my post to add thanks to neo.

it looks fairly promising.
Thanks neo. :kiss:
 
I thought this worked very well as a poem about a wife (or lover, it is not clear to me in the poem) welcoming home a soldier from duty elsewhere.

Of course, I don't know that is what the author is writing about.

Still, a good poem. Lines like
We’ve written to each other for the past
Three hundred and one days;
You chose to serve​
while straightforward, are evocative of the Narrator's situation. How hard it is to wait for one's love to return from overseas.

Of course, if this poem is not about a military relationship or something similar to that, I'll look like an idiot.

Since I am an idiot, I guess I'm OK with that.

I also thought it was about waiting for someone in the military - and agree it was a strong poem. There are others I will comment on from the thread - I need to go back and re-read them.
 
I thought this worked very well as a poem about a wife (or lover, it is not clear to me in the poem) welcoming home a soldier from duty elsewhere.

Of course, I don't know that is what the author is writing about.

Still, a good poem. Lines like
We’ve written to each other for the past
Three hundred and one days;
You chose to serve​
while straightforward, are evocative of the Narrator's situation. How hard it is to wait for one's love to return from overseas.
.

Thank you Tzara & Desejo,
It must be agonizing to wait for your loved one while they serve overseas.

This poem starts on their wedding day "he chose the filling" and the following morning he is "called" to serve. She waits for their first anniversary,
when he's due home. It's customary to freeze the top of the cake & eat it on the first
anniversary "tickle my nose with frosting".
The sight word posed the most challenging, thank you Tristesse2 for "dogs mating":)
Their dogs "couldn't wait", so puppies are also due in sixty-three days!

I have read many poems on the 5 Senses Challenge that blew me away! I look forward to participating on this thread.
Thanks again,
Jade
 
Musings on ..Process

OK, I have started to re-read the thread. Here is my first comment/ subject of musing.

What I find really interesting about the 5 senses challenge is how writers incorporate, and process words. Because it is a chain poem, it is not always so clear - but consider the "mistake" below, when Neo and Azaela overlapped posts.

The words, given by Tzara were:

Sight: An urban environment
Sound: A low hum
Feel: Something irregular, or uneven
Smell: Burnt wood or paper
Taste: The sharp bite of white wine

Azalea's poem:

Code:
Sitting on the terrace
skin irritated by broken wood slats
tangy coolness of Chardonnay
refreshing in the early summer haze

the hum of distant machinery
erupts in a blast of smoke
and my nose suddenly
burns with an acrid scent

we really must consider
 a move to the suburbs
And Neo's:

Fuck Progress

The concrete cubes and smoke stacks
obscure the view as does the low hum
of urbanization. The stink of pulp mills
burning, are a red light at a 4-way in
an alfalfa-and-sheep nowhere.

This sprawl scars the country,
where Starbuck's pock main street
giving the locals a taste of modernization.

It feels uneven, I mull this sitting
in a new bodega with sauvignon blanc
sharp on my tongue, longing
for this small town to stay small and
iced sweet tea in a jelly jar.

I love both of those poems, in part because I am very skeptical of “progress” and urbanization, but more so because of the strong sense of place and personal in each poem. In my own posts on the thread, when respond to the words, I have noted that I immediately reach for a setting to write from, and a point of view. The beauty of this challenge is that it forces a holistic idea, place, experience. Am I being over educmacated or woo-woo? thoughts?
 
I love both of those poems [. . .] because of the strong sense of place and personal in each poem. In my own posts on the thread, when [I ]respond to the words, I have noted that I immediately reach for a setting to write from, and a point of view. The beauty of this challenge is that it forces a holistic idea, place, experience. Am I being over educmacated or woo-woo? thoughts?
No, you're not. I think (the terms "educmacated or woo-woo" seem not to have been filed in my brain bank) the real strength of this challenge is that it forces the responding poet to think concretely. In your case, setting takes precedence, in others some different aspect (sense focus) might take precedence. But because the poet has to think sensually about the given terms, or parameters, he or she is forced to try and anchor his/her poem in the world of sensation. Which makes for better poems.

The challenge, by its nature, reduces abstraction, which makes for much better poems.
 
Four feet behind her
stride, my gaze rides the hem
of her sheer scarf...
This is a really good poem, PG, but I want to ask you about one particular aspect of it, namely the break on the first line, that Four feet behind her / stride, thing.

I've recently encountered at least a couple of times in my reading some author speaking to something called "hard enjambment," which as best I can tell is something like what you've done at that first line break--force a split in the middle of a syntactical phrase such that the usual demi-pause at the end of the line is negated and the reader is rushed on to the next line.

I guess what I want to ask, since I don't really understand this as technique, is what you are trying to accomplish with it.

You want to school me on technique, I am eager to have my knuckles rapped by your severe ruler. :rolleyes:
 
I was trying to get the feeling of someone walking quite quickly and the sense of seeing a scarf bobbing behind the person as my gaze would be. My gaze and my gait are not as long nor quick as this woman's walking. Perhaps to secure this intention, I should mention that I am watching her cut through crowds of people in Washington Park? :)

PS. Were I to rap something with my ruler, 'twouldn't be knuckles, kind sir.

This is a really good poem, PG, but I want to ask you about one particular aspect of it, namely the break on the first line, that Four feet behind her / stride, thing.

I've recently encountered at least a couple of times in my reading some author speaking to something called "hard enjambment," which as best I can tell is something like what you've done at that first line break--force a split in the middle of a syntactical phrase such that the usual demi-pause at the end of the line is negated and the reader is rushed on to the next line.

I guess what I want to ask, since I don't really understand this as technique, is what you are trying to accomplish with it.

You want to school me on technique, I am eager to have my knuckles rapped by your severe ruler. :rolleyes:
 
Posted by Desejo
today

Sight: thunder storm
Sound: cats or kittens meow
Taste: sour, tangy
Touch: hard wood
Smell: coffee

Laura and Almanzo in the Kitchen

Dark clouds roll in over the prairie
the morning flashes in lightening
The rain pounds on the zinc roof

My arms ache mildly
as I knead the bread dough
watching the show outside

The smell of coffee brewing
is what wakes you
The irresistible draw
of seducing a woman in the kitchen
is what keeps you

Soon enough its not only the bread that is rising

Our bodies fit together
in a tight puzzle
like pieces of the wood floor
under our bare feet

The taste of your skin puts sourdough to shame

Complete bliss
of rainy morning second sleep follows
With a contented meow the cat
makes a nest in the blankets
tangled at our feet.



I Love it! I felt like I was there, you have a gift for description.
 
I agree, njoy, and would add that page 11 is full of fine poems well worth reading. Well done, poets.
 
Prince

My father’s ghost
avoids the castle’s ramparts.
He simply rings the bell,
and we open the front door
to his spectral form. This was
his house, after all, though very 50s,
chic for its time. Like
that low howl
of wind under the eaves: Quite Bates Motel,
and I do so love my mother.

Bravo! And to think that King Hamlet could have been more like Caspar the friendly ghost.
 
Sight: boxes
Sound: sniffling
Taste : baileys
Smell: dust
Touch: marble

our skins sleep smoothly
cool under bamboo chop blade fan
shadowing flats and curves
in its slow whorl mocking deadliness

stroke this marble hip with your heavy
hand ignoring the slow whine
of morning tires the hiss of water
spraying dust to mud

behind the building on Frederick Douglas
Boulevard intrusion sniffles
clears its throat makes its cruel
announcement of day and duty but

keep eyes closed as I slide over you
tight and wholly alive until morning slides
half way back into night then open
to the small silver boxes dangling between

breasts that brush the hard rise of your chest
until you lift us both against the interior wall
gratefully blind to any time but this despite
foreshadows of Saturday Baileys and Sunday Times

I love this. You incorporated every word in a theme so naturally, and the details are as beautiful as the language. Just beautiful.
 
Excuse me while I gush.

Maybe it's just me, but there seems to be a number of very good poems being posted on the PF&D lately. And not just "good" poems, but poems that are good in interesting ways, be it theme or subject matter or phrasing. Or all three together.

The 5 Senses challenge is particularly hot right now. Angie, Desejo, Dora, greenmountaineer, Remec: all multiple poems, all intelligent and interesting reads. You guys rock.

Dora's 007 thread has her own wonderfully evocative and inventive poems as well as Champie, Micah (who I really wish would talk a bit, since he rocks as a poet) and Dov. All of them writing good stuff.

The Villanelle challenge, the Nemesis challenge, Writing Live, all of a sudden (etc.)... It's all good right now, which is kind of odd for the summer.

I am so not complaining, though.

ETA: I forgot bogus's Everyday Erotic challenge. Really good poems by bogus, by bronze, by Desejo. Angie, too, though first posted elsewhere.

You guys are all making me jealous.

Which is probably good.

Probably.

Thank you, poets. I appreciate your gifts.
 
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That was a great gush, Tzara. I have been feeling inspired in the last few months, too. In part that is because of reading and responding to things I read and learn from here.

And things are looking up on other fronts. Just heard The Idiom is putting a couple of my older poems in the next issue. Finally, I am cracking open my copy of The Poet's Market.
 
And things are looking up on other fronts. Just heard The Idiom is putting a couple of my older poems in the next issue. Finally, I am cracking open my copy of The Poet's Market.
That's super news, PG. Congratulations!
 
Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Jardin des Tuileries
In a thread that has seen many excellent poems, I think this is an especially excellent poem.

In any case, it is a brilliant solution to the problem presented by the five senses. The third S is wonderfully evocative (the hair tangling like veins around his gloved hands is a fabulous line) and the abrupt transition (Would you like another raspberry,darling?) works really well.

Not everything is perfect, of course, but it reminds me of the kind of poem gm might write, though perhaps more sensual. As gm is my gold standard, this is, like, gold.

I did say I really liked this, didn't I? :rolleyes:
 
In a thread that has seen many excellent poems, I think this is an especially excellent poem.

In any case, it is a brilliant solution to the problem presented by the five senses. The third S is wonderfully evocative (the hair tangling like veins around his gloved hands is a fabulous line) and the abrupt transition (Would you like another raspberry,darling?) works really well.

Not everything is perfect, of course, but it reminds me of the kind of poem gm might write, though perhaps more sensual. As gm is my gold standard, this is, like, gold.

I did say I really liked this, didn't I? :rolleyes:

I'd be hard pressed to emulate Desejo's excellent poem; it had a hypnotic effect on me. It did inspire a step child, L'Histoire du Parc des Buttes Chaumont, which immediatley followed it and predictably lacked sensuality, although morbidity ran like a bloody river through it.

I always admire you folks who seem to be able to write a poem quickly as in the case of the 5 Senses Challenge; me, I've already thought of about 8 or 9 edits, but I'm biting my tongue and my pen, I mean iPad.
 
I'd be hard pressed to emulate Desejo's excellent poem; it had a hypnotic effect on me. It did inspire a step child, L'Histoire du Parc des Buttes Chaumont, which immediatley followed it and predictably lacked sensuality, although morbidity ran like a bloody river through it.

I always admire you folks who seem to be able to write a poem quickly as in the case of the 5 Senses Challenge; me, I've already thought of about 8 or 9 edits, but I'm biting my tongue and my pen, I mean iPad.

Thanks Tzara and Greenmountaineer - I was going to piggyback on the Histoire du Parc des Buttes Chaumont with another Paris poem..but someone beat me to it!
 
The 5 Senses challenge thread really morphed since I created it a few years ago. And now look, it has a its own Campanion thread. It's a shame I can't go to the original post and put a link to this thread. Aw well.

The 5 Senses Poem thread has been a great creative spur. I have my own personal version of it in my documents that some days I just make lists of words when I can't think of a poem to write at the moment (see my attachment for this list). Once I write a poem, I delete the word list I used. Of course it's always great to have someone else's word list, but it's fun with your own personal list too.
 
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