greenmountaineer
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2008
- Posts
- 2,442
I'm fascinated how language is ever changing and expanding. It seems to me that will accelerate even more so in the near future. A kid in Beijing probably knows what a "Big Mac" is even if he doesn't know another word in English.
I'd like to suggest a challenge where the poem will include words from a foreign language, but here's the real challenge: Include words that can be understood in the context of the poem, such that a reader doesn't have to go to a dictionary to discover their meaning.
I've dusted off an old poem to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:
Lidice
Iowa read it with eggs and bacon
on the front page of The Register
while Britain's Houses of Parliament
spewed their afternoon tea.
Do not trouble der Führer, little boys
of Europe and America.
Your women will be raped, your children
worked like slaves. Der Führer has his ways
and the means for men of Czechoslovakia,
shot in Horák's pasture and trenched
from which their blood in Lidice’s clay
shaped sculpted children too frightened to say
J's for jablko, C for chléb
packed in their lunch box every day
and R for the růže Maminska once grew
that wilts among weeds in her garden.
(In memoriam for the massacre on June 10, 1942)
http://www.lidice-memorial.cz/en/memorial/war-childrens-victims-monument/
"Der Führer," of course, is easily recognizable. "jablko" and "chlèb" aren't, and I'd argue that what they specifically are is less important than the image of innocence where children bring their lunch pails to school. Maybe you disagree. "růže" and "Maminska" I think are discernible as "rose" and "Mother."
Poems in dialect are acceptable too, for example, "Brooklynese" or Cockney, but tease the words so it's a little more challenging than "youse guys" or "Blimey!"
If I can get 5-6 poets interested, I'll go ahead with it and follow the same pattern as recent challenges, i.e., anonymous postings, a period of feedback, and possible revisions before disclosing authorship.
.
I'd like to suggest a challenge where the poem will include words from a foreign language, but here's the real challenge: Include words that can be understood in the context of the poem, such that a reader doesn't have to go to a dictionary to discover their meaning.
I've dusted off an old poem to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:
Lidice
Iowa read it with eggs and bacon
on the front page of The Register
while Britain's Houses of Parliament
spewed their afternoon tea.
Do not trouble der Führer, little boys
of Europe and America.
Your women will be raped, your children
worked like slaves. Der Führer has his ways
and the means for men of Czechoslovakia,
shot in Horák's pasture and trenched
from which their blood in Lidice’s clay
shaped sculpted children too frightened to say
J's for jablko, C for chléb
packed in their lunch box every day
and R for the růže Maminska once grew
that wilts among weeds in her garden.
(In memoriam for the massacre on June 10, 1942)
http://www.lidice-memorial.cz/en/memorial/war-childrens-victims-monument/
"Der Führer," of course, is easily recognizable. "jablko" and "chlèb" aren't, and I'd argue that what they specifically are is less important than the image of innocence where children bring their lunch pails to school. Maybe you disagree. "růže" and "Maminska" I think are discernible as "rose" and "Mother."
Poems in dialect are acceptable too, for example, "Brooklynese" or Cockney, but tease the words so it's a little more challenging than "youse guys" or "Blimey!"
If I can get 5-6 poets interested, I'll go ahead with it and follow the same pattern as recent challenges, i.e., anonymous postings, a period of feedback, and possible revisions before disclosing authorship.
.
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