Sense of Place Challenge - any takers?

[legerdemer]

At Annie's prompt in the Foreign Challenge thread, and because I have some time and haven't done one of these in a while, I'd be happy to run one if I get any takers.

Tomorrow is May Day, aka International Workers' Day. I'm not about to run a workers' day poetry challenge (though that might be interesting in some odd way), but it turns out that labor day/labour day/workers' day is celebrated differently and on different days in different places depending where you are in the world.

Which brings me to the real theme of the challenge I propose - write a poem in which setting plays a central role and is intricately linked to the "action' or main event(s) in the poem. Write about something important to you that is tied to its setting - a moving memory, a personal life-changing event tied to a place, a historical event that changed you--you get the drift.

But I'd like to make it a bit harder - write in a form (any form) you do not normally use. Challenge yourself on the technical side as well - your choice of how.

Let me know if this appeals - let your fingers do the voting on this thread, and express your preference for one of the two timelines.

I envision something like poems being submitted by end of day May 12 (but we could lengthen it to May 19). I'll post them the morning of May 13 (or May 20) so people have time to comment etc. Revisions and posting of author list over the next week, etc etc.

 

[pelegrino]

Hi Mer,
I'm game for it, but I want to ask a few questions:

Does it have to be completely new or can it be a little older?
Can we submit more than one?
Can we submit excerpts (more or less finite), of a bigger whole (from a cycle or a canto, for example) ?
The writing in a form that I don’t usually write gives me some trouble, cause I cannot think readily of any form in which I haven’t tried, (I'll have to think seriously on that, but I like this challenging thought).

Happy worker's day to all for tomorrow.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Challenges always help me to be a better writer, so count me in.

 

[legerdemer]

Hi Mer,
I'm game for it, but I want to ask a few questions:

Does it have to be completely new or can it be a little older?
Can we submit more than one?
Can we submit excerpts (more or less finite), of a bigger whole (from a cycle or a canto, for example) ?
The writing in a form that I don’t usually write gives me some trouble, cause I cannot think readily of any form in which I haven’t tried, (I'll have to think seriously on that, but I like this challenging thought).

Happy worker's day to all for tomorrow.

Submit as many as you wish!

Excerpts would be fine as long as they are self contained - that is, as long as the reader can get some feeling of completeness. You know - just one of Ulysses's adventures would be fine for this one.

Regarding the specific form - that one is really up to you; it doesn't have to be new to you, just not your usual. In my case, not blank verse (or is it free verse, I can never remember which one has neither rhyme nor meter). In AH's case, to pick on him because it's easy, not a sonnet (though he's not been writing that many sonnets lately).

The point is to have it be enough of a challenge that it bumps each of us a little out of our wheel houses.

I'm glad you're joining us again!

 

[legerdemer]

Challenges always help me to be a better writer, so count me in.

Terrific!

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I'm trying to think of a form I don't normally use. Limerick? Or maybe I should try one of those acrostic things that Annie does. I'll come up with something.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I have a slight problem!! I write in forms all the time! I'd better go find one I haven't done for a while, which means it would be a difficult one eeeeek!

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I have a slight problem!! I write in forms all the time! I'd better go find one I haven't done for a while, which means it would be a difficult one eeeeek!

I'll make a deal with you. You assign me an obscure form, and I'll assign you one. What do you say?

 

[pelegrino]

I had an idea. I don’t know if others would like it, but please say so either way.
After the authors have been identified and if the poems were referring to actual geographical places we could attach the geographical co-ordinates of such places to the poems. I am always curious and fascinated by that short of thing (perhaps my regret for not becoming a sailor in my life ).
Anyhow, if we go to this URL
and, for example, type in the search "Isle of White"
we get the latitude (50.693848), longitude (-1.304734) and a nice picture of the centre (I presume) of the island but not really recognizable as an island or where it is.
In the bottom right hand corner of the picture there is a plus and a minus button.
By pushing six times the minus button I get an entirely different picture showing me part of the south coast of England, The Solent and the entire island of White. The more I use this zoom-out facility, the more geographical detail is provided. By the eighth click I can already see the western coast of France.
How about it?

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I had an idea. I don’t know if others would like it, but please say so either way.
After the authors have been identified and if the poems were referring to actual geographical places we could attach the geographical co-ordinates of such places to the poems. I am always curious and fascinated by that short of thing (perhaps my regret for not becoming a sailor in my life ).
Anyhow, if we go to this URL
and, for example, type in the search "Isle of White"
we get the latitude (50.693848), longitude (-1.304734) and a nice picture of the centre (I presume) of the island but not really recognizable as an island or where it is.
In the bottom right hand corner of the picture there is a plus and a minus button.
By pushing six times the minus button I get an entirely different picture showing me part of the south coast of England, The Solent and the entire island of White. The more I use this zoom-out facility, the more geographical detail is provided. By the eighth click I can already see the western coast of France.
How about it?

It's the Isle of Wight

 

[pelegrino]

sorry for my mistake, Annie, I stand corrected. It still brings it up on the picture though, even with the wrong orthography

 

[legerdemer]

I have a slight problem!! I write in forms all the time! I'd better go find one I haven't done for a while, which means it would be a difficult one eeeeek!

I'll make a deal with you. You assign me an obscure form, and I'll assign you one. What do you say?

Works great for me if it works for you. Or you can write form-less. I know AH has preferred forms, Annie less so.

At one point I thought we should all try writing bobs, but that seemed too restrictive. I'm nothing if not an agent of chaos.

 

[legerdemer]

I had an idea. I don’t know if others would like it, but please say so either way.
After the authors have been identified and if the poems were referring to actual geographical places we could attach the geographical co-ordinates of such places to the poems. I am always curious and fascinated by that short of thing (perhaps my regret for not becoming a sailor in my life ).
Anyhow, if we go to this URL
and, for example, type in the search "Isle of White"
we get the latitude (50.693848), longitude (-1.304734) and a nice picture of the centre (I presume) of the island but not really recognizable as an island or where it is.
In the bottom right hand corner of the picture there is a plus and a minus button.
By pushing six times the minus button I get an entirely different picture showing me part of the south coast of England, The Solent and the entire island of White. The more I use this zoom-out facility, the more geographical detail is provided. By the eighth click I can already see the western coast of France.
How about it?

I'll leave this up to the discretion of each poet - happy to post the GPS coordinates, but if someone is made uncomfortable because it may breach their privacy, no worries, eh?

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I'll make a deal with you. You assign me an obscure form, and I'll assign you one. What do you say?

I must decline your kind offer due to the fact I am not going to get stuck with a Sestina or even worse an Annikey

 

[pelegrino]

I'll leave this up to the discretion of each poet - happy to post the GPS coordinates, but if someone is made uncomfortable because it may breach their privacy, no worries, eh?

Yes of course, I did not mean to interfere with the whereabouts of anyone, only as optional. (in my case place and time are structural elements and many times are meant to be taken literally and seriously as part of the text itself).

 

[legerdemer]

...and we're off and running!

The first submission just landed in my PM box.

(At least not in my PMS box. ugh, that was horrible )

Ahem, where was I? Ah yes, beating the bushes for more submissions, of course! Youse gots two weeks. Unless y'all wants three.

 

[Piscator]

Have you set the deadline yet. If it's May 12, I'll have to pass as I'm off canoeing/fishing in Algonquin next week. but if it's the 19th I'll be coming back with lost of sense of place sensibilities. It might also be fun to take an older fre verse sense of place poem, and apply it to a form.

 

[RubiDia]

I'm totally out. Have fun on your fishing trip... Piscator.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Have you set the deadline yet. If it's May 12, I'll have to pass as I'm off canoeing/fishing in Algonquin next week. but if it's the 19th I'll be coming back with lost of sense of place sensibilities. It might also be fun to take an older fre verse sense of place poem, and apply it to a form.

Please extend it to 19th I'm struggling!