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The Monthly Poetry Challenge, September 2006

Lauren Hynde

Lauren Hynde

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Joined
Apr 11, 2002
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21,061
Originally Posted by Sex&Death
Inspiration, motivation, celebration, competition, conflagration, communion...call it what you will...this is the place to have some fun while you challenge and stretch yourself to be a better poet and offer constructive feedback and critique to help others become better poets.

Guidelines
Each month one new Poetry Challenge will be offered by a Literotica poet volunteer. To volunteer, see the thread called: The Monthly Poetry Challenge - Logistics & Reveries.

There are no winners, losers or prizes, and everyone is always eligible.

You can enter as many poems as you like, but remember, if you want feedback and critique you have to give feedback and critique. A primary goal is that every poem entered receive some form of constructive feedback and critique. Let us agree that a good rule of thumb is to offer constructive feedback and critique on a minimum of two poems for every one poem you enter. Those deemed to be taking advantage of the generosity of others will be served up the worst kind of poetic justice!

Each poem should be in a separate post to this thread (whether submitted to Literotica or not). If you do not want to receive feedback or critique you must state so with each poem you enter. You are still responsible to offer feedback and critique even if you decline it from others.

Deadlines
The Monthly Poetry Challenge will be posted by the 1st day of each month. The deadline for entries will be the 14th of each month. Feedback and critique will be offered from the 15th to the last day of each month.

Thank you, and enjoy.
Click to expand...

The Monthly Poetry Challenge I have prepared for you this September is something that has been on my mind for a long time. A bestiary, or Bestiarum Vocabulum is a compendium of beasts, and was very popular in the middle ages. These books gathered texts and illustrations of the various animals, usually focusing on a moral lesson or on the symbolic meaning of the animal. We have had in this forum more than enough examples of how this last aspect lends itself well to poetry.

Your collective mission, should you choose to accept it, is to produce a Poetic Bestiary with as many different animals represented as possible. Repeats will be inevitable, of course, because we don't know what the others are writing at the same time, but if you see something already posted, try to diversify.

Your (individual) challenge for September is to write a poem, erotic or non-erotic, of any length or form, that represents or illustrates the symbolic meaning of the animal of your choice. Real animals are strongly preferred, but if you really must write about that unicorn, that's OK as well.

Poems are due no later than September 14. Post your poems to this thread, whether you submit them to Literotica or not. Feedback and critiques will begin on the 15th and end on the last day of September.

Have fun!
 
Lauren Hynde said:
The Monthly Poetry Challenge I have prepared for you this September is something that has been on my mind for a long time. A bestiary, or Bestiarum Vocabulum is a compendium of beasts, and was very popular in the middle ages. These books gathered texts and illustrations of the various animals, usually focusing on a moral lesson or on the symbolic meaning of the animal. We have had in this forum more than enough examples of how this last aspect lends itself well to poetry.

Your collective mission, should you choose to accept it, is to produce a Poetic Bestiary with as many different animals represented as possible. Repeats will be inevitable, of course, because we don't know what the others are writing at the same time, but if you see something already posted, try to diversify.

Your (individual) challenge for September is to write a poem, erotic or non-erotic, of any length or form, that represents or illustrates the symbolic meaning of the animal of your choice. Real animals are strongly preferred, but if you really must write about that unicorn, that's OK as well.

Poems are due no later than September 14. Post your poems to this thread, whether you submit them to Literotica or not. Feedback and critiques will begin on the 15th and end on the last day of September.

Have fun!
Click to expand...
Geez Louise, Lauren! I just hope my Trinitron flat panel doesn't go hiss and smokily disintegrate while Tommy Cruise looks slack jawed at something way off screen.

You said real, so I guess Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings is out.

I suppose I could start on the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus. Would that work?

Evil, evil woman. Evil. :)

Hope the Lusitanian weather is nice, though.
 
I thought of Borges, and if you really want to, don't let me stop you! Linnaeus or Toulouse-Lautrec are fine as well. As are garden frogs and shrimp. ;)
 
Fine. I'll go first, you wimps. :p



Burlesque With Panda

I'm a ladies' man
said the guest with a wink
to the concerned chat show host.

It's true after all
I said to myself.
This time it was an artist
a crooner of romantic ballads
but I remembered the policeman
the intellectual and the doctor
and also the carpenter
and the famous footballer
and that one actor
and I don't know how many
television chat show hosts.
They all know each other
shop at the same supermarket
and are ladies' men.
And it's not that they are
but that so many people
enjoy listening to them
assuring that they are.

To my surprise
(but I'm by nature distracted)
I noticed that the woman
who said
I'm a men's lady
wasn't welcomed
with the same cheerfulness.
She was even
inscribed on the blacklist
of the shameless whores
but the famous ones.

I would like to understand
but I cannot.
Perhaps because I'm not
a man or a woman.

I am a panda.

Don't get me wrong
men and women
I can do without
but I like pandas.​
 
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who're you calling a wimp? :p yerself.

i'm in, but will need about six months to figure out how to write what i need to. don't hold your breath! lol okay, okay, okay, i've chosen my animal, and looked up the word symbolic, that's a good start, right? ;)

:rose:
 
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Well I am a wimp! Now because of this. I have already figured out what I want to do, looked it up and everything. Before this was even posted weirdly enough. Something completely unrelated.... I was looking up some heraldry, sand though it is not mine I looked up an animal that I had seen while driving and thought I wanted to write something about it....

But I am not telling you! My animal! All mine! I am not paranoid! You are all out to get my animal!
 
Oops sorry. I will take my medication and everything will be better, you will see ;) :D
 
Lauren Hynde said:
Burlesque With Panda

To my surprise
(but I'm by nature distracted)
I noticed that the woman
who said
I'm a men's lady
wasn't welcomed
with the same cheerfulness.
She was even
inscribed on the blacklist
of the shameless whores
but the famous ones.

I would like to understand
but I cannot.
Perhaps because I'm not
a man or a woman.

I am a panda.

Don't get me wrong
men and women
I can do without
but I like pandas.​
Click to expand...

Excellent start, Lauren! I'll have mine soon.
 
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Whale - From behind a glass curtain

cetacean songs sing through a moon
spangled cavern with crystal walls
and hands that press flat palms
no higher than the small insignificance
on the land can reach to send waves
of thought between the lines and bars
our ocean brother swims through currents
strong enough to wash man's cities'
corruption off soft birth water borne
mariner so ancient and fragile
that a blink in history and you're gone.
 
An Ode to the Doves of Lovelady grove

The sinking sun tickled tall timbered pines
cues a Dove to sing a song without rhyme.
Carrying her cries across a lazy green meadow
a breeze that blows by Lovelady Grove's widow.

Sitting on the front porch in a bench swing
a Lady alone with thoughts and her dreams.
Wrapped in her past and humming a tune
swinging and gazing at the slow rising moon.

Paired partners fly and unite out of love
one will survive and become a solo dove.
Every evening she sings her lonely song
nestled in the forest till her days are gone.

Patiently she waits as her loneliness grows
an Ode to the Doves of Lovelady Grove.
 
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not sure i've got the hang of the idea of this, but here goes...

Polar Bear Pangs

I watched her shield
grumpy children
as she dodged rain and cars
to cross the road, watched

the kids' heads rise
at the hot chips and burger
smell escaping double doors

under the golden arches,
saw them pounce a puddle
with both feet. She nudged

them inside, cosseted
into a corner table
and smiled as they chomped

and talked fast, chewed
and played in the warmth. Hands
curled around the cappuccino
and she smiled.
 
Don't worry, Bee happy.

Not an apple, not even Eve's
would be had without the bees
and their dizzying dances
telling other bees where all the sexiest
flowers are (sharing resources).

Honeybees traipse the carpet of clover, dust
the simple singles
delve into doubles and tumble in
the trumpets of spring and summer
in love with nature's sex--talk about loving
your job! And we love them
enough to build them houses, to try
to keep them, busy and prophetic

but the sad truth is
they are dying except in Australia
(too many mites envy their honest industry)
so buy all the royal jelly
that you can. And if the bees seem
drawn to you, take it as
a compliment: you must smell
delicious.
 
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
Nisqually Delta, Spring 2006

His cry is more croak
than call, a reptile sound
that manifests
—with that wingspan,
with that neck—
a pterodactyl past.

I watch him
snap and still a snake.
Posed, he swallows,
wriggling it down.

My wonderful shy fossil.
 
see how they roll

see
how they roll
the lowly rollie-pollies,
of plates in 7 concentric rows,
they like a tiny rhino plowing its way
into most young hearts, playing backyard
games they hide and seek, under wet rocks
and stepping stones, oh these dull grey marbles
lives feeding on decay, ick and rot, 14 swimmerets
when threatened tuck in to become a bowling ball
crustaceans hurled in curled up hinges, pill bugs
terrified rolling upon those little grubby palms
as if cousins of armadillos, they play dead
as backyard opossums, but smaller
even than a hedgehog, we
see how they
roll
​


this was a 'round' as i could get it... : )
 
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Rollie-Pollie

HotKittySpank said:
see how they roll

see
how they roll
the lowly rollie-pollies,
of plates in 7 concentric rows,
they like a tiny rhino plowing its way
into most young hearts, playing backyard
games they hide and seek, under wet rocks
and stepping stones, oh these dull grey marbles
lives feeding on decay, ick and rot, 14 swimmerets
when threatened tuck in to become a bowling ball
crustaceans hurled in curled up hinges, pill bugs
terrified rolling upon those little grubby palms
as if cousins of armadillos, they play dead
as backyard opossums, but smaller
even than a hedgehog, we
see how they
roll
​


this was a 'round' as i could get it... : )
Click to expand...

Lewis Carroll would've liked that one. Reminds me of "A Long Tale" from Alice.
 
Fish

One out of water
Is one far from home
I now assume that posture
Gasping on my side
Powerless appendages twitching
And I long for gills
As my throat is filled
I wished to be jawless
Or for a slit in my ribs
To detect subtle currents
Or for the nerves
Able to produce electric currents
For fending off predators
Anything
To contend with sandy grains of air

Oh
Moving eyes, because that’s possible
Pisces is rising
Consider the constellation
Its stars’ names and meaning
Alrescha: the ropes
Okda: knot
Fum al Samakah: mouth of the fish
The house of fish is 12th and last
The house of death
The tiny deaths
Ropes and knots and open mouths

Everything is underwater now
Thoughts coming further apart
Like: Anais Nin was a Pisces
Then: I wanted to be fluid
And: I have no control over this
Finally: I ask only for breath

His hook through the mouth
A tiny death

I no longer believe
Fish are below or beyond pain

Nor, I now realize, am I.
 
Gorgeous. This quite nearly
made me cry. :rose:
SpectaclesInSkirt said:
One out of water
Is one far from home
I now assume that posture
Gasping on my side
Powerless appendages twitching
And I long for gills
As my throat is filled
I wished to be jawless
Or for a slit in my ribs
To detect subtle currents
Or for the nerves
Able to produce electric currents
For fending off predators
Anything
To contend with sandy grains of air

Oh
Moving eyes, because that’s possible
Pisces is rising
Consider the constellation
Its stars’ names and meaning
Alrescha: the ropes
Okda: knot
Fum al Samakah: mouth of the fish
The house of fish is 12th and last
The house of death
The tiny deaths
Ropes and knots and open mouths

Everything is underwater now
Thoughts coming further apart
Like: Anais Nin was a Pisces
Then: I wanted to be fluid
And: I have no control over this
Finally: I ask only for breath

His hook through the mouth
A tiny death

I no longer believe
Fish are below or beyond pain

Nor, I now realize, am I.
Click to expand...
 
I've been reading the poetry here and hoping to feel the symbolism each of your beasts represents. Maybe we're too vague, I am at a loss at this moment. I'll reread and hopefully, I'll have something concrete to say about your poems soon.

I apologize for my inability right now. Hopefully, I'll get out of this slump and turn into the critiquing maven I want to be :rolleyes:
 
champagne1982 said:
I've been reading the poetry here and hoping to feel the symbolism each of your beasts represents. Maybe we're too vague, I am at a loss at this moment. I'll reread and hopefully, I'll have something concrete to say about your poems soon.

I apologize for my inability right now. Hopefully, I'll get out of this slump and turn into the critiquing maven I want to be :rolleyes:
Click to expand...


you're welcome to rip mine to pieces champ (as is everyone else :) ); i admit to only vaguely understanding the symbolism idea. i have watched a few documentaries on polar bears, one recently where the mother dug dens in the snow to protect her cub while they trekked across a huge area that is solid ice only in the depths of winter. i tried to convey the kind of nurturing/paw-batting/herding/caring things i saw in the documentary into the poem i wrote but a) am not sure if that's symbolism, and b) am not sure if i managed the idea anyway.

:rose:
 
My advice is not getting too caught up on words or definitions. Symbolism is what you make of it, and what an animal means to you.

In my panda-poem, the basic idea I wanted to get through is that pandas are non-judgemental, accepting, loving creatures, that are pretty contempt with themselves and their quite life. Is that their universally accepted symbolism? I don't really care. :D
 
Lauren Hynde said:
My advice is not getting too caught up on words or definitions. Symbolism is what you make of it, and what an animal means to you.

In my panda-poem, the basic idea I wanted to get through is that pandas are non-judgemental, accepting, loving creatures, that are pretty contempt with themselves and their quite life. Is that their universally accepted symbolism? I don't really care. :D
Click to expand...

can i just ask, because i'm unsure, i thought symbolism was something that 'everyone' can clearly see once they know what they're looking at/for.

i mean, isn't symbolism what we all make of the same thing? not all will be able to see it within a poem, but surely isn't it a general and known fact that we are trying to portray?

i.e. an egg can be a symbol for birth, spring etc

--still learning, sorry.
 
I don't think there is a thing in the world of which we all make the same thing, and symbolism is such an encompassing expression. An egg symbolises birth, but can also symbolise oneness, or things as opposed as strength and frailty. It all depends on who is looking at the egg and in what context. And I wouldn't ask you to write a poem from any perspective or context different from your own.
 
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