Challenge - Adbuct a word

[Liar]

Reporter excellence Ryszard Kapuscinski (However that is properly spelled...maybe Senna can assist me there?) held a seminar at my college this week. It was an experience to hear the words of a writer whose work I have enjoyed and admired for years, and hear what he had to say about a wide range of subjects. The process of writing, his thoughts on journalism, the media development and his experience as quite a poetic prose-weaver.

One of the things he talked about was the power of semantic abduction. The way a writer, if he's good, can get away with pretty much anything. He encouraged us to make an experiment to try this literary device out for ourselves.

Here's what he said, roughly paraphrased:

First take a word. Any mundane word, preferrably a noun, an object.

Then use it as if it was another word. The word you use and the word you mean may have some kind of metonymic or metaphoric connection, like "sportscar" and "stallion". But that's not nessecary. In fact, it's better if the connection is not too obvious. It's in fact not a metaphor, you don't try to transfer one object's properties unto another. You merely steal the word.

Write a text, an essay, a short fiction story, a poem. And use this word switching consistently through the text. If you do it well, and center your text around this object, you might be able to abduct the word. If you succeed, a reader will succumb to your new definition of the word, and believe in it, until he lets go of the text.

I thought it was a cool odea. Here's a quick attempt at it from me:

The mother held the candle close, chided him quietly for his stupidity, while brushing the dirt of his sore knees. The candle just needed a minute of comfort and rest before restlessness pulled him towards friends and adventure and danger again. His friends were making noise outside. The two tall candles and the short, pudgy one with the cap. The mother gave the bruised spots a last pre-flight check and let go, and the candle rushed out into the street, hollering at his friends and squinting up at the tortrous mid day sun. Candles never seem to be bothered by that like the rest of us, for some reason.



And here's the challenge:

Abduct a word, write a poem. Or a flash fiction prose. Or anything. Any shape and form. Post it here.

That's it.

 

[My Erotic Trail]

Reporter excellence Ryszard Kapuscinski (However that is properly spelled...maybe Senna can assist me there?) held a seminar at my college this week. It was an experience to hear the words of a writer whose work I have enjoyed and admired for years, and hear what he had to say about a wide range of subjects. The process of writing, his thoughts on journalism, the media development and his experience as quite a poetic prose-weaver.

One of the things he talked about was the power of semantic abduction. The way a writer, if he's good, can get away with pretty much anything. He encouraged us to make an experiment to try this literary device out for ourselves.

Here's what he said, roughly paraphrased:



I thought it was a cool odea. Here's a quick attempt at it from me:

The mother held the candle close, chided him quietly for his stupidity, while brushing the dirt of his sore knees. The candle just needed a minute of comfort and rest before restlessness pulled him towards friends and adventure and danger again. His friends were making noise outside. The two tall candles and the short, pudgy one with the cap. The mother gave the bruised spots a last pre-flight check and let go, and the candle rushed out into the street, hollering at his friends and squinting up at the tortrous mid day sun. Candles never seem to be bothered by that like the rest of us, for some reason.



And here's the challenge:

Abduct a word, write a poem. Or a flash fiction prose. Or anything. Any shape and form. Post it here.

That's it.

Abduct a word?

Immediately, I thought of the man, a thief by nature I suppose, tore the word right out of a newspaper. Abducted the word and stashed it in his jacket and did not pay for it. I did not see the word but I saw the abduction of it. "Snatch that man," I hailed and he did not resist. "I must go, please," he pleaded, for his wife had been abducted. The ransom drop was to be posted in the post this morning. That was the reason for his abduction of a section of words from the morning paper and in his excitement forgot to pay for it. So who was it that abduct the abducted? That was the mystery that waylay us as we went to aid abduct. She would be returned when the ransom was paid. We went to the address that was posted in the aducted section of the newspaper and left the ransom and recieved instructions where to pick up an abduct.

(well that was fun. I am sure my attempt is not quiet a good example but I enjoyed the trial. I realized I was doomed from the start for picking such a hard word to volley. But then I like a good challenge <grin>)

 

[Tzara]

I'm not sure I've got this right. Is this the idea?

I am sitting next to a woman I was once in France with. Her husband is off buying drinks. It is a charity auction for her son's school. My wife is somewhere looking at tiled tables and decorative lamps and we are talking—reluctantly, urgently—about France. About France in the past, our past. I have had too much cheap wine. It is an Australian wine, not that bad. The school is not rich.

Her face is flushed. It compliments her red hair.

"France is dead," she says. "Our France is dead. Long dead."

"I still think of France," I smile. "You are always France to me."

"I'm married," she says. "I have children."

"Well," I say, "I remember France and you. I remember walks along the river. How we talked. Drinks in small cafes. Cigarettes."

"Yes." Her eyes go distant, to our shared past. I press.

"And," I say, "we'll always have Paris."

Oops. Too far. She is suddenly furious.

"Fuck your France. Fuck you. Fuck," her eyes tear up, "your goddam France."

No one smokes anymore, so we are merely quiet for a bit.

She looks across the room to our respective spouses, handling student vases, bowls, the useless ashtrays the kids made. "Yes," she says, "yes. We were in France in Paris, weren't we?"

 

[Senna Jawa]

Reporter excellence Ryszard Kapuscinski (However that is properly spelled...maybe Senna can assist me there?)

Kapuściński

One of the things he talked about was the power of semantic abduction.

I (re?)discovered it myself and used it a bit over a year ago; see my Polish poem imperator or the same at p.s.m. on google -- it is one of my best poems (many of them are ).

 

[Liar]

Kapuściński

Thanks. I tried Googling for it and ended up with a whole fauna of different suggestions. Not even publishers seems to get it right, I've got two books by him w. different spelling.

 

[annaswirls]

very good! I enjoyed this muchly. I think that if you took out one or two Frances it would be easier to swallow the substitution.

you are so clever

I am sitting next to a woman I was once in France with. Her husband is off buying drinks. It is a charity auction for her son's school. My wife is somewhere looking at tiled tables and decorative lamps and we are talking—reluctantly, urgently—about France. About France in the past, our past. I have had too much cheap wine. It is an Australian wine, not that bad. The school is not rich.

Her face is flushed. It compliments her red hair.

"France is dead," she says. "Our France is dead. Long dead."

"I still think of France," I smile. "You are always France to me."

"I'm married," she says. "I have children."

"Well," I say, "I remember France and you. I remember walks along the river. How we talked. Drinks in small cafes. Cigarettes."

"Yes." Her eyes go distant, to our shared past. I press.

"And," I say, "we'll always have Paris."

Oops. Too far. She is suddenly furious.

"Fuck your France. Fuck you. Fuck," her eyes tear up, "your goddam France."

No one smokes anymore, so we are merely quiet for a bit.

She looks across the room to our respective spouses, handling student vases, bowls, the useless ashtrays the kids made. "Yes," she says, "yes. We were in France in Paris, weren't we?"

 

[annaswirls]

I liked the France so much....

after a hundred years hiding in France

I returned with a hacking cough.
Someone told me you had called
about a hundred times,
left smoke signals and biplane messages
hoping when I came home
my eyes would be skyward.

I returned from France with a hacking cough
your sky words sputter from my mouth,
trapped in the phlegm de francais

Someone told me you can't get smokes here anymore,
slapped a patch on my arm and promised
It'll also take care of those babies you don't want to have
and if you start feeling sad or ponder the reality
of nothingness crammed into a hole,
just give it a scratch, release that serotonin
right into your skin it will.

I roll over,
all the way back to France.