Challenge: Twenty Command Poem

[trendyredhead]

One of my college professors gave us this challenge as an assignment for an advanced poetry class. I thought you might get a kick out of it so I dug it out.

How about a deadline of Sept 1?

Post 'em here when you're done!

Happy writing!

============ TWENTY COMMAND POEM INSTRUCTIONS ============


1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a lace.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you've never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of "talk" you've actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don't understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: "The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun). . .
12.Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in real life.
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a nonhuman object say or do something human personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that "echoes" an image from earlier in the poem.

 

[trendyredhead]

one of my collegiate attempts at the twenty command poem

Night of Truth

Honesty is silence
and the absence of voices is murder.
Chocolate lies slide smoothly down narrow minds
and crash into pits of confusion.
Confessions scented with bittersweet coffee rise,
like sparks up the chimney.

To escape the haunting truths that chased him,
Joey ran to Michigan.
Lies are like crisp dill pickles with ice cream, and
vanilla puddles prevent honesty
when afternoons are right for napping.
“Yahtzee” echoes through the empty game room.

If dreams were mystery novels,
the witness would break his silence.
My Sherona doesn’t cry anymore
at turquoise daydreams of despair.
She is as constant as a sunshower,
flying between notes of laughter on the wing of a mockingbird.

Joey called her his wench
underneath the rainbow,
because she will be there in summer
to love him.
He speaks of tender anger,
crushing his imagination.

To be strong they must always pick daisies in May.
Er ist ihre erste Liebe.
Distant midnight thunder whispers to truth-tellers of ages past,
while the silent chorus of honesty echoes on.

 

[annaswirls]

One of my college professors gave us this challenge as an assignment for an advanced poetry class. I thought you might get a kick out of it so I dug it out.

How about a deadline of Sept 1?

Post 'em here when you're done!

Happy writing!

============ TWENTY COMMAND POEM INSTRUCTIONS ============


1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a lace.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you've never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of "talk" you've actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don't understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: "The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun). . .
12.Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in real life.
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a nonhuman object say or do something human personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that "echoes" an image from earlier in the poem.

I can do it in 5 lines or less


lol

 

[trendyredhead]

Re: Re: Challenge: Twenty Command Poem

I can do it in 5 lines or less


lol

I'm thinking that ought to be quite a sight to see!

so for all those who are wondering - there is no line limit. do what you have to do, but remember that someone has to read it.

 

[Liar]

jaysus. I can't even count to 20.

 

[tungtied2u]

Maybe if you ask nice...

jaysus. I can't even count to 20.

 

[tungtied2u]

As I was saying...

jaysus. I can't even count to 20.

maybe if you ask nicely, trendy will let you use her fingers to get to twenty.......

 

[trendyredhead]

now boys, if the AV is going to distract you from the challenge at hand (no pun intended), I'll have to change it to something less stimulating.

now get working on the challenge. i feel confident that you can all rise to the occasion and produce something worthy.

 

[annaswirls]

now boys, if the AV is going to distract you from the challenge at hand (no pun intended), I'll have to change it to something less stimulating.

now get working on the challenge. i feel confident that you can all rise to the occasion and produce something worthy.

um

if we do a really good job, will you applaud our efforts?

 

[SeattleRain]

okay we can combine lines right? Can the first line be a metaphor in #11 which also has slang I've never seen in a poem


(oh please, I cannot think of one.)

and use my nickname all in one sentence? Throw in some senses?


1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a lace.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you've never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of "talk" you've actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don't understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: "The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun). . .
12.Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in real life.
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a nonhuman object say or do something human personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that "echoes" an image from earlier in the poem.


__________________

 

[annaswirls]

5 lines of utter nonsense

The bitter leaf of cabbage wraps Katie, a warm lovers blanket,
soft as starched chenille, she shivers
"Uberman, ich bein ein Frankfurter!"
back-beat saurkraut funkengruven, you will taste me banging down!
constricting leaves whispering "Miss Katerina Reichman...Katie...?"

 

[annaswirls]

um does it have to make sense at all?

 

[trendyredhead]

okay we can combine lines right? Can the first line be a metaphor in #11 which also has slang I've never seen in a poem

(oh please, I cannot think of one.)

and use my nickname all in one sentence? Throw in some senses?

um does it have to make sense at all?

Yes, you can combine lines, and I think you can do them in whatever order you want, with the exception of the first and last "commands". Check out the one I posted as a sample, although I kept pretty much to the order.

Does it have to make sense? well sure - doesn't all poetry? i will say that writing this kind of challenge leads to poems that don't always seem as concrete or clear as other free verse you might write, but that's part of the challenge - can you take these commands and come up with a poem that makes sense, to some degree?

 

[SeattleRain]

Yes, you can combine lines, and I think you can do them in whatever order you want, with the exception of the first and last "commands". Check out the one I posted as a sample, although I kept pretty much to the order.

Does it have to make sense? well sure - doesn't all poetry? i will say that writing this kind of challenge leads to poems that don't always seem as concrete or clear as other free verse you might write, but that's part of the challenge - can you take these commands and come up with a poem that makes sense, to some degree?

yeah, I suppose I can sigh

might as well start somewhere

I did not know all poetry was supposed to make sense. Some of my favorite ones kind of don't.

 

[trendyredhead]

What I mean by "make sense" is there's some situation, scene, experience, emotion, or thought presented in the poem that the reader discovers. sometimes it's easy to see, other times it takes some analysis or reading between the lines to "get it".

For example, the 20 command poem I posted as a sample is about an ex-bf from college ("Joey") who lied to me about a lot of things and then disappeared from my life as suddenly as he had appeared ("To escape the haunting truths that chased him / Joey ran to Michigan"). We used to play games together ("Yahtzee") and he was my first love ("Er ist ihre erste Liebe" means "he is her first love"). "My Sherona" was a popular song at the time he wreaked havoc on my life. Throughout the poem, I talk about lies vs honesty and truth, and the witness breaking his silence (because i wanted answers that never came). I think the reader could also infer that perhaps my flighty-ness ("she is as constant as a sunshower") may have contributed to the demise of the relationship.

At first read, the poem may not reveal a lot - and that's ok. This is one of those "deep thought" kinds of poems.

Feel free to PM me if you need help or get stuck.

 

[Angeline]

life is a metaphor
preposterous as band-aids
see no evil, hear no evil,
taste the smell all around you
but feel good anyway
Yeats never tatted
I imagine and what
do I know from lace?
Everything!

Even as twilight settles
over the horizon
or twitlight which I
originally wrote
and which is the effect
of my long day
but did not cause
this poem

still

"you've got to be original"
baby Ivey-divey?

because life is not a metaphor
anymore than it's a tomato,
sweety,

and she will slowly
return to nonmetaphoric
realities:
I predict this lugubrious celebration
and I insist you put down
that toothbrush, which is alive
and is trying to kill me, n'es cafe?

The monkey butt understands
though why so is no
metaphor.

 

[trendyredhead]

very nice, Angeline!

 

[average gina]

I'm going to save this to my favorites. I'm going to walk away from it. I'm going to come back to this thread. I'm going to open dictionary.com. I'm going to make my head hurt, my nose and eyes bleed and my fingers numb trying to figure this out.

And if I should find the balls to actually try this challenge and succeed, I will call myself a poet, indeed.

Was 'twitlight' a typo or something done on purpose?

I need a drink. That was a quirky poem. I like what I understood.

But then, I'm a dummy.

Good luck, everyone.

me

 

[Angeline]

Thank you Red and Gina.



I thought it was kinda a brain fart, lol, but I just went through the commandments one by one and wrote the first thing that popped in my head for each of them. I did try to tie it together some though. I really did type "twitlight" by mistake. I looked at it a second later and cracked up. I'm the world's worst typist--fast but inaccurate--y'all usually don't see my malaprops cause I clean em up.

"You've got to be original" and "Ivey divey" were expressions of my idol, tenor sax jazz guy Lester Young. And I do admit that I shamelessly stole "n'es cafe" from a poem by Ted Berrigan--when I first saw it years ago, I thought it was really funny.

This was a fun exercise, Red, and really pretty challenging. That is a pretty incongruous bunch of stuff to put in one poem!

It inspired this in me:

1. Thou shalt not use cliche.
2. Thou shalt honor thy metaphor and simile.
3. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's poetic voice.
4. Thou shalt not steal (too much).
5. Thou shalt not write trite rhyme schemes.

Anyone got any others?

 

[DeepAsleep]

So I stewed on this for a couple days and then wrote with more fervor than a retarded ape masturbating in a cage.

I dunno how it came out, but I've got one, dad-blammit.

Here's a list of words used as slang I've never seen in poems, by the way. dunno if it'll help you, but this was the biggest stumbling point for me.

bling-bling
'the cut' i.e., "chillin' in the cut.'
get at me
scrumping (slang for sex)
hi-diddly-ho-there (flanders for 'hello')
holla (i.e., 'holla at a player,' 'holla atcher boy' - greet your friends when you see them next, in effect.)
bootylicious
fuckstruck
Dr. Funkenstein (George Clinton)
Funkadelic
Phat
Rad
Duder
bitchface
ass-bandit
wangle-dangle
whack (slang for "stupid")

the next few'll be sexual in nature:
fun bags
flapjacks (works well paired with 'jackslap,' as a curse... i.e., "jackslap your flapjacks")
mound mustache (female pubic hair)
tatties
yodeling in the valley (cunnilingus)
dong
weener
ass-pirate
brown star/eye
bunghole
cojones
joe'n the boys (...duh.)
headable, bedable and edible (... three female.. er.. qualities?)
Budweiser Scale (different rating system than your standard "1-10" wherein the number assigned to any given woman stands for the number of Clydesdales it'd take to drag their vagina off of your face. My girl's a four. >=] )
Tonguing the toddler (oral sex with a pregnant woman. *shrug*)
beaver
cooter
tweeter
cunny
bearded clam
peachfish (Thank you, Tom Robbins)



....ok, no more. Ahh.. heh. Hope I was helpful. If nothing else, it could be stimulating if you're suffering a road-block, too.

~D.A.

 

[Remec]

Just a draft...only 13 of 20 by my count<g>

Not sure I'll get back to this before the 1st, but this is what I'm working on so far...


Windowshopping

The glittering gold strewn about her shoulders
laid in counter point to the dark weave of her top
that beckoned to my fingers,
even as her bloody lips called to my mouth,
and the warm popcorn-with-butter of her voice
dripped my name from hers.

"Remec? Aldarras? Fax?"
each inquiry was met with a look...
a cocked ear...
a raised eyebrow...
inviting her to continue
without actually saying so,
but then she said, "Sean?" and I nodded.
"Yes?"

She beamed and asked me if I loved her.
I tried to avoid the question,
hemmed,
hawed,
tried to dismiss it with a brief "Je ne sais pas"
only to have her repeat it.
I smiled and then shrugged.
"Prolly," I admitted, using one of her own favorite words,
"Coolness," she answered, doing the same to me.

Laughing, I took her hand and pulled her to me,
then switched to an arm about her waist.
We walked through the mall
just like that,
no pretensions,
no overt displays,
but I knew the mannequins whispered as we passed by.

We paused to look at them for a moment.
Resplendid in ivory, they stood
trimmed in Chantilly lace,
bouquets in hand,
garters upon shapely plastic thighs
that played peek-a-boo while they held up borrowed stockings.
They regarded us in silence while we watched
their practice ceremony.
In the glass, I saw how she was entralled by the display
before us,
saw it over and over,
reflections of reflections,
as the mall's mirrored surfaces revealed
what she wanted.

I dropped to one knee and took her hand once more.
Kissed it lightly,
lips barely brushed the leathered surface of her knuckles,
and asked her to marry me.
The mannequins began whispering again.

They're such rumor mongers, after all.

I should know.

Fax is an expert on rumours.
Usually in suffering to have them spread about himself.
Myself.
Not something I think I warrant.
But it will happen, regardless.
I will gather whispers,
and find furtive looks being exchanged behind my back.
And I will not care.

Not that I cared right then.
I didn't know if what we had was Love.
But I didn't care about that either.
All that mattered was feeling her body beneath my arm,
hearing the soft tap-tap of her shoes on the mall floor,
and smelling every word she spoke.

Which, I guess, told me that I did care.
That I loved her more than I realized.
The hidden sound of Love is the way it smells.
And listening to her always makes me hungry.

 

[trendyredhead]

very nice, Remec! i'm liking it a lot!