It's The 2025 Poem-A-Week Challenge Discussion Thread

[Aquelle]

Check out "I Have Returned" by @Aquelle

An unusual and catchy structure and rhythm

Awwww blushing

 

[Wonderer67]

I can’t write for shit
No inspiration
And afraid to start
I stay away
Feeling non poetic

Where did all my good ideas go?
September seems so far away
When poems fell outta my head

FF to the present
An occasional line here or there
Nuthin great
And no grand idea
Just writing raw
In the white box at the bottom of the thread
I stare At it
Unhappy
Change a few things

Fuck it
I press “post reply”
Profoundly unhappy

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

I can’t write for shit
No inspiration
And afraid to start
I stay away
Feeling non poetic

Where did all my good ideas go?
September seems so far away
When poems fell outta my head

FF to the present
An occasional line here or there
Nuthin great
And no grand idea
Just writing raw
In the white box at the bottom of the thread
I stare At it
Unhappy
Change a few things

Fuck it
I press “post reply”
Profoundly unhappy

What does it say about me that I kinda love what you put here? Not because you feel unhappy, but because I think it's a good expression of a common emotion?

 

[SpermFactory]

Mmm haha

Oh not again I haven’t
written a poem in what
seems like forever my
head full of, oh wait that’s
the wrong damn head—
oh not again. Mmm haha

 

[Angeline]

Arrrggghhh Poetica*

1. Thou shalt write a poem each week, whether thy cares to or not.

2. Thy poem may not be good, but thou shalt care less for quality, more for punctuality.

3. If thou be woman and write about fucking, men shalt be drawn to thee. They shalt buzz like bees unto pollen. If thou be male and write of fucking? Fugeddaboutit.

4. Ahem.

5. Thou shalt consider thy line breaks ceaselessly, moving words and punctuation back and forth in a neverending game.

6. Thou shalt count syllables and stresses in endless struggle and misunderstanding unless thy name is Tzara.

7. Thou shalt smite thyself for adverbs and gerunds, less so for adjectives.

8. Thou shalt exult thy nouns and verbs: whither nouns goest verbs shall follow.

9. Thou shalt despair because every poem thou reads is better than thine or exult because every poem but thine is shite. There shalt be no in-between.

10. Thy shalt watch thy calendar and write accordingly. Ahem.





*With apologies to Horace, 42Below and everyone who reads this.

 

[Tzara]

6. Thou shalt count syllables and stresses in endless struggle and misunderstanding unless thy name is Tzara.

Well, syllables separate phonemes,
The basis of language. By no means
Should poets befuddle
And leave verse a muddle
Of undeconstructed Foucault scenes.

Now stresses give language its rhythm.
In poetry, though, there's a schism.
Our Formalists like them,
Free versers despise them—
They're split like light rays through a prism.

It's prosody that this is known as,
As singular as Leibniz's monads.
You like it or not so
(The topic is fraught, yo)
But fertile as lit'rature's gonads.

 

[SpermFactory]

Free versers despise them—

Very polite. Free versers can’t write them.

 

[SpermFactory]

40) Things I learned from the Poet’s Bro 42Below

Oh don’t get me started on the big morphemes
between my legs. Or the textual meanings in
sexual phonemes. When, I really need to know-

Is my horizontal bar stuck betwixt out and in?
Not sticking up—- damn my hyphen! Am I a
poetic (little dash)?

Or an emdash which is bigger than a endash—
which is slightly longer than a hyphen- which
is a little higher than the base line(?) Of what!!!

Oh gerundium! I am taking a very direct object;
a semicolon getting a big noun manly verb-ing—
ARSe- ASS– ARGGGH— Poetica!

 

[Tzara]

3. If thou be woman and write about fucking, men shalt be drawn to thee. They shalt buzz like bees unto pollen. If thou be male and write of fucking? Fugeddaboutit.

When women write poems on fucking
Or, just as bad, ones about sucking,
That's when men, spouting sleaze,
Inundate them with pleas,
And photos of dicks they'll be ducking.

But men, when on intercourse writing,
Won't find many chicks who'll be fighting
To flirt, flash, and swear
That they'd love an affair.
The poems are not quite inviting.

This puzzles the gentlemen, ladies.
They offer champagne and Mercedes
As their smut, finely wrought,
Hasn't brought them but naught.
Their sex life left somewhere in Hades.

Perhaps, guys, we need to be gentle.
Seduction's primarily mental.
Try just being more real
(And a little genteel)
And, honestly, more fundamental.

 

[Aquelle]

Poems in Discussion Thread?
What heresy is this I read?
This lack discussion
Gave me a concussion
And now I am going to bed

 

[Angeline]

Happy day after (oops!) National Fibonacci Day!


I
love
to write
poetry
words spill out of me
though sometimes in the wrong places
I don't much care what others think
if I'm on the brink
those faces
just prompt
more
words

 

[Tzara]

autumn's fallen leaves
red and gold swirl in the breeze
movement without life

I particularly liked this poem, which seems to me to feature more of the characteristics of traditional haiku than just the 5-7-5 syllable structure. There is a clear seasonal reference (kigo) and, effectively the equivalent of a cut word (kireji) at the end of line two (this might be made more emphatic by adding a dash to the end of the line. The imagery is natural (e.g. no metaphor) and although there is the hint of rhyme with leaves/breeze, that isn't so obvious as to be especially distracting.

All in all, I think a pretty good example of the form.

 

[kreemi_pi]

I particularly liked this poem, which seems to me to feature more of the characteristics of traditional haiku than just the 5-7-5 syllable structure. There is a clear seasonal reference (kigo) and, effectively the equivalent of a cut word (kireji) at the end of line two (this might be made more emphatic by adding a dash to the end of the line. The imagery is natural (e.g. no metaphor) and although there is the hint of rhyme with leaves/breeze, that isn't so obvious as to be especially distracting.

All in all, I think a pretty good example of the form.

Many thanks

 

[SapioSexual9]

Hi I’m back, curtseys demuely to @Angeline, wantonly winks at the maginificent @Tzara. Smiles at @42BelowsBack. Peers around for @SpermFactory?

& waves at all the sexy poets who have been playing in the poem a week thread.

xo

 

[42BelowsBack]

Welcome back Mmmms

 

[Angeline]

42, I really like your two poems Caterwauling and In Your Mouth. They feel like two parts of the same poem to me, and I wondered if they were one piece that you split up...and if so why.

I apologize for this not being a more helpful comment lol. I think I need more coffee, perhaps in an IV.

 

[42BelowsBack]

42, I really like your two poems Caterwauling and In Your Mouth. They feel like two parts of the same poem to me, and I wondered if they were one piece that you split up...and if so why.

I apologize for this not being a more helpful comment lol. I think I need more coffee, perhaps in an IV.

Haha, ahem, Angeline am I accused of quota writing? They were both written hot on the heels, one after another.

They are a quiet little reflection: What is the difference between a vibe and a feeling? In your mouth utilizes repetition as some feelings are enjoyably repetitious. Caterwauling, I asked myself what is a vibe? Is there image in sound? Of course. Now how do I capture that?

The suggestion of combining them as one, is a good one for a 26 rewrite. Lol, both poems ask for more.

 

[SpermFactory]

Haha, ahem, Angeline am I accused of quota writing? They were both written hot on the heels, one after another.

They are a quiet little reflection: What is the difference between a vibe and a feeling? In your mouth utilizes repetition as some feelings are enjoyably repetitious. Caterwauling, I asked myself what is a vibe? Is there image in sound? Of course. Now how do I capture that?

The suggestion of combining them as one, is a good one for a 26 rewrite. Lol, both poems ask for more.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA SNAPPED HAHAHAHA but still, knowing you, you are serious about that question… what is the difference between a vibe and a feeling? How do you portray that in a poem?

Is a vibe superficial, fleeting, something you go through like Tomcats at night, out tail standing? One things for sure, I know to keep an eye on you buddy. Your poems are never what they superficially seem…

If anything, my writers block is that quota 52, I can’t get it out of my head.

 

[42BelowsBack]

AHAHAHAHAHAHA SNAPPED HAHAHAHA but still, knowing you, you are serious about that question… what is the difference between a vibe and a feeling? How do you portray that in a poem?

Is a vibe superficial, fleeting, something you go through like Tomcats at night, out tail standing? One things for sure, I know to keep an eye on you buddy. Your poems are never what they superficially seem…

If anything, my writers block is that quota 52, I can’t get it out of my head.

Well Sperm (I can’t believe I’m talking to Sperm, there’s a poem for sure in that). I suggest writing in forms. To break your block headlock.

 

[Angeline]

Haha, ahem, Angeline am I accused of quota writing? They were both written hot on the heels, one after another.

They are a quiet little reflection: What is the difference between a vibe and a feeling? In your mouth utilizes repetition as some feelings are enjoyably repetitious. Caterwauling, I asked myself what is a vibe? Is there image in sound? Of course. Now how do I capture that?

The suggestion of combining them as one, is a good one for a 26 rewrite. Lol, both poems ask for more.

You? Quota writing? Never!

So. I have a feeling? The room has a vibe?

I don't know. I'm still coffee deficient, but yes you could revise those poems and put them together. Or not.

 

[Angeline]

AHAHAHAHAHAHA SNAPPED HAHAHAHA but still, knowing you, you are serious about that question… what is the difference between a vibe and a feeling? How do you portray that in a poem?

Is a vibe superficial, fleeting, something you go through like Tomcats at night, out tail standing? One things for sure, I know to keep an eye on you buddy. Your poems are never what they superficially seem…

If anything, my writers block is that quota 52, I can’t get it out of my head.

Quotas schmotas. Just write my dear Sperm.