darkmaas
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2002
- Posts
- 1,000
About a year ago, at the height of the lavalamp-as-universal-metaphor craze, I was cybernetically chewing the fat with another Lit. poet, and we considered a poetry game. At the time there were fewer active poets on the board and I felt that there was not enough “critical mass” to make this game work. But times change and looking at the recent new poems, I think its time for ….
THE GLASS BEAD POETRY GAME
The game is loosely based on “Das Glasperlenspiel” by Hermann Hesse. Don’t let that put you off. No need to speak German or even embrace Hesse’s world view. The rules are simple.
The game starts with a poem. A player then takes something from that poem, a phrase, an image, an allusion, the rhyme scheme, even a word, and creates a new poem by riffing (if you will) on the original. Subsequent players may riff on the original poem or any subsequent poem (or poems.) Extra “points” for linking two poems (for instance) thematically.
Easy enough. This sort of thing has been happening already on the board from time to time in the passion thread and more recently the perfect ten thread.
Riffing on someone’s poem says two things. The original poem was good enough to warrant expanding on but that the riffer has something better to say. If no one is riffing on your poem it means either that it is so good that there is nothing more to be said, or that (more likely) it sucks so badly that no one wants to to get any slime on them. It is an honour to have many people riff on your poem. Clever poets will quickly realize that dangling juicy metaphors (like literary fish hooks) encourages others to pick up their poems.
The game allows for (in fact encourages) a peanut gallery. Anyone may comment, either with praise or condemnation, on any posted poems. To be in the peanut gallery you must have posted at least one poem.
A word about format. Make life easier by first quoting the poem(s) you are starting from. It’s also polite to name the poet.
THE GLASS BEAD POETRY GAME
The game is loosely based on “Das Glasperlenspiel” by Hermann Hesse. Don’t let that put you off. No need to speak German or even embrace Hesse’s world view. The rules are simple.
The game starts with a poem. A player then takes something from that poem, a phrase, an image, an allusion, the rhyme scheme, even a word, and creates a new poem by riffing (if you will) on the original. Subsequent players may riff on the original poem or any subsequent poem (or poems.) Extra “points” for linking two poems (for instance) thematically.
Easy enough. This sort of thing has been happening already on the board from time to time in the passion thread and more recently the perfect ten thread.
Riffing on someone’s poem says two things. The original poem was good enough to warrant expanding on but that the riffer has something better to say. If no one is riffing on your poem it means either that it is so good that there is nothing more to be said, or that (more likely) it sucks so badly that no one wants to to get any slime on them. It is an honour to have many people riff on your poem. Clever poets will quickly realize that dangling juicy metaphors (like literary fish hooks) encourages others to pick up their poems.
The game allows for (in fact encourages) a peanut gallery. Anyone may comment, either with praise or condemnation, on any posted poems. To be in the peanut gallery you must have posted at least one poem.
A word about format. Make life easier by first quoting the poem(s) you are starting from. It’s also polite to name the poet.
