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An American Tragedy My erect penis affects the tides -Lamar Odom i was there when it happened, working on an investigative video report for vice.com they tried to airlift lamar odom in a helicophter but he was too tall to fit in the helicopter hes had a tragic life  lamar odom is the most tragic figure in all of sports its his whole life thats the tragedy, his kid died, his mom died etc etc him being to tall to fit in the only vehicle that could plausibly save him after he got sick from taking too much gas station drugs to make his peener hard is just the icing on the cake dont forget he wasmarried to khloe kardashian so were’ talking some big leagues level tragedy here dying in a brothel, of herbal Viagra, while not having sex, because they can’t airlift you because you’re too tall, and the closest hospital is 60 miles away, is a tragedy that shakespeare wishes he would have thought of Medic: Forsooth, lamar is far too tall for this, Our humble helicopter, and his cock Is far too hard and stands like a lonely, Large pine. How much Horny Goat Weed Hath he? “the patient was found nonresponsive and extremely tall. And erect. An empty bottle of japanese jigga pills was discovered at the scene. Our only Casual Male XL helicopter was already in use transporting that weird giraffe/snail thing from cirque de soileil.” [yakety sax plays as 3 medics try to stuff Lamar Odom into a tiny helicopter, meanwhile a fourth medic watches his boner and defibs him every time it goes down (accompanied by slide whistle)] craft viagra aged in bourbon barrels more importantly: helicophter I guess what I still don't get is, why didn't they just put him on two helicopters? they could have just left his feet hanging out the side Here lies Lamar Odom, he had to buy 2 adjoining grave plots because his coffin is like 14 ft long god drat what did he eat growing up. why are we making fun of the guy in the hospital who might die? is anyone making fun of him? I'll fight them. he's had a tragic life. the good news is, he's off life support and apparently speaking which means that maybe one day he too will get to laugh about the fact that he was too fuckin tall to fit in a helicopter after having a bad reaction to artisinal boner pills I wouldn't know, I've never needed it because, well, I've never had sex and I never will.peace from this thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3746808
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Feb 18, 2020 23:27
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cda posted:I really liked "I Was Received Into the Church." Was each stanza from a single letter or did you rearrange the text more than that? For the trip reports I initially pulled things almost in straight chronological order (a lot of trip reports include either actual timestamps or words that describe the passage of time) but then as I started to work it into a poem, things started floating out of place, so I'm interested in what your compositional process was like for your poem; the imagery is excellent (this was the hardest part for me because god drat so many of those stupid trip reports are the same thing...I saw a bunch of colorssss mannnnnnn -- the saving grace was that they usually get very descriptive about how they took the drug lol) Thank you! It was important to me not to take things so completely out of their context, so the first stanza was cut from two different journal entries and the final two stanzas cut from three letters. You've got this guy who, from even his personal communications and thoughts, is extremely pious and yet very... practical? with the reality of doubts associated with faith. While he was archbishop, he took on a lot of duties associated with the less lofty goals of the church, like acquisition of properties for various purposes, and he spoke very frankly about the challenges to his faith, whether personal doubts or witnessing the lack of piety in his fellow priests. I read probably twenty letters and ten or so journal entries at first. After that, I went through and combed for passages that hit the magical combo of being particularly evocative while also drawing forth some of the deeper, more real concepts that were consistent in his writings. I worry I was disingenuous- some of the excerpts were not directly associated with his notes on the challenges of faith - but I think I did an okay job of capturing some of the tone to his thoughts that was not laid out plainly in the text. I like docupoetry, but it's drat difficult for me to not feel like I'm actually just putting words in this guy's mouth through careful cropping.
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Feb 19, 2020 00:40
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Ach that's my fault. I didn't realise documentary meant documenting a person's experience. I thought it was just documenting a subject, like nature documentaries or there's even a documentary on the history of Yamaha in the front of my motorcycle's service manual. I was trying to co-opt the style of that kind of "for your information" documentary to share something I think people need to know. It probably borders on mockumentary at that point. Anyway, thants for the crit. Azza Bamboo fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Feb 19, 2020 |
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Feb 19, 2020 01:30
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Also cda, do you want a gang tag? I could ask sebmojo if they’d be willing to hand them out for wins. We’d need to agree on one, though
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Feb 19, 2020 02:01
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Azza Bamboo posted:Ach that's my fault. I didn't realise documentary meant documenting a person's experience. I thought it was just documenting a subject, like nature documentaries or there's even a documentary on the history of Yamaha in the front of my motorcycle's service manual. I was trying to co-opt the style of that kind of "for your information" documentary to share something I think people need to know. It probably borders on mockumentary at that point. Here's the thing: in a larger project, like a book based on transportation workers, or looking into the specifics of a particular car accident, or some such, it would totally fit in. One of the members of my grad cohort did a docupoetry project for her thesis which investigated campus sexual harassment, and while it interpolated several specific cases, it also just straight up quoted from Title IX and some very famous open letters supporting faculty. As an individual poem without context, though, it just didn't quite do it for me. I did quite like it.
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Feb 19, 2020 06:18
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sephiRoth IRA posted:Also cda, do you want a gang tag? I could ask sebmojo if they’d be willing to hand them out for wins. We’d need to agree on one, though i specifically started participating because i wanted this specific one, which will make me look good in byob lol I don't need a gang tag otherwise though and I know this one wasn't necessarily popular
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Feb 19, 2020 17:36
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cda, you’ve made several posts, including an effortful poem, but none of them are a prompt.
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Feb 19, 2020 17:58
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Oh whoops haha. Ok. Negative Capability: Or, Sympathy for the Devil "Negative Capability" is a term used by John Keats in a letter to his brothers. It is a tremendously famous phrase and many different critics have discussed exactly what Keats meant by the term, but a simplified way of putting it is that Negative Capability is the capacity of an artist to inhabit a wide range of perspectives, including those that they do not agree with, without privileging one perspective over another. In Keats' estimation, this was a quality demonstrated by Shakespeare, and you can see how that is: in Shakespeare plays, everyone from the most foolish hero to the most evil villain is allowed to make their case and reveal their truth, utilizing the full range of human expression even when what they are expressing may seem reprehensible. Prompt: Write a poem from the perspective of an individual that you find annoying, immoral, dangerous, disturbing, evil or otherwise just plain bad. Your poem should develop and display a critical aspect of that individual's lived experience in as humane and sympathetic a way as possible. The individual may be a real historical figure (e.g. Mother Teresa, your little sister) or a composite or type of person (e.g. an interrogator in the Spanish Inquisition, one of those people that backs into their parking spots), but it should not be a fictional character (e.g. Satan, Snidely Whiplash). No formal constraints except that they should be 20 lines or longer. Submissions due by Wednesday the 26th.
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Feb 19, 2020 21:10
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In
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Feb 19, 2020 21:15
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Feb 19, 2020 21:17
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Feb 19, 2020 21:38
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Probably haven't written a poem for over 6 years but lol. The rare wombo-combo simultaneous entry and submission. Traffic Warden The bleachbone vistas of my childhood parched and shimmering hot have never felt so much a dream as a red faced man berates me under a grey sky, raindrops breaching the containment of my collar and pooling at the base of my spine. I pull down the brim of my cap shielding my eyes. -listen you filthy loving- He melts beneath a late August sun, and his words are the susurrus of Laughing Doves and katydids. Fingers slip into the polyester folds of my jacket and produce a blazing sunflower to gild his windscreen. Nothing more radiant in a three mile radius than my Penalty Charge Notice. -two minutes! Two goddamn- He curses fate, misfortune, And me. But I am already slipped beyond his words following threads of red and gold, double and zagged, while above, clouds break and sunlight spills out of a sky I know not which.
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Feb 24, 2020 16:35
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William Frederick Durst Everyone says that Fred is awful, kind of a tool, but Fred thinks Fred is pretty awesome. Fred skateboards, Fred is into the tattoo scene. Fred gets to date hot chicks who say Fred never dated them, so Fred gets away with it. Fred made red ballcaps cool again. Fred is friends with a bunch of cool people: Fred has been the guest of Snoop and Run DMC. Fred is a filmmaker, even worked with John Travolta, who says people miss Fred’s purity and intent. Fred has three multiplatinum albums. Fred’s working on a new one, things are looking up for Fred. Fred’s been divorced three times, but it ain’t for lack of trying. Fred thinks Putin is a pretty swell guy, but Fred can’t go into Ukraine for a while. That’s okay, Fred has better things to do.
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Feb 26, 2020 19:10
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2 in. Sephiroth and Armack ya got until midnight-ish
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Feb 26, 2020 21:34
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cda posted:2 in. Sephiroth and Armack ya got until midnight-ish sephiRoth IRA fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 26, 2020 21:47
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Rite of Inoculation Stand down, you lying filth! Let your envenomed blades turn aside, bent and broken against the burnished bronze of our conviction! We truth-tellers will drive you forth from these temples borne of our flesh and blood. The liar's throne you've built, gilded with ill-gotten gains, will crumble at the trumpet of our voices.
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Feb 27, 2020 00:59
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Leo Strauss on Narrative, Social Cohesion, and In-Group Selection To live in catastrophic night conceals all things deceitful so nihilists set myths alight and others scorch the steeple They’re right of course, there is no truth when read between the lines but common folk could grow uncouth left leaderless at times All dogs and swine love hierarchy —us privileged at the top— and so, to counter anarchy we monetize their slop Since Machiavelli told it straight (his work is hardly satire) control of stories seized the state and all the mob’s admire Strong mobs arise from nemeses their Being but ephemeral held captive by identity and joined in wars perennial What wispy gun-smoke stories make and Masons’ stone-throws parry —Nationalism! For country’s sake and from tradition tarry
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Feb 27, 2020 03:13
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Not gonna lie, at one point or another, I thought each one of these was the winner. They're all extremely different flavors. So, by a hair, I say that Jeza is the winner. Crits will happen tomorrow.
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Feb 28, 2020 04:31
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Jeza posted:Probably haven't written a poem for over 6 years but lol. Ultimately this was the winner for me because it did the most to humanize the subject. It almost didn't win for a similar reason, which is that, had I not known it was being written for this prompt, I would have had no understanding of the fact that you, the writer, find this kind of person annoying (although to be fair I guess most of us are not fans of parking enforcement). That said there are some very nice images here -- I particularly like the ticket as a blazing sunflower. The juxtaposition of the childhood memory into which the narrator retreats from the present day is effective, as is the heightened diction; I don't really imagine a traffic warden expressing himself in this way but I think rather than seeming inappropriate, it elevates subject. The interjections from the guy getting the ticket really emphasize this disconnect between the prosaic everyday and the poetry of memory. rickiep00h posted:William Frederick Durst I really like this form. The anaphora works, both because it emphasizes the speaker's self-involvement, and because you do a nice job of keeping it fresh by not simply making it a series of lines which are sentences starting with Fred, such as "Fred gets to date hot chicks who say/Fred never dated them, so/Fred gets away with it." The poem is funny and the subject is surprising. An entertaining and enjoyable poem overall. It did not win because it felt to me like it was tipped a little too far towards sati. I'm not totally sure you worked hard enough to understand Fred Durst. To be fair although he seems like low-hanging fruit for a poem like this some of the hardest people to understand are people who seem like they're all surface. sephiRoth IRA posted:Rite of Inoculation First off, righteous sounds in this poem, man. Reading it feels really good; lots of tasty alliteration that is really appropriate to the heightened sense of purpose of the ideological fanatic (which is I think who you're getting at here)? However, the prompt said 20 lines at least, and this didn't get there, so that's one reason why it didn't win. Frankly if you'd kept going and maybe drawn out a thread of hidden doubt in the narrator's mind, or a unacknowledged contradiction, or something to complicate the righteousness, this would have been the winner. It reminded me a lot of Pound's "Sestina: Altaforte," one big difference being that Pound is able to leverage the sestina form to bring out those internal contradictions that illuminate the bloodthirstiness of the speaker. This might be a poem to keep in the ol' drawer and look at in a couple of months and take another crack at. An excellent start. Armack posted:Leo Strauss on Narrative, Social Cohesion, and In-Group Selection This poem gets a lot of points for ambition. You've picked a complex subject and then placed it in ballad meter, so there's a lot of balls in the air here. On the one hand this poem is a description of Strauss' political philosophy. On the other hand it is a criticism of the same. Doing one of those would be difficult enough. Doing both is hella hard, and I think you ultimately don't succeed, in part because you are also working with the constraints of the form, so stuff like "all the mob's admire" just really doesn't work, either syntactically, poetically, or descriptively. The first three stanzas are strong, though. I just think as you get to the development, the breadth of Strauss' viewpoint makes it an increasing challenge to keep everything working together, and by the end, I wasn't exactly sure what you meant -- "Masons' stone-throws parry" was particularly tough for me.
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Feb 28, 2020 16:22
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“Hate gently caress poem, got it!” *misses 20 line requirement* Thanks for the crit! I’m glad the alliterative elements worked. Sorry for not being up to the task of adding seven more lines  Meanwhile... prompt prompt prompt Jeza get in here!
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Feb 28, 2020 16:45
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Prompt in a couple hours time
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Feb 28, 2020 17:06
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Thanks! I was honestly having a hard time coming up with anyone because I try to be be as genuine as I can and I just don't like giving space to things or people I don't agree with (unless it's in an effort to defeat or insult them.) I also don't agree with a lot of those ideas of an artist's impartiality, as it tends to lead to a lot of moral ambiguity and, intentional or not, the occasional genuine support of people who think you're being serious. It's not a debate I care to enter into, and it's a really easy cop out for a lot of lovely people to spout their lovely beliefs. Which is roundabout way of saying I should have sat this one out. 
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Feb 28, 2020 18:56
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rickiep00h posted:Thanks! I definitely feel you on that. I was glad that nobody tried do like...Jeffrey Dahmer or Hitler or someone like that.
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Feb 28, 2020 21:07
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Alright, alright, alright. This week's prompt is war poetry. Hoping this hasn't been done in the several pages of thread I did not read through. Throughout history, people really tend, or at least tended, to write a whole bunch of poetry about war. WW1 and its aftermath could well mark the last high-water mark of poetry itself in the public imagination. Some immortalise, trivialise, satirise, while others explore the heat of battle, the banality of front-line existence or commemorate the fallen. No form or length requirement. The only requirement is that war in some manner must feature. It doesn't have to be a real historical conflict. While I may call on a judging aid, to put my cards on the table, poetry for me is at its core about evoking emotion or a sense of something. I will likely look more fondly on poems that successfully capture a feeling, whether that be boredom, terror, anticipation, confusion or whatever. Deadline is uhhh, Friday 6th March?
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Feb 29, 2020 00:32
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In
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Feb 29, 2020 01:26
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Feb 29, 2020 02:55
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In. This means war...
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Feb 29, 2020 04:58
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New Alphabet for War Wonder Toomuch Freedom Forfeit Fever Sickle Sentry Hatred Nitrate-ester Tender-hearted Agent Brother Childhood Desert Ego Fester Garbage Halo Indy Jackson Killeen Lester Marrow Nothing Order Punish Quiet Raghead Stupor Torture Under Vital Wasted Exit Youthful Zero anger boiler canker deadman evil fuckit gashes hero incense jungle karma labor mother needle ozone prickle queasy rapist sinner tether ugly virtue welcome exile yearning zipper
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Mar 2, 2020 15:59
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Mar 5, 2020 05:40
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Soldier Boys Great wars were fought before I lived And of them I’ve been told Boys sent to die for others’ ends At seventeen years old The world burned once The world burned twice And then the wars got cold In school we read of blood and mud The blind leading the bold I know there’s conflicts raging still Sometimes they’re on the news I’ve heard of kids at ten years old Fighting fueled on drugs and booze I’ve heard the shocked and angry cries About children much misused But when fighting’s done, and they’re still young I’ve heard the silence too The kids who live they go back home With memories of war Back to families who struggle Back to prospects that are poor So when the private armies come And ask if they want more With choices few, the war will do On they march to their encore And still these kids they go to fight In places far away Soldiers in wars not their own Seventeen if they’re a day Follow merchant lords of slaughter For mediocre pay Pawns unmourned in wars we scorn They die young just the same
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Mar 5, 2020 10:21
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Can we get a deadline extension? COVID 19 rocked my world, unfortunately
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Mar 7, 2020 18:43
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Sure. Call it end of today, whatever time zone you're in. Will post results and crits Monday, afternoon GMT.
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Mar 8, 2020 14:00
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I've got a 1/2 chance of winning! *reads the other poem* I've got a 0/2 chance of winning!
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Mar 9, 2020 18:14
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Sorry everyone. I wanted to participate but I work in the infectious disease field and my life is so far beyond insane right now
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Mar 9, 2020 18:17
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So maybe I let this ride an extra day by accident, let's pretend I was giving super-long benefit of the doubt. Judgement and crits tomorrow 
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Mar 10, 2020 02:23
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The Lord of War is arbitraryfairy. Will post crits, all two of them, tomorrow. Missing In Action: Saucy_Rodent sepirothIRA Letters to their families will be dispatched forthwith.
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Mar 11, 2020 02:23
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 Welcome, Sailors, to the Shanty Showdown A sea shanty is a song sung during work at sea to keep people synchronized during manual tasks. Also they sound cool and fun and good However I am going to broaden it out a little bit: 1. Your shanty should, roughly speaking, involve work and travel, but it doesn't have to be a sea shanty. You can write a migrating buffalo shanty or a space train shanty or a tectonic plates shanty. You can 100% just write a sea shanty, sea shanties are great. 2. You can use as your title, or add in addition to your title, a description of the place and purpose of your shanty. This is because I want to understand your piece in setting/context you are placing it and a work song probably isn't going to have an introductory paragraph in it. Don't abuse this to add a whole backstory, just like "a shanty for migrating buffalo" or whatever 3. If you want a flash rule, I'll just give you the description of your shanty for you. Request at your own risk. 4. There are no form or length requirements, but I'm going to be looking for something that sounds good to read out loud. You don't have to make a tune - you can just write the words for an unspecified song, a call and answer piece, a chant, or any poetic form you want - but sounding good when spoken or sung aloud is the key. It should PUMP ME UP 5. Strictly speaking shanties are work songs that help with rhythmic tasks, but I will be relatively lenient here (so long as your piece is cool and good) so don't get too caught up on this part. If it makes sense for people to sing during or after working then it's fine, so like a warning piece/piece about tasks/piece about an event or identity are all good If you want some examples for inspiration I would recommend looking up the Wellington Sea Shanty society for more traditional sea shanties (or play AC black flag I guess), otherwise songs like Dawson's Christian would also work for a more spacey interpretation. There are loads of cool shanties out there. Deadline: 11:59 Wednesday 25th March Pst Bosun and her bosun's mates 1. arbitraryfairy 2. cptn_dr Drunken Sailors 1. ...you?
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Mar 11, 2020 12:09
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I'll dance a jig while swabbing the deck.
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Mar 11, 2020 15:02
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in To Be Sung From Both Sides Of A Misery Whip Lumberjack was high up the tree Curled right back as the wind blew free Threw him out to the deep blue sea And we never saw its lumber But there’s not a thing we haven’t seen before There’ll be wood to cut, of that we can be sure As, for every tree, there’s a hundred more To provide us all our lumber Ox driver had loaded his cart Took to the reins while pissed as a fart The roadside ditch tore his wheels apart And we never saw his lumber But there’s not a thing we haven’t seen before There’ll be wood to cut, of that we can be sure As, for every tree, there’s a hundred more To provide us all our lumber The huntsmen had slain a wild boar They cooked the beast on the forest floor Their forest burned from the fields to the moor And we never saw its lumber But there’s not a thing we haven’t seen before There’ll be wood to cut, of that we can be sure As, for every tree, there’s a hundred more To provide us all our lumber
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Mar 11, 2020 16:01
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Mar 11, 2020 16:54
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