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LILY EVANS
This collage was begun and completed in Elmira, New York. It traveled to California, Melbourne, Australia, and two destinations in Denmark, developing along the way.
Countdown Poetry
Countdown Poetry
Posted by Marty McCutcheon on October 18, 2011 at 17:42 in Round Table [Collaboration
Poems with line-by-line descending word-counts, culminating in a single, final word.
Poems with line-by-line descending word-counts, culminating in a single, final word.
EXAMPLE:
A 6-DOWN poem has six lines, progressively decreasing in word-count, starting with six words, ending with one.
Six words in the first line
Five words in the second
The third has four
The fourth, three
Two, then
One.
To compose such poems in the round-table style requires a group of five contributors, and could be done online, or off. The poems would be composed in the following manner:
1. A circular pattern is derived.
2. Each contributor writes a six-word line and sends it to the person "to their right," thus receiving a six-word line from the person "to their left."
3. Everyone adds a five-word line to their neighbor's six-word line, and passes the two lines "to the right," thus receiving two lines "from the left."
4. Everyone adds a four-word line, and passes like before.
5. This continues until the fifth pass, when everyone receives a poem-in-progress made up of five lines beginning with the six-word line that they themselves wrote.
6. Everyone adds the final line; the final word.
The result: FIVE 6-line, 21-word poems, composed by five contributors, each started and finished by a unique author.
LISTENING
by Mike Hinc, with Niki Hare, Pennie Steel, 48073, W.T. Richards, Jan Kather, and Marty McCutcheon
THE SO SLOW SUCK OF SURF ON SAND
A SHIFTING SPACE WHERE WATER MEETS LAND
CARVES ITS WAY THROUGH MY HAND
TILL VAINS ARE REACHED BELOW
FOOTPRINTS ON TIME'S SHORE
MERMAIDS MOANING SORE
SEASHELLS WHISPERING
LISTENING
11063 stage fright
by 48073, with W.T. Richards, Jan Kather, Marty McCutcheon, Mike Hinc, Niki Hare, and Pennie Steel
You might want to start running. Fast. Now.
Before the fires come burn your town...
Black smoke choking throats, tearing eyes
The grim sickle slash nullifies
All hope and time
Shoot, Fly by.
Don't deny.
Return
The Burden
by W.T. Richards, with Jan Kather, Marty McCutcheon, Mike Hinc, Niki Hare, Pennie Steel, and 48073
The gravity of my situation, is heavier than:
Old tires sunk deep in algae blue
Swimming in a suit of cement
Heavier than love's cruel cadaver.
Leaden cored, drifting beneath,
Heavier still than
Swirling leaves
Relentless.
Fallow Ground
by Niki Hare, with Pennie Steel, 48073, W.T. Richards, Jan Kather, Marty McCutcheon, and Mike Hinc.
For fallow, somewhere, lying deep beneath my feet
A sleeping muse I intend to meet
It surely won't be long before
Orpheus's lyre strings would flow
Making melodies so sweet
Sweet melodies repeat
repeat, repeat
Slow.
Pocketed
by Pennie Steel, with 48073, W.T. Richards, Jan Kather, Marty McCutcheon, Mike Hinc, and Niki Hare
Who can know which way my poem goes
I left it in my Mothers coat
It's got feet, it's got toes
Wildly dancing or in repose
Wondering, wayward, wandering on
Who can know
Silently gone
Pocketed
Phantasm
by Jan Kather, with Marty McCutcheon, Mike Hinc, Niki Hare, Pennie Steel, 48073, and W.T. Richards
On very dark nights the shape would appear
In the shadow between one and another
lover's shape locked in shadow, clear
but memory of a dreamer
still draws very near
the remorseful fear
Death's peer
phantasm
Gobbledygoon
by Marty McCutcheon, with Mike Hinc, Niki Hare, Pennie Steel, 48073, W.T. Richards, and Jan Kather
Defunctory factory fiction, no matter the fatter buffoon
Mad hatter chatters in the blue lagoon
Rattling away to some wandering tune
Remembers not the fading moon
Shouting into the spittoon
Laughing, lurching, loon!
Manhattan tycoon
Gobbledygoon
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