Sunday Mini-Challenge: FASHION ME YOUR WORDS ~ Pierrot Grenade

Now-a-days, long after the Carnival is over, he is still talking.
The Pierrot Grenade, is typically a vintage character of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival. He is covered in strips of cloth and wears a painted face or a mask. He challenges one and all to spell words, then he spells them himself, using witty phrases in the process. He moves in a funny dance pointing with a stick, a twig from guava or hibiscus.

His famous opening lines:
“ Good evening every lady and every gentleman
I am the Pierrot Grenade by name
And spelling is my favourite game
But I do not spell letter for letter
Oh no, that so is for ABC school teacher
My method is a thousand times better
You see every word for me is a story
And sometimes I even use allegory...”

An example of his spelling goes something like this: "a chicken in de car, de car can’t go that's the way to spell Chicago"

Outside of the Carnival process he can be enjoyed on the local theater stage, in village performances, and at 'Talk Tent' (started by Paul Keens Douglas in 1983)

My challenge today: 'Fashion Me Your Words To Wit', fellow toads. Don your garment of scraps, and, fashion me a poem, using your best witty prowess, and be for today a T&T Pierrot Grenade, using the spelling technique, somewhere in your poem. Additionally, your poem, including the title, if there is one, should not exceed 100 words. Lets do this! Have lots of fun!

Glossary
The Talk Tent - a festival of spoken words
in de car - in the car
de car can’t go - the car cannot go OR the car refuses to move
T&T - Trinidad and Tobago

Transforming with Nature's Wonders

Hello, it's Hannah here with an opportunity to write poetry through the eyes of Nature. : the physical world and everything in it (such as plants, animals, mountains, oceans, stars, etc.) that is not made by people, (Merriam-Webster).

For the next couple of days, (this post will be featured until Noon on Saturday), explore the world of footprints. 

It's your choice of whose feet, (form or free-verse), - the options are wide open: caterpillar, ostrich, gorilla, dog, cat, bear, lion, turtle, human...what stories do their paths tell?

Here're a couple of suggestions for the writing process if you like: Address the Five W's - who, what, where, when and why, use specific sensory details and cause us to vicariously experience the perspective of your chosen being. Also, I found this great wiki site for narrative techniques - perhaps browsing this list could bring a fresh way to introduce your character.

Please, link a new poem to Mr. Linky below, the link does not expire, feel free to post more than one poem, visit others and have fun...I look forward to reading all of your poems!

Thank you, so much for sharing your tracks here, Toads and Pond Dwellers!

The Tuesday Platform

Can’t anyone get a little peace and quiet around here?!?!

Welcome to The Tuesday Platform in the Imaginary Garden! The good news is, you can be as loud or as quiet as you like in the Garden. No one will be offended either way! So turn it up, or settle down, and let’s share some poetry.

The rules for today are simple: Share * Read * Comment * Enjoy!

(Shhhhhhh. Reading.)

one this snowflake ~ Micro Poetry

"one this snowflake (alighting) is upon a gravestone"
e.e. cummings
[For original typography of this poem, visit Harvard Magazine]

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Today is the day we put the "mini' back into the Sunday Mini-Challenge, and return to the option of form poetry. The object of this challenge is to write a poem in no more than 10 lines (but you may write in fewer than 10 lines all the way down to a single American sentence). You may choose your own form or stick to free verse, if preferred. For those who would like a bit of guidance, or further choice, I have provided a link to The Poet's Garret, showing a variety of 6 line poems (or sestets).

The subject matter for your poem is wide open, but bear in mind the 'one this snowflake' angle. I look forward to reading a number of short poems, from Saturday through to Monday. The link does not expire, so please feel free to write more than one poem, and a return to comment on poems linked later would be appreciated.

Words Count With Mama Zen

Shock me . . . make me feel better!  Or, worse.  Or, whatever.  Just shock me . . . in 77 words or less.

The Tuesday Platform

Welcome to the Imaginary Garden...






Greetings to all toads, friends and followers on this fine Tuesday in February. There are some poems that bind us to other people, perhaps a shared favourite, perhaps giving words to mutual feelings. As such, poetry goes beyond art to become the vernacular of human connectivity.

Our Open Link provides the platform for new connections to be made in the sharing of poetry. All are welcome to join in by linking up a poem of your own choice.

Sunday Mini-Challenge: Carpe Jugulum

Appearance is not the most reliable of mistresses. But we do have to start somewhere, don’t we? Welcome to the Sunday Mini-Challenge, dearest Toads. This weekend, I’m calling for poetry that explores what eyes, brains and instincts can see when they work as a team in the art of making sense of the world and the behavior of its people.

How are we going to do that? Easy… we’ll use the following quote, from Terry Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum, as a foundation: “Don’t trust the cannibal just ’cos he’s usin’ a knife and fork!”

You didn’t think I was going to forget to wave at those of you who celebrate Valentine’s Day tomorrow, did you? May everyone find (and keep) their perfect tape dispenser to love. 

(this is a photograph of a Sam Gross cartoon, found in my copy of the Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, 1925-2004, pg. 601)

Please craft a new poem that speaks of your thoughts/feelings on Terry Pratchett’s quote, and add the direct link to your poem below. Then go visit your fellow Toads to delight in their poetic creations.   

Fireblossom Friday: The Red Wheelbarrow

"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams

so much depends 
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Yeah, well. Sorry, WCW, but I've never liked your famous poem very much. Oh, it's nice enough as far as it goes; a nicely depicted Still Life With Wheelbarrow. Next.

But, ne'er let it be said (did you like my use of the very poetic "ne'er" there?) that Fireblossom isn't open to being proven wrong, or goofy in the head, or something.

So, your challenge is to write a new poem with the opening "So much depends upon...." and take it from there. That's it! No haiku. 

The Tuesday Platform

Chinese New Year

by Lynda Hull

                                       

The dragon is in the street dancing beneath windows

  pasted with colored squares, past the man

who leans into the phone booth’s red pagoda, past

  crates of doves and roosters veiled

until dawn. Fireworks complicate the streets

  with sulphur as people exchange gold

and silver foil, money to appease ghosts

  who linger, needy even in death. I am

almost invisible. Hands could pass through me

  effortlessly. This is how it is

to be so alien that my name falls from me, grows

  untranslatable as the shop signs,

the odors of ginseng and black fungus that idle

  in the stairwell, the corridor where

the doors are blue months ajar. Hands

  gesture in the smoke, the partial moon

of a face. For hours the soft numeric

  click of mah-jongg tiles drifts

down the hallway where languid Mai trails

  her musk of sex and narcotics.

There is no grief in this, only the old year

  consuming itself, the door knob blazing

in my hand beneath the lightbulb’s electric jewel.

  Between voices and fireworks

wind works bricks to dust—hush, hush—

  no language I want to learn. I can touch

the sill worn by hands I’ll never know

  in this room with its low table

where I brew chrysanthemum tea. The sign

  for Jade Palace sheds green corollas

on the floor. It’s dangerous to stand here

  in the chastening glow, darkening

my eyes in the mirror with the gulf of the rest

  of my life widening away from me, waiting

for the man I married to pass beneath

  the sign of the building, to climb

the five flights and say his Chinese name for me.

  He’ll rise up out of the puzzling streets

where men pass bottles of rice liquor, where

  the new year is liquor, the black bottle

the whole district is waiting for, like

  some benevolent arrest—the moment

when men and women turn to each other and dissolve

  each bad bet, every sly mischance,

the dalliance of hands. They turn in lamplight

  the way I turn now. Wai Min is in the doorway.

He brings fish. He brings lotus root.

  He brings me ghost money.  

It's open link day in the Imaginary Garden. Please link up a poem of your choice, and take some time during the week to visit others who have shared their poems. We look forward to sharing with you!

Flash 55 PLUS!

Greetings to all poets and friends! It is time for this month's Flash 55 Challenge. The rules of this prompt are simple: Write a piece of poetry or prose on a subject of your choice in precisely 55 WORDS.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PLUS!

For the optional extra part of this challenge, I invited you to visit twentytwowords.com and peruse the examples they give of several foreign words, describing common experiences, which have no direct English translation. Use the word, or its meaning as inspiration for your poem.

Hitting the Road.......

Optimus5.com

Happy Late New Year Toads!!!!!  Herotomost here, sitting and dreaming of traveling as usual.  Nothing like a good trip to soothe the soul and to get your heart and mind in the right place.  Doesn't matter what type of trip, whether you are flying there, taking a bus or maybe tramping down the Mississippi River on a paddle boat.  Seeing the differences and similarities between culture, everyday life, scenery and weather is grounding and uplifting at the same time.  This prompt is about one specific type of trip.  The kind of trip that allows maximum face time with your surroundings.  The kind where you can't help to make your own sound track, plug it in and sing at the top of your lungs while doing 80 on a two lane highway between Capitan and Roswell New Mexico or between  Scotts Bluff and Alliance Nebraska or wherever it is that your itinerary takes you across this great big ol' world in which we live. Yes Toad's, I am talking about the road trip. The top down (or window open, unless you are Izy this time of year, she might freeze to death) music blaring and you singing at the top of your lungs (and yes you do sound just like the song).  Oh, and let's not forget the snacks.  When I was younger and didn't have to worry about the waistline as much, my snacks of choice where puffy Cheetos, peanut M&M's and Dr. Pepper. Now its likely to be Rice Cakes and Ensure. Any way you slice it, the road trip can be an awesome way to reach your destination while enjoying all the space in between.

Shareably.com

So enough babbling. The prompt my dear Toad's is to think back to a particularly good or bad road trip you have had and write about it.  You can write about any facet, the company, car troubles, the scenery, the destination, whatever floats your boat. The piece can be in whatever form you would like, poetry, prose, religious text or bulk mail flyer. As always, has to be new and as always, if this prompt offends anyone or you just hate the subject matter and can't get into it, you can skip or write any darn thing you want.  I'm easy.

Onward and upward my friends, love you all and I can't wait to read what you come up with!!!!

Mashable.com

The Tuesday Platform

Welcome to the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads...




This moving recital of La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Ben Wishaw is from the movie Bright Star, a bio pic based on the last three years of John Keats' life. In his lifetime, sales of Keats's three volumes of poetry probably amounted to only 200 copies. He died at the age of 25, not knowing the profound influence his poetry would have on English literature, as arguably one of the greatest lyrical writers. This, to me, is a solemn reminder that poetry may be of a generation but not limited to it, and no poem should ever be taken for granted.

With this in mind, you are invited to share your work using our open link. We appreciate the opportunity to come together on a weekly basis to learn from and to be inspired by all contributions.