Thursday, March 30, 2017

Literary Excursions with Kerry ~ Annotations

Greetings to all friends and poets. I mentioned in my previous challenge that I would like to give more focus to the skill of using literary devices , with particular interest in those developed during the modern and post-modern time-frame. One of the characteristics of  post-modern authors was to fragment the narrative through various means, such as change of narrative perspective, flashbacks or by breaking the fourth wall. A simple method which also gained popularity was the inclusion of annotations or footnotes, which could be either factual or fictitious reference points. These annotations might be placed in the left or right margin or at the bottom of the page. John Fowles used this device in The French Lieutenant's Woman. Please click on the images for a closer view.



The annotations may perform a purely literary function, as is the case with The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (1960)

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but in other cases, they may be used to tell more of the story or provide insight into character. The Selected Work of T.S. Spivet (2009) by Reif Larsen is a good case in point.

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Poetry lends itself to annotations, purely as a means of analyzing the text.

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Our Challenge is to write a poem and provide annotations to the text, either as margin notes or footnotes. You may write a new poem for the challenge, or use a poem you have previously written which you think might lend itself to this approach. I realize this may cause some logistical problem in terms of formatting but the idea is to be creative rather than restrictive. I look forward to reading the results of this endeavour.






13 comments:

Marian said...

Ooooh, cool prompt, Kerry!

Sanaa Rizvi said...

Phew!❤️ Quite a challenging prompt Kerry, hope I did justice to it!

Kerry O'Connor said...

I think that there are multiple ways of approaching this idea - there are no incorrect approaches, just an extension of ideas, commentary beyond the lines themselves.

hyperCRYPTICal said...

Cheers for the excellent prompt Kerry. I really had to think about it and then decided to do it with humour.
Kind regards
Anna :o]

Kim M. Russell said...

A cool prompt and I had just the poem for it!

Kerry O'Connor said...

In setting this challenge, I wondered if there would be many who would try it as it seems like quite an ask at the end of the week. I am blown away by what I have read so far. Each poem has been an enriched reading experience for me and I have learned so much about creative process at the same time.

Sanaa, I responded to your poem directly after it was published yesterday but do not see any comments on your site - I hope my remarks show up for you.

Bekkie Sanchez said...

I will be back to write next time! Going bike riding. Have a good write friends!

hedgewitch said...

Thanks for the challenge Kerry. I will be unable to comment til this weekend, but at least was able to write something!

Kerry O'Connor said...

That is wonderful! I'm always over the moon to see your link, Hedge.

brudberg said...

This was quite a challenge... but I found my way of doing it... The formatting was a clear limitation...

Sanaa Rizvi said...

@Kerry My WordPress site is acting a bit strange. But yes all the comments are there, yours too❤️

Magaly Guerrero said...

What a fantastic prompt, Kerry. I won't be able to participate today, I shall save it for future Play It Again or Tuesday Platform. It's too yummy not to explore (while my eyes aren't half-closed).

Rosemary Nissen-Wade said...

I was wanting to participate, but couldn't find anything that seemed quite right in my oeuvre – then an exchange with Magaly on facebook had it all fall into place!