Saturday, February 27, 2016

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

17 comments:

Kerry O'Connor said...

Such a unique challenge, Gillena! I look forward to the witty responses.

Maude Lynn said...

This was fun!

brudberg said...

I will post soon.. this is puntastic...

Helen said...

He is awesome, mighty fine poetic rap!

Rommy said...

Wow! That was a challenge for my Toad's debut. I had a lot of fun playing with this prompt.

Anonymous said...

Whew, this is a brain twister What fun!

Jim said...

Nice prompt, Gillena. Harder to make it brief/mini with the extra phrases thrown in. Guys are doing good though, better than I could.
..

Gillena Cox said...

Thanks for all your encouraging comments. I am sooo very excited to be prompting here for the first time. And, i value your comments regarding this prompt.

I had prepared another topic, using the 'Fashion me' nudge; then all my documents disappeared, [im using recently a Samsung Chrome lap top after many many year of a Dell, it still baffles me]

So i had to go back to the drawing board so to speak and The Pierrot prompt emerged and i said good i think this is a better one debut.

Then a few days ago my documents reappeared (✿◠‿◠) i'm sure this kind of thing happens to every one. So i'll tweak the old draft to use another time

Im extremely happy for the fun in response comments

Have a great Sunday

much love

P.S. THANKS AGAIN KERRY for inviting me in

De Jackson said...

Love love LOVE this prompt, Gillena. Thank you!
(Sorry about the "4" on my Linky post. Twas leftover from a quadruple-dip indulgence over at this last week's Quadrille at dVerse.) ;)

Margaret said...

Honestly - I don't have the cleverness for this amazing challenge! I will keep trying - but I might have to bow out due to me lack of brain power...

Gillena Cox said...

Thanks for playing De

Much love...

Gillena Cox said...

Do give it a try Margaret, you may just surprise yourself. And there is akdo the aspect of allegory. Come on try your hand

Much love...

Gillena Cox said...

Do give it a try Margaret, you may just surprise yourself. And there is akdo the aspect of allegory. Come on try your hand

Much love...

Outlawyer said...

Hey Gillena,

It is a super interesting prompt. I have been pretty busy and not writing this weekend, but thanks for introducing this aspect of Trinidad & Tobago. k.

Bekkie Sanchez said...

I loved the colorful flavor of this but trying to write like a Pierrot Grenade didn't work so well so I went my own way and apologize ahead of time. Lol! I still had a lot of tongue twisting fun with this one! Enjoy your extra day this month Toads and happy to do a prompt from you Gillena!

Gillena Cox said...

Happy i sparked your interest K

much love...

Gillena Cox said...

Bekkie; you captured the spirit of Pierrot Grenade and made it your own; i liked what you wrote very much

Thanks for playing

much love...