Don't Ask for the Meaning- Naomi

Here is my poem from the Social Media Found theme. All were notes on my Twitter feed. Luckily I follow some of the world's greatest minds, so my samples were extraordinary. Thanks New Yorker, John Darnielle, and Neil Gaiman!

Don't Ask for the Meaning

Now's the perfect time
Of the day,
lonely, cold, wet Halloween,
Beautiful and amazing.
Looking forward
Finally, the cries of our spiritual hunger are answered.
I felt it deserved to live
Petition to save
God Says
Lions mocking
A symbol left from the dictator’s regime
Postage stamps
Not sure I got what I was going for
A new chapter
The magical glorious peculiar show
in need of heavy editing
Humans evolved to be social creatures
Thank you to my co-conspirators--
Some of the world’s most beautiful.
Don’t ask for the meaning- ask for the use

What's the News?

I loved our last theme, and I've decided to build on it a little for our next prompt. One of the great things about living in our digital age is the ability to tap into a nearly infinite network of information. The whole of human knowledge is quite literally at our fingertips. The world is our library.

With that in mind, this week I'd like to dig a little deeper. For this prompt, choose one article, photograph, status update, headline, tweet, or whatever else you find out there on the world wide interwebs and elaborate it into a poem in your own words. Dive in, and enjoy!

Found Poem

To begin with: I apologize for my dereliction of duty last week! I was experiencing a serious case of writer's block tied to some recent anxieties and upsets. But I'm back now, and I absolutely love this week's prompt. Social media is so much a part of our every day lives, but it's rare that we stop to find the poetry in it.
Artists have been exploiting the bounty of the digital age since the 90s, acting something like DJ's, rearranging bits and pieces of found visual information, creating meaning by altering the context in which these images are received. I tried to approach this assignment from an artistic angle rather than a literary one, creating a collage of words that's meant to evoke a certain mood rather than prompt textual analysis. The poem is pieced together entirely from sentences and fragments of sentences that appeared on my Facebook newsfeed in the past few days, as is the picture, which was taken by a friend of mine in New York as Central Park was buried in the first snow of the season.

Fog Machines

Oh, hello, nor’easter.

The first flurries of the season fell, carried by the wind, followed by the leaves.

But there is still that lingering thought.

How could you ever

Confirm/deny?

There are no words

... Perchè niente è cambiato anche se tutto è diverso.

For now we are young.

Still, that lingering thought.

Chemistry and timing.

I write

and hope to see.

That lingering thought.

Even then it is a moment of grace.

Theme: Social Media Found Poetry

Found poetry has been one of my favorite genres of poetry since I first played with it in high school.  Infinite combinations can be made when you only take the words of other people and reconstruct them in new and meaningful ways.  Our dialogue theme last week made me think a lot about how we communicate today compared to generations past.  Certainly the internet and social media have opened communication channels that were previously untapped, whether that is for good or not is open to debate.  So, in honor of this meditation on communication I challenge you to choose one channel of social media, be it your e-mail inbox, your Facebook  or Twitter stream, or whatever the kids are keeping up with these days and create a found poem using the words of the social network.  Enjoy!

Poem 4- War Correspondence

I work in the Clements Library at the University of Michigan which is a collection of primary materials and documents all focused on American History. It is an amazing place to be, and I have access to people's personal lives over 500 years (take that, Facebook!). One collection I just spent some time with was a collection of letters between an Army doctor serving in England in World War II and his fiancee at home in Syracuse. They wrote more than 600 letters in the two years that they were apart, sometimes writing 3 or 4 letters a day. However, despite the seemingly prolific communication, there was a month wait time for their letters to float across the Atlantic Ocean so they never were really able to have a dialogue. They weren't able to respond to each other in time, so their correspondence takes the form as parallel individual narratives. They are quite lovely, and made me think a lot about how much dialogue has changed. My own significant other lived in England for a year and our communication took quite different forms. I wonder if historians will have access to our correspondence?

Some of these lines are taken directly from the original letters, though much of it is inferred. Read it as you like. I attempted to construct separate narratives, as their letters were, but also give it an overall structure that could be read in multiple ways.

War Correspondence

(I had a hard time with formatting, so I just took a picture of the text)

I've lost count of the themes...

But here is this week's! It's always a challenge to try out new forms of poetry - it can be a real pain trying to mold your own unique style and language into a form that can seem stilted and archaic. It's amazing, though, how liberating restrictions can be. Closing one creative pathway inevitably necessitates the opening of another. I'm not going to propose we write sonnets, although the thought did cross my mind, but I am interested in exploring one of the less common poetry forms: the dialogue poem. Unlike most poetry which is written from the vantage point of a single character, dialogue poems allow for a conversation rather than a dramatic monologue. For this week's assignment, write a poem that engages two or more characters in some kind of verbal exchange. To inspire us, here's one of my favorite (racy!) dialogue poems by e.e. cummings.

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

Poem 3 - Susan

Navigation

Distance is losing meaning –

this, we know.

It is an old thought;

old as telephone lines,

railways, steamships,

rickety, rolling, shining cars,

and all things that puff and chug

and cough up fumes.

Old as the great grey

snakey windings

of a million-tailed nest

of highways, byways,

and stubby driveways,

leading nowhere,

and everywhere at once.

There is meaning in a journey –

from solid ground surrounded

on all sides by endless blue.

You wrap your bundles tightly,

one by one:

here is taro, breadfruit,

coconut, banana,

here is clothing, weapons.

There are animals, packed,

as well, alongside human cargo.

They are fat, now;

the sea will leave them gaunt

and wild eyed.

Your hope, you tuck

beside your gods,

at the prow of the boat.

You strike out into nothing –

and for days that will be all you see.

You will watch the stars;

mark their passing

from one concave horizon to another –

the birds will guide you,

and the color of the sea,

the gathering of clouds

hugging the flanks

of still invisible peaks.

One day, your will again see green –

mountains rising taller than the waves.

Your feet will kiss the sand,

sweet and white, untouched and infinite,

and you, also, will be made new.

There are no journeys, now –

only transportations.

I am here, and the sand is white

and sweet, and bounded on all sides

by glass, and concrete, and cement.

There are a thousand miles

that separate myself

from all I left behind.

But my bundles can’t sustain me,

and, not having marked the path

with my own un-callused feet,

I cannot seem to find

the right way home.