WHAT did you say?

What are these guys thinking? Write a caption or a bit of dialogue.

Phasma symphonizing

A friend passed on some spam with words that caught my eye.

phasma symphonizing
vertebration riddled

I like the sounds of phasma and vertebration. Each sounds like it is several concepts bundled up snugly together.

Play with those. Let the sounds of phasma and vertebration and the combinations take you where where they will in free form writing for 10 minutes or so.

When you feel the ideas fading, check out the real definitions (and I thought they were made up words!) for a recharge for a few more minutes.

When you're done, go back and circle your favorite phrases. See if you can arrange them into a poemish creation.

"You cannot depend ..."

Fear and loathing

What does your character ...

... fear?
... dread?
... want?
... want to avoid losing?
... want to avoid gaining?
... love?
... desire?
... need?
... crave?
... hate?
... loathe?
... have a passion for?

If your character doesn't want something badly, there isn't much reason to read about them.

"As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again." -- Scarlett O'Hara

While in real life happiness is a great thing, it's boring in a character ;-) Their desire needn't be a huge thing like saving the world. It can be simple personal quest like recreating Mom's lost recipe for cherry pie or a war on the invading bedbugs.

This can work for a current character, a dropped character you were fond of but couldn't make work, a brand new character.

(The above words are intentionally similar to need. Some words may feel the same to you. That's okay. We each have slightly different connotations for words and words you feel are the same may spark very different ideas in someone else.)

Ace of spades

Come up with a new deck of cards for current times, a fantasy world, a future world, for your own or someone else's world. J.K. Rowling showed us wizarding chess. What do their cards look like? Who or what is on them? What do Goth cards look like? Klingon? Robot? (They all probably exist! ;-)

You can stick with the standard 52+Joker deck of 4 suits or not. (Not to be practical on you or anything ;-), but I suspect a number close to 52 is easy to shuffle. The 65 cards in Five Crowns is tough! So maybe your characters have larger hands if you decide to have more cards or they have some technique to get around that.)

So, what suits have meaning for your world? Will you use something other than numbers? Do you have a set corresponding to the royals?

From Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield

---

Did you know?

The kings in the French decks represent actual kings? King David (spades), Charlemagne or Charles IV (hearts), Julius Ceasar (diamonds), Alexander the Great (clubs). So do the queens and jacks (knaves).

The Ace of Spades picture is usually much larger for a reason? The cards in Europe were taxed and that's the card chosen for the tax stamp.

That the ace, which used to be the lowest card, trumps the king probably came about during the French Revolution when the peasants revolted against the king?

There's way more than you thought to question about playing cards :-)

Little Red Zombiehood

Turn Little Red Riding Hood into a zombie story. Is she the zombie? Is she a zombie fighter? Who represents the wolf? And who the grandma?

An old prompt to turn Jack and the Beanstalk into a vampire story inspired this and I wasn't even thinking of the mashup Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! but it looks very cool!

"I rather fancy most authors ..."

The gateway

Did you stumble across this? Or were you directed here?

Was the picture taken before entering, or just after, facing back where you came?

Does the archway lead where it seems to, or is it a portal?

If you enjoy abandoned places, Web Urbanist has a massive collection of photos grouped by type.

Till death

I overheard, "Analen's getting married."

And my whole life changed.

Take it from there.

Or, alternately, take it many places from there. See how many beginnings you can come up with.

"A writer is a person ..."

Pyrophobic firefighter

On slips of paper, write down a dozen occupations that fit with your preferred writing genre. If you're expanding beyond contemporary, you don't need to stick with firefighter and doctor so you can throw in zombie hunter or holodeck author. But, even on Mars, they'll have fires and someone needs to fight them. :-)

On another set of slips write down personality quirks (like kleptomaniac, no sense of humor, or superstitious).

Draw one from each set and use the combination as the inspiration of a character or three. Match them up and see what happens.

Brainstorm on the quirks for a bit. You'll be surprised what starts coming out once you allow yourself to loosen up.

If you want to add in some quirks from someone else's brain: 100 character quirks you can steal from me and 100 character traits you can totally steal from me part II. And a phobia list with a bit of story to set them up.

Home theater

Tell the story of a house from the house's point of view. What do houses care about? Not the same things as the parasites -- er, symbiotic lifeforms living in them ;-)

How have the people through the years used and abused the house. How have they altered it, improved it or let it decay? What invaders (termites, squirrels ...) have moved in? What's it feel like to the house when the roof leaks (and to be helpless to fix it when people ignore it!) Any walls or floor ripped out or basement dug up to hide secrets? Ghosts? Good or bad karma left in the house? What about the surrounding house "friends" who have come and gone? What about the new "kid" on the block?

"Fundamentally, all writing ..."

Murder of crow(d)s

Ben Shott writes about words for the NY Times with an occasional weekend competition.

This weekend's competition is to come up with new collective nouns for modern nouns. Collective nouns are the words for groups like pride of lions and murder of crows.

Here's his description:

Many of the collective nouns with which we are familiar can be found in the “Book of St. Albans,” published in 1486. This curious volume, often attributed to Juliana Berners, contains treatises on hawking, hunting and heraldry, as well as a host of, now famous, nouns of assemblage, including:

An exultation of larks; a parliament of rooks; a murmuration of starlings; a shrewdness of apes; a gaggle of geese; a turmoil of porpoises; a business of ferrets; a spring of teal; and a pride of lions.

This weekend, co-vocabularists are invited to submit novel nouns of assemblage for modern phenomena. A bucket of Wiis? A swamp of blogs? A murder of crowds?

You can add to or just check out the contributions at his blog.

(Not sure if you'll need to register to read the blog. I know you do for the NY Times articles.)

Toe tow

Use the following homophones in sentences.

toe/tow
pidgin/pigeon
complement/compliment
manner/manor
mane/main
medal/meddle/metal/mettle
principal/principle
vain/vane/vein
pi/pie

Wakey wakey

Write 5-10 different scenes of a character waking up. It's natural to default to amusing grumpiness or just getting up and moving on. But dig deeper and find the quirkiness and different reactions people have to an ordinary experience.

"Why wouldn't you ..."

Mélange

Click the picture to enlarge

• Someone is not who they're pretending to be.
  
• One is a breeder of cockapoos.
  
• One of them hates someone in the group.
  
• The accountant pines to be a cabaret singer.
  
• There has been a betrayal.
  
• In one's wallet is a picture of every cat they've ever owned.
  
• One has been known to photocopy their butt and leave it in the copy tray.
  
• Two are related but only one knows it. Though one of the others also knows.
  
• One has on edible underwear but not for the obvious reason.
  
• There is a love triangle and unrequited love but not the way you might think.
  
• In the suitcase of one are items from all but one of the others' suitcases.

(The group is before Al Khazneh in Jordan, the site of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Feel free to use that or ignore it.)

The photographer and the woman in the background to the left may or may not be part of the group.

Radiance

"Some men of a secluded and studious life have sent forth from their closet or their cloister, rays of intellectual light that have agitated courts and revolutionized kingdoms; like the moon which, though far removed from the ocean, and shining upon it with a serene and sober light, is the chief cause of all those ebbings and flowings which incessantly disturb that restless world of waters."

Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832)

Take that literally (though they can be women too :-).

There are people in the world, but isolated from it, who give their thoughts physical form and somehow those thoughts are changing the world.

It could be a video game. That's been done. A few thousand times ;-)

Or, better, maybe the gods or the world's designers have moved onto another project, abandoning the world which is deteriorating. It's found some have the power to influence the world through writing -- or song or art or comics or ...? And they're isolated to fix things. Voluntarily? Involuntarily? God like powers or a quiet whisper than ripples through the world?

What happens hundreds of years later? What kind of mythology is built up around the fixers? What's their explanation for the meaning behind it all? Are the fixers now a separate society, isolated from the world? Have they forgotten their purpose and don't realize they're affecting a real world? Or are people tested and sent off to be fixers, never to see their families again? Or is a fixer a 9-5 job but after work they end up hearing everyone's problems they want fixed?

"To most people ..."

A poem of a different color

I love collections :-) One of Kenneth Koch's ideas in Wishes, Lies, and Dreams was to sprinkle a poem with Spanish colors (which grew into other words too).

I thought it might be fun to collect color names from many different languages. Try picking one language and not looking at the English color names. (Though some are from familiar roots and you'll be able to guess :-) Use the colors by sound. Or use the words to mean something else. What does each sound like?

In prose or poetry, create a colorful event: a festival, a holiday, a circus, nightclub, a culture drawn to bright colors. Set it in the future or past or a fantasy world. An interstellar ship trying to keep people's spirits up during the years long trip with spirited music and colorful decorations. A culture where dyes are rare so they bring out their colorful clothes only once a year in celebration of spring.

Here's what a couple of the kids did with the idea in Wishes, Lies and Dreams:

On my planeta named Carambona La Paloma
We have a fiesta called Luna Estrella.
A funny looking hombre comes to our homes.
He has four heads: a leon head, an oso head, a mono head, and a culebra head.
We do a baile named Mar of Nieve.
On this fiesta we eat platos.
That's how we celebrate Christmas on my planet.

Marion Mackles

The luna is big and clara.
The perro I saw is almost as big as a caballo.
The caballo I saw ate the manzana I had.
The estrella was as clara as the sun.

Valerie Chasse

Just the facts

When I stumbled across this week's quote, it reminded me of a prompt that provides a structure for a poem (or for a brief story or character sketch).

Write a poem (or sketch) that answers the 5 Ws (+H) reporters are told to include in their stories: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. They can be answered in any order. You can leave off one if it seems to tell too much. (Usually why.)

Here's some examples from Getting the Knack by Stephen Dunning and William Stafford. (The questions in parentheses aren't part of the poem.)

Coincidence

(who?)    Our elected representative, Ms. Ludlaw
(what?)   pumping voters' hands
(how?)    as if they were slot-machine levers
(where?)  outside Faculty Lounge
(when?)   Tuesday, after school.
(why?)    Next month, election.

September

(what?)   Flocking toward Mexico
(when?)   before Winter's first ka-choooo,
(how?)    thrashing the silver air
(where?)  in Ontario's gray sky,
(why?)    wanting warm --
(who?)    a blizzard of ducks

"I keep six honest serving-men ..."

Tumbling skeltons

If you like to rhyme, skeltonic verse can be fun. The structure is playful and suggests lively movement so is also known as tumbling verse. The lines are short (3-6 words on average) and the rhyme continues as long as you feel it's working. Then it moves onto the next rhyme. One rhyme may last two lines, another a dozen.

(If you need help with rhymes try Rhymer or Rhymezone.)

Here's an example from John Skelton who invented the form back in the 16th century:

from Colin Clout

What can it avail
To drive forth a snail,
Or to make a sail
Of an herring's tail?
To rhyme or to rail
To write or to indict,
Either for delight
Or else for despite?
Or books to compile
Of divers manners style,
Vice to revile
And sin to exile?
To teach or to preach
As reason will reach?

Say this, and say that:
His head is so fat
He wotteth never what
Nor whereof he speaketh;
He crieth and he creaketh,
He prieth and he peeketh,
He chides and he chatters,
He prates and he patters,
He clitters and he clatters,
He meddles and he smatters,
He glozes and he flatters!

Or if he speak plain,
Then he lacketh brain,
He is but a fool;
Let him go to school.
A three-footed stool!
That he may down sit,
For he lacketh wit!
And if that he hit
The nail on the head,
It standeth in no stead;
The devil, they say, is dead,
The devil is dead!

It may well so be,
Or else they would see
Otherwise, and flee
from worldly vanity,
And foul covetousness
And other wretchedness,
Fickle falseness,
Variableness
With unstableness.
And if ye stand in doubt
Who brought this rhyme about,
My name is Colin Clout.

Fill in the blanks

Use the following first and last words from lines of poetry for inspiration. When you're done, the originals are in the comments. (They're probably familiar.)

She ... from
Yesterday ... gone
While ... bright
Or ... night
No ... knows
She ... goes

Don't ... free
She'll ... be
She ... chained
To ... gained
And ... lost
At ... cost

There's ... say
Catch ... away
Dying ... time
Lose ... dreams
And ... mind
Ain't ... unkind

---

Finished ... mind
people ... time
All ... satisfy
Think ... pacify
Can ... brain
I ... find
I ... blind
Make ... cry
Happiness ... unreal
And ... state
I ... late

---

So ... far
Couldn't ... heart
Forever ... are
And ... matters

Never ... way
Life ... way
All ... say
And ... matters

Trust ... you
Every ... new
Open ... view
And ... matters

Never ... do
Never ... know
But ... know

Metaphorically speaking

A metaphor turns one thing into another. Start with the statement:

A road is a road for cars.

and see how many roads (and paths and byways) you can come up with that carry something from one place to another.

• An artery is a road for exhausted blood leading back to the heart.
  
• The internet is a superhighway for spam.
  
• School is a potholed dull path to college that they've been promising to pave for decades.
  
• A river is snowmelt's road from mountain to ocean.
  
• Pretend is a road to anywhere.
  
• A lecture is a pathway to sleep.
  

"Immature poets ..."

Pantoum

Don't be scared! The pantoum form looks way more complex than it is! The beauty is a poem that's twice as long as the number of lines you write. The cool thing is that because the repeated lines will fall in different orders, you'll see new connections between the ideas and the meaning of words may shift in their new context.

The pattern is the even lines of one stanza become the odd lines of the next stanza. You write new even lines for the new stanza. The Malays, who invented this form, could keep this up for hours :-) You're allowed to stop with 4 or 5 stanzas :-) Here's the pattern to repeat:

One
Two
Three
Four

Two copied here
(new)
Four copied here
(new)

Repeat.

The last stanza pattern is slightly different. In fact you've already written the stanza. It's just repeats. Again, the odd lines are the even lines from the previous stanza. Then use the poem's first line as the last line of the stanza and use the poem's third line as the stanza's second line.

(There's also an imperfect pantoum where the last stanza's odd lines can be new (like the previous stanzas) or the last lines may fall in any order.)

Here's a summary of the tips from "Getting the Knack " by Stephen Dunning and William Stafford:

1. Doodle six or eight words or phrases. If you're stuck, skim a book or magazine for something that interests you. Steal lines from your own poems.
   
2. Once you have something that interests you, ask what they remind you of, and write that. The goal is four lines.
   
• Think of each line as a separate unit. Not necessarily a full sentence, but a bit that can be shifted about without needing the line that followed it.
  
• For now begin each line with a capital letter.
  
• For now, leave out punctuation.
  
• Be alert for messages the poem is revealing as you work, rhymes, rhythms, new meanings.
  
3. When writing the new even lines, be aware of not only the previous line, but the next line.
   
4. Try out various rearrangements of the final lines to see which works for you.
   
5. When you look back over it, the words on repeated lines will be the same but feel free to alter punctuation or capitalization. (Eg, a word on one line may be a name in another line, or an added comma may alter the meaning.) In the pure form, that's all you can change. In "Getting the Knack" the authors suggest allowing yourself to change tenses and spellings but caution you not to solve all your problems with exceptions.
   
6. Tinker. Play around with it. Read it out loud and look for rhymes and rhythms.
   

A pantoum doesn't need to rhyme, but Neil Peart of Rush did and turned it into a song :-) (Note, it's an imperfect pantoum. Line two of the last stanza is new.)

The Larger Bowl (A Pantoum)
by Neil Peart
from Snakes & Arrows by Rush

If we're so much the same like I always hear
Why such different fortunes and fates?
Some of us live in a cloud of fear
Some live behind iron gates

Why such different fortunes and fates?
Some are blessed and some are cursed
Some live behind iron gates
While others only see the worst

Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth

The golden one or scarred from birth
Some things can never be changed
Such a lot of pain on this earth
It's somehow so badly arranged

Some things can never be changed
Some reasons will never come clear
It's somehow so badly arranged
If we're so much the same like I always hear

Chorus, so not part of the pantoum form:

(Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth)

There are links to some more examples at:

Poetry -- Pantoum at About.com
Pantoum at Wikipedia

Blackout

Grab a permanent marker and newspaper or magazine from recycling. Flip to a random page, preferably with columns. First scan through the text for an image that strikes your fancy. (Your poem doesn't need to begin there. It's an idea to build on.) Next, begin blacking out the words until you hit a phrase or word or piece of word you'd like to use in your poem. Read across the columns rather than straight down to mix things up.

This is a variation on the cutups done by the Dadaists . Artists cut up pictures and poets cut up articles, then pasted them randomly together.

Austin Kleon has created many (with a book of them to be published next year) and run a few contests a couple of years ago. You can see his at his blog and more at the Flickr group of Newspaper Blackout Poems for a load of examples.

Here are Austin Kleon's TIPS:

• Combine both columns into one poem—don’t just do each column at a time! It doesn’t make for a good read. Skip between the two…this allows for more interesting possibilities. You can see the winners here and here and here and here .
• Remember that Westerners read left-to-right, up-to-down. Poems read best if they follow that pattern.
• You can get around the left/right/up/down problem by connecting words with whitespace. (See an example.)
• What you are doing when making a blackout poem, in the words of Allen Ginsberg, is “shopping for images.” Nouns and verbs make the best images.
• Regardless of where it’s located in the text, I always start a poem by looking for a word or image that resonates with me and move from there.
• It’s a lot like a word search.
• You don’t have to use the whole text. What to leave in / leave out / how long is the magic.
• Poetry doesn’t have to be serious!
• Try not to think to hard about it and let it flow! It might take you a bunch of tries. Don’t be intimidated! Anyone can do it!

If you're lacking in newspapers or magazines, here's the text he used for the contests. If you use a paint or photo editing program, you can blackout with the paintbrush tool.

August
September
October
November

"Don't tell me ..."

Alphapoetically

Write a poem where each word begins with the next letter in the alphabet. (You can also write a paragraph or really long sentence if you wish.)

Andopholus Brown could devour entire fields
Grown heavy in July.
Kranky Luscious munched near open plains
Questing restlessly.
Soon Tontubulous Urvin would xray yellow zebras.

Okay, pretty awful! ;-) More prose than poetry, but the words flowed out more easily than I thought they would. (Feel free to use words beginning with "ex" for X.) It's a nice short exercise since you only need 26 words, and with some work, an actual readable poem might emerge!

Some other ideas:

• Write from Z to A.
  
• Create a 26 word poem with each letter of the alphabet but allow any order.
  
• Make a list of alphabetized words or phrases about a subject (animals, your dog, restaurants, Star Trek technobabble ...). You could put 3 per line and challenge yourself to see if you can make them rhyming couplets (each pair of lines rhymes).

There are several here:

Unskilled Poet, and these at the Rock, Waves, Beach blog, all written by Kate An Alphabet Poem, Another Alphabet Poem, A December Alphabet Poem, Knitting Alphabet Poem..

Ritualized

A ritual is a series of actions meant to bring about or prevent an event. A ritual gives a sense of control over the unseen forces shaping our lives. In the past the actions and order were created by shamans. Today, anyone can devise a ritual. (As many sports players and teams do! Like Top 10 Sports Traditions  ;-)

Come up with a ritual for some event you (or your characters) would like control over. (It can be a simple prose list or a poetic list.)

Ron Padgett in Handbook of Poetic Forms (where this idea comes from) suggests:

1. Decide what you would like to have occur.
   
2. Examine all aspects of the subject.
   
3. Think of actions to illustrate some of these aspects.
   
4. Write each action down as a command.
   
5. Number the commands.
   
6. Let yourself go.

Here's a Storm Ritual from Alaskan Eskimos who sought to subside a storm.

1. Build a snowman with a big head.
   
2. Give the snowman's head a large mouth.
   
3. Catch salmon, skin the carcasses, freeze them.
   
4. Hack away at the frozen fish and push the pieces into the snowman's mouth.
   
5. Afterward, have a big feast in which all the pieces of fish are eaten.

---

More:

This reminds me of the experiments performed by B.F. Skinner. He placed pigeons in boxes and randomly released food. The pigeons eventually began performing whatever random action they had been performing before the food was released, suggesting a type or ritual or superstition.

"One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return."

Coloring all over the lines

For this poetry warm up, put a color in each line. Try starting with just one color.

This will free you to see the color in not only objects but sounds and smells and numbers and feelings.

As the warm up to the warm up, Koch dropped some keys on the desk and slapped the desk with a ruler and asked the kids what color those were. He asked them what was the color of France, England and Spain; of Monday and Wednesday and the number fourteen hundred.

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

"Coleridge was ..."

Like a window

Similes compare two unlike things to call your attention to similar aspects you wouldn't have seen. They help you see things in new ways.

Though both similes and metaphors are figures of speech, difference is similes keep the two ideas separate: The thief escaped as fast as a cheetah, and metaphors turn one thing into another: When the starter's pistol cracked, she was a cheetah freed from its cage.

Similes in Poems at Writing Fix generated the following. In either poetry or prose, expand on one of the ideas. Explore the similarities between the trait and the noun. Don't worry about whether your comparisons are working! Just get them out and down. Let them flow. Make multiple comparisons for the same aspect so you have more to work with in the edit.

Alternatively, make them all about one person and expand each a little. Explore how they all work together.

And, as always, don't feel tied to contemporary times or human characters.

• His obedience was like a window.
  
• Her need for revenge was like the desert.
  
• His loyalty was like a tavern.
  
• Her face was like a train.
  
• His sadness was like a lighthouse.
  
• Her scream was like a song.
  
• His anger was like a card game.
  
• Her fear was like a museum.
  

Egg moon

This is an idea from Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

A bit pressed for time, here's my explanation from 2007 when I introduced them:

"In his book he has a whole series of what he calls poetry warm ups. It's a way of getting some thoughts down on paper that might with some rearranging, cutting and editing, become a poem or the seed of a poem.

Some are templates, so each line begins the same. Some are the seed to write a series of related ideas. Most have some repetition in them to help get things flowing. Don't be discouraged if your first dozen lines or more are trite. That's just the clogs coming out of your creative pathways :-) But that stuff needs to get out onto paper so the path can be freed for better ideas to flow more freely."

In addition to the regular writing prompts, I'll post one of these warm ups too.

Today's warm up is comparisons.

Include "like" or "as" in each line. The lines can be all about the same thing, or about one subject, or all different.

Some examples of templates:

______ is like ______.

______ is as ______ as ______.

Here are some examples from kids in Kenneth Koch's class:

A butterfly is like a flying rainbow.
Clouds are like flying ice cream.
Hair is like spaghetti.
The sun is as red as a fire.
The moon is like an egg.
Slow is like vanilla ice cream.
A moon is like a banana.
Thunder is like bowling.
Black ink is dark as m idnight.
Snow is as white as the sun shines.
A rose is as red as a beating of drums.

Black cascade

Free write today. Cut these up, pick one and start writing.

Black Cascade
The Lonely Ones
Everyday Demons
Burn Halo
Before The Flood
Hills And Valleys
King Baby
Serpent Servant
Quiet Nights
Living Thing
You Are Here
Defy Gravity

Tomorrow begins National Poetry month :-)

"If you wait for inspiration ..."

Wand's eye view

Write a day from the view point of a wizarding apprentice's wand.

12023 Gifts

The sign in the dusty store window reads 12,023 Gifts. As you're standing there, it changes to 12,024. Intrigued you enter.

What do you find inside?

Show of hands

Instructions of what to write are hidden in the purple. Do one step at a time to release you from concern about where a piece might be headed. You're not concerned about story. You're just doing one step at a time.

So don't peek ahead! Highlight one box at a time (the last line is split in two so highlight both). (If for some reason that doesn't reveal the text, just copy and paste one line at a time into your document.)

• Describe someone's hands.
  
• Describe something they're doing with their hands.
  
• Someone else enters the scene.
  
• Describe your character's emotions about this new person just through their hands.
  

This was inspired by "A Creative Exercise in 5 Steps". Her steps are different, more open ended.

The slide show is from Guido Danielle. There are more examples at his website.

There once was a guy named Saint Patrick

Not an original idea ;-) but there should be more opportunities for limericks!

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
Hardly ever are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical. -- Anonymous

Limericks are 5 lines, with an aabba rhyme.

The rhythm is easy to catch once you've read plenty of good limericks. (There is a clear and succinct description below, though.) The Limerick Data Base has a big collection where submitted limericks are scrutinized for meter.

So on this great day for Saint Patrick,
Whip out your computer and write quick.
Tap out some fierce verse.
Though beat be adverse
It all can be cleaned with a mouse click.

---

More

In 1924, a series of responses to the famous (clean ;-) Nantucket limerick appeared in various newspapers. Those are preserved at Yesterday's Island and new ones have been added to continue the saga. Here's the original four:

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who kept all of his cash in a bucket,
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
—Princeton Tiger

But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,
The man and the girl with the bucket;
And he said to the man,
He was welcome to Nan,
But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.
—Chicago Tribune

Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,
Where he still held the cash as an asset,
But Nan and the man
Stole the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
—Exchange

Of this story we hear from Nantucket,
About the mysterious loss of a bucket,
We are sorry for Nan,
As well as the man—
The cash and the bucket, Pawtucket.
—Pawtucket Times

---

The following is a very good description of the limerick meter:

Dylon Mirti wrote 10/10/95

I don't know if you're the authority
That will impart the absolute truth to me
But I'm not really sure
Just what is the structure
Of the limericks I'm slaughtering brutally.

Is it just 8 8 5 5 8
Or is it 8 8 6 6 8
Can syllables be crammed
And more than eight be jammed
To keep the meter read at the same gait?

My girlfriend and I can't tell
What makes these little rhymes swell
Please write me back
And teach me the knack
Of writing a limerick well!

What I really need to know is whether or not syllable cramming is allowed, or whether the exact number of syllables MUST equal the assigned number for the line. And, is there an exact number of syllables assigned for each line?

Thanks for your time.

======

Dylon, of course, gets a gold star for this well-written request.

For expediency, Toast Point did not phrase his reply in limerick form, but it covered the bases nonetheless:

The number of syllables is not as important as the beat pattern:

da DA-da-da DA-da-da DA-(da) (da)
da DA-da-da DA-da-da DA (da) (da)
da DA-da-da DA (da)
da DA-da-da DA (da)
da DA-da-da DA-da-da DA (da) (da)

Meaning that you can leave off the syllables in parentheses, but 1,2 and 5 should match each other, and 3 and 4 should match.

For instance:

There ONCE was a GIRL from nanTUCKet - leaves off the final (da)
A MAIDen whose NAME was feLIcity - uses all of them

It's more important that the STRESSES of the word be on the strong beats than to have exactly the right number of syllables.

Happy 15

Last week was the quindecennial (15th anniversary) of Wordsmith.org when Anu Garg sent out the first word of the day to a handful of grad students. 4000 words and 700,000 subscribers later he presented 5 15 letter words and the challenge to craft definitions of 15 letters for each. (I should have posted the contest!)

But, anyway, here's the results with catchy succinct definitions that are more likely to stick with you than standard definitions :-) (Though, admittedly, the opportunity to use the words won't crop up too often ;-)

---

From Anu Garg:

Last week's contest to define the words in 15 letters generated tremendous enthusiasm. Many teachers discussed the contest in their classes and shared definitions from their students. More than 2000 readers sent one or more entries filled with creativity, humor, and lateral thinking.

It wasn't easy to select the winners from so many outstanding suggestions. Listed below are the winning entries which have each gained an autographed copy of one of my books.

---

Subintelligitur

Winner:

An idea alluded to. -Karyl Davis (karyl.davis lackland.af.mil)

Honorable mentions:

• Don't say it. I get it. -Virginia Davidson (vdavidson50 hotmail.com)
  
• Kenned sotto voce. -Chiron (chiron godhammer.com)
  
• You should know it. -Susan Frost (richandsuzi yahoo.com)
  
• Virtually stated. -Albert D. (filiquark yahoo.com)
  
• Obvio sin decirlo. -Steven Fuller (sfuller garfieldre2.org)
  
• Ca va sans dire - duh! -Margaret Cox (mocox1 cox.net)
  
• No words required. (Anu Garg's worst nightmare!) -Monica Porterfield (mporterfield mltvacations.com)
  
• Obvious ergo mute. -Paul B. Calico (pbcalico strausstroy.com)
  
• Don't spell it out. -Brianna Sims (brianna.sims gmail.com)
  
• Read my lips, dummy. -Jonathan Danilowitz (jon-dan 013.net)
  
• Under the liminal. -Daniel Pesta (towardus comcast.net)
  
• Doesn't need sayin'. -David Honigmann (david_honigmann mckinsey.com)
  
• Said but not aloud. -Jonathan Weiss (jweiss1999 aol.com)
  
• Feel it in my bones. -Edie Bonferraro (edieb mailbug.com)
  
• A tacit knowledge -Rachel Blau DuPlessis (rdupless temple.edu)
  
• Shhh. I understand. -Justin Peniston (moose0225 aol.com)
  
• I get your message. -Judith Henderson (judyframehend aol.com)
  
• I comprehend. *Wink* -Dan Marlowe (sisyphus42 gmail.com)
  
• No need to mention. -Julie Southern (southernbookworm hotmail.com)
  
• You know, I know, shh! -Liza Levy (sparkydoc kyk.net)
  
• Inferred w/o a word. -Jeff Miller (jdmiller milligan.edu)
  
• Don't need to say it. -Gabby Kissane (gkissane gmail.com)
  
• The ways of a woman. -Gordon Havens (gordonhavens hotmail.com)
  
• Many readers sent these suggestions:
  
• Between the lines
  
• Not said, but known.
  
• Don't tell me - I know!
  
• Not said, yet known.
  
• Implicitly known.
  
• Heard but not said.
  
• Ya know what I mean.
  
• Known sans speech.
  

---

Lepidopterology

Winner:

To see life flit by. -Julie Paschkis (jpaschkis comcast.net)

Honorable mentions:

• Life after cocoon. -Edie Bonferraro (edieb mailbug.com)
  
• Study of flitters. -Rebecca Haaland (rebecca emsp.no)
  
• About winged bugs. -Vaishali Kamath (vaishalikamath hotmail.com)
  
• Flitterers study. -John A. Olmsted (jolmsted exchange.fullerton.edu)
  
• Study live jewels. -Kate Daniel (writerkate earthlink.net)
  
• What cute insects! -David M. Lieberfarb (dmlieb optonline.net)
  
• Nabokov's leisure. -Stephen Schwartz (hillendari hotmail.com)
  
• Study of farfalle. -Riccardo Fragnoli (riccardo.fragnoli mpsa.com)
  
• i.e. Geek moth-ology. -James Miller (millnjam yahoo.com)
  
• Focus: Flutterers. -Don Recker (dlrecker nwinfo.net)
  
• On gossamer wings. -Uwe Stichert (info language-coaching.net
  
• Splendor impaled. -Zack Fisher (zackipooh gmail.com) [He adds: While this is not the actual definition of lepidopterology, I remember thinking just that the first time I saw a butterfly collection, as a child.]
  
• Buttermothology. -Judi Jones (judith.jones pncbank.com)
  
• Science a-flutter. -Nyree Sharp (nyree_sharp yahoo.com)
  
• Wee wing scrutiny. -Daniel Watson (dwatson illustratus.com)
  
• Etude de papillon. -Gabby Kissane (gkissane gmail.com)
  
• Re Papilionoidea. -Joe Dickey (joetdickey yahoo.com)
  
• Study of cute bugs. -Terence Singh (terencesi nedbank.co.za)
  
• Winged bugs study. -Jonathan Osborne (jono fullemployment.org)
  
• Ciencia Mariposa. -John Connors (john.connors cengage.com)
  
• Of the mothly crew. -Vicki Boyd (vickeeb gmail.com)
  
• Volar bug studies. -Stephanie Hollenback (stephanietraylor hotmail.com)
  
• Look! On the flower! / Look! Near the lamp! -Jeanne Landkamer (jeanne.landkamer metc.state.mn.us)
  
• Moth examination. -Laura Richens (lrichens tulane.edu)
  
• Many readers sent these:
  
• Fluttery studies.
  
• Butterflies et al.
  
• Moth scholarship.
  
• Moth and kin study.
  

---

Mathematicaster

Winner:

2nd rate math geek. -Greg Foster (lokesman gmail.com)

Honorable mentions:

• Ramanujan manque. -Eric Towne (etowne bates.edu)
  
• A minor math major. -Howard Distelzweig (howard_distelzweig pall.com)
  
• He divides by zero. -Peirce Hammond (Peirce.Hammond ed.gov)
  
• Rounds pi to three. -Joselyne Gonzalez (joselyne yahoo.com)
  
• Uneven math maven. -Catherine Masters (cmasters schiffhardin.com)
  
• He's no Pythagoras. -Jacquie L Lowell (jlowell.improv juno.com), Dave Zobel (dzobel alumni.caltech.edu)
  
• Two plus two's five. -R. Ganesh (r.ganesh iflexsolutions.com)
  
• No Euclid or Gauss. -Devika Nair (devikanair1979 hotmail.com)
  
• Digits: all thumbs. -Jason Morgan (aeelectra yahoo.com)
  
• In-add-equatician. -Brendon L. Etter (better carleton.edu)
  
• Can do two plus two. -Matt Schmidt (mschmidt hussoninc.com)
  
• Math challenged. (I could have made it "maths challenged" but I prefer the irony of the above.) -Alan Broom (alan.broom macquarie.com)
  
• Numbers Are Not Us. -Colleen (argonauta4 aol.com)
  
• IQ's greater than pi. -Bill Ward (bill wards.net)
  
• Bank executive, e.g. (not a timeless definition, but it works currently). -Aaron Long (aarondavidlong hotmail.com)
  
• Just a calculator. -Tal Cohen (tal forum2.org)
  
• One does not add up. -Mike Freedman (mike freedthinkers.com)
  
• A nonplussed soul. -K. F. Turtletaub (doctorkf verizon.net)
  
• Calculably unfit. -John Hudspeth (johnhudspeth windstream.net)
  
• Big sum, small mind. -Caroline Murphy (ckmurphy54 hotmail.com)
  
• An amateur at math. -John P. Marhin (john.p.marhin mainroads.qld.gov.au)
  
• 0 < x < a math savant. -Greg Foster (lokesman gmail.com)
  
• 99 percent of folk. -Kassy Daggett (kdaggett efn.org)
  
• rkathleendillon. -R Kathleen Dillon (rkdillon verizon.net)
  
• Math isn't my forte. -Kevin Ogburn (kevin.ogburn co.hennepin.mn.us)
  
• Calculating Risk. -David Lehner-Smith (david.lehner-smith target.com)
  
• Small-time mathmo. -Owen Biesel (owenbiesel gmail.com)
  

Many readers sent:

• Number numbskull.
  
• Math geek wannabe.
  
• No good at numbers.
  
• A numbers bumbler.
  
• A numbers fumbler.
  

---

Dermatoglyphics

Winner:

Digital printout. -Judith Bill (jgb22 comcast.net)

Honorable mention:

• How callous are we? -Will Whetzel (wwhetzel mssadvisors.com)
  
• Palm/foot reading. -Jeff Miller (jdmiller milligan.edu)
  
• Epidermis scrawl -Kathleen (stidmama yahoo.com)
  
• Digital imagings. -Jason Nabi (jhn8d virginia.edu) and Wendi Dumbroff (penelopey aol.com)
  
• Unique digital ID. -Ian Hoffman (Ian.Hoffman usdoj.gov)
  
• Skin cartography. -K. Sahasranaman (k.sahasranaman gmail.com)
  
• No hands are alike. -Sophia S. 6th grader, Community Middle School [sent by James Eng (james.eng ww-p.org) who encouraged his class to try this week's contest and shared their many entries]
  
• Skin crop-circles. -Matthew Planchak (panqike gmail.com), Alexis Abraham (cawaaahome aol.com)
  
• No two are the same. -Mike Hansen (mfh papermc.com)
  
• The skin's pattern. -Carly, 4th grader [in Erin Allen's class (eallen howell.k12.nj.us)]
  
• Study of skin ruts. -Peter Kidwell (peter.kidwell cox.net)
  
• Skin's hills, dales. -Noël Lee (noellee free.fr)
  
• Palmar, plantar ID. -Lisa Hyatt Cooper (lhcooper verizon.net)
  
• Skin deep studies. -Kenneth Kirste (kkkirste sbcglobal.net)
  
• Think whorl piece. -Matt Schuette (schuette79 hotmail.com)
  
• What OJ fears most. -Analiese van den Dikkenberg (sandad hotmail.com)
  

Many readers sent:

• Hand- or footprint.
  
• Extremity prints.
  
• Finger, toe prints.
  
• Skin ridges study.
  

---

Infundibuliform

I had not asked for 15-letter definitions for Monday's word, but some readers sent them nonetheless. Here are a few selections:

• Tapered like a 3-D V. -Louis P. Nappen (nappen comcast.net)
  
• Just like a conoid. -Julie Davis (julie.davis ssa.gov)
  
• Tornado-ish shape. -Mike Riley (mr.mikeriley gmail.com)
  
• Swirls into point. -Susan Frost (richandsuzi yahoo.com)
  
• Hourglass halved. -Don Recker (dlrecker nwinfo.net)
  
• It's funnelicious! -Keith Parsons (khp38120 aol.com)
  
• Smaller at one end. -Joe Trivers (joe_trivers amat.com)
  

Many subscribers sent their congratulations (a 15-letter word) in exactly 15 letters:

• A Happy Fifteenth. -Mike Weinert (weinert.mike bls.gov)
  
• I wish you the best. -Michel Cornelissen (mjm.cornelissen gmail.com)
  
• Best wishes to all. -BranShea (via Wordsmith Talk bulletin board)
  

Thank you for participating and for your kind words.

"Everything that doesn't ..."

Talk to the animals

I'm Amy Morshower, Pet Psychic, also known as an Animal Communicator. Ever since I was a child, I've had a connection with animals. When Mistress Muffington our champion Pomeranian became with puppies she named the debaucher for me and we had him fixed. Whenever my brother got too annoying, I persuaded the spiders to build nests in his room.

Do you ever wonder:

• what your cat thinks of you?
  
• where your dog ran off to?
  
• whether your bull has forgiven you for having him castrated?
  
• what your cat means when he barfs in your shoe?
  
• why your horse threw the last race?
  
• whether your sheep are satisfied?

Has your pet been an eye witness to a crime? Whether it be Snookie Cat beneath the bed, Snowball the Hamster in a cage or Bucko, the neighbor's dog tied in the yard. Often they eavesdrop on conversations, have unique perspectives on taste and refined scent senses. I can help them convey their opinions.

Consultations can be face to face with you, face to muzzle with your pet, through a photograph or artifact when a corporeal form might be too difficult to produce. All provide portals to your animal's spirit.

I also offer counseling by phone, on line, email, fax, text, IM. When I speak about your pet to you remotely, I am linked psychically through your pet's name, like a radio frequency I can tune into.

---

Take that any direction you're inspired to take it, from Amy's point of view, her brother's, a client's, a dissatisfied client's, an desperate investigating officer, Amy's psychiatrist ...

Fanaticizing

Last week you destroyed the local bad guy who held your village in fear for the past year. (The bad guy can be an evil wizard, thug, alien invader, dragon, whatever you wish. You can be a good wizard, fighter, clever strategist, ninja, again whatever you wish.)

You've received accolades, a parade, free drinks, a feast, letters of thanks. Today you received your first actual fan letter. As you read the gushing praise, it becomes increasingly disturbing. This person is obsessed with you. They may be more dangerous to you than the bad guy.

Write the fan letter.

"If you cannot conveniently ..."

Jack the Giant Murderer

Jack, of the beanstalk fame, has been charged with breaking and entering, larceny, and first degree murder.

Choose from one of two points of view:

As Jack's lawyer, present Jack's case on why the charges should be dropped. Argue from a legal standpoint rather than an emotional one. Being a big mean giant -- from Jack's point of view! -- will not stand up in court.

Or, as a reporter covering the trial, describe each character's view of the crime as it unfolds in court.

Propagopoly

There are a bazillion Monopoly editions. Make it a bazillion and one by coming up with your own for your favorite movie, anime, book, fruit, rock band, car, sports team, prison, decade, home town, store, sport, comic book hero, board game, planet, company, restaurant ...

Shake up your imagination. The cat edition uses cat breeds instead of streets, kitty favorites (mouse, catnip, fishbowl) for the Chance, toys (yarn, box, scratching post, paperbag) for Utilities. The Coke edition has pewter Coke bottles and truck.

Some large images of Monopoly boards:
Here and Now: World Edition
Googlopoly
United Kingdom
Beatles
Cat lovers
Star Blazers
Lostopoly

(go)
(community chest)
(income tax)
(railroad)
(chance)
(jail/visiting)
(utility)
(railroad)
(community chest)
(free parking)
(chance)
(railroad)
(utility)
(go to jail)
(community chest)
(railroad)
(chance)
(luxury tax)
(pewter token)
(pewter token)
(pewter token)
(pewter token)
(pewter token)
(pewter token)
(pewter token)
(pewter token)
(money)
(hotels)
(houses)

"You don't have to be great ..."