Poetry Fishbowl Open!

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you for your time and attention.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "short forms." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting poetic forms of 60 lines or less, so basically below my epic range rather than only the short-short length of 10 lines or less. Free verse below the length limit is also fine. Here are 15 short forms with descriptions. Among my favorite short forms not listed there: hexaduad, indriso, sestina, villanelle. This list of 168 forms is alphabetical. Poets Garrett has my favorite list of forms, including a list of repeating-interlocking forms. Their main page has links to poetic forms of 3-10 lines. Plus a few of my own: A darrow poem is a short, haiku-like musing by dark elves. A khazal is a Whispering Sands desert poem in couplets. A moose track is a repeating-interlocking form. A tweet wire is a tiny 10-line poem designed for Twitter. Some short forms, like haiku and tanka, work well as verses in a longer poem. I have The New Book of Forms by Lewis Turco so most forms should be in there. You can also prompt with a link to any exotic form you find; I collect these things.

In addition to forms, I also need topical prompts. One-word or short-phrase framing will assist in keeping them small enough to fit within the theme. Here is a huge list of common themes. This page of idioms has alphabetical and topical listings. I love writing poems about an individual word; see The Phrontistery (WARNING! Black hole caliber time sink ahead!) for glossaries or this list of untranslatable words. Have an orientation that is not well represented in literature? Ask for a sexual, romantic, or other orientation! If it's not on any of my lists, just include a description or link to one. I also list gender identities and my characters with disabilities. Want to help me play with my bookshelf? :D I have The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and would love to write poems about many of its words. (I'm up to page 8, so anything 9+ is available. See the 2023 Holiday Poetry Sale for previous examples.) I also have The Conflict Thesaurus, The Occupation Thesaurus, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus, The Urban Setting Thesaurus, The Rural Setting Thesaurus, The Emotion Thesaurus, The Positive Trait Thesaurus, and The Negative Trait Thesaurus. Simply click "Read Sample" and view the table of contents for a list of cool ideas. You can prompt a sestina with six end words; I usually pick 5 short flexible words and one long exotic word, but I'll work with whatever I get. Favorite characters, threads, series, settings, etc. are also fair game but this is NOT the time for long plotty prompts. Consider combining a name or title with a short form, theme, or idiom. If you like to prompt with photos, this is a great opportunity for that. Just type in a topic (see above for possibilities) and click the Image link in your favorite search engine.

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Birdfeeding

Today is partly cloudy and cold.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a flock of sparrows at the feeders in the forest garden.

 

Any Landing You Can Walk Away From

As it happened: 5 dead, 379 escape blaze after planes collide at Tokyo's Haneda airport

The five dead are crew members of a Japan Coast Guard plane that collided with a Japan Airlines passenger jet.

TOKYO: All 379 passengers and crew of a Japan Airlines (JAL) plane escaped from a fire following a collision with a Coast Guard aircraft at Tokyo's Haneda airport on Tuesday (Jan 2), but local media said five of the six crew members of the coast guard plane had died.

Live footage on public broadcaster NHK showed the JAL Airbus A350 aircraft bursting into flames as it skidded down the tarmac at around 6pm. (0900 GMT).

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Poem: "Tempomote"

This is the freebie for today's fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from siliconshaman. It also fills the "Mind" square in my 9-1-23 card for the Story Sparks Bingo fest.

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Poem: "The Spell Is Qast"

This came out of today's fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from nsfwords. It also fills "The Tower" square in my 1-1-24 card for the Public Domain Day Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by rix_scaedu. It belongs to the series Quixotic Ideas.

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Poem: "A Girl with a Dream"

This poem came out of today's fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by rix_scaedu. It also fills the "Dream" square in my 9-1-23 card for the Story Sparks Bingo fest.

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Crowdfunding Project: Spirit Fall

Spirit Fall: A Post-Apocalyptic TTRPG
Explore the post-apocalyptic New York City in search for survival, hope and haven from the demons that surround you.

$5,149 pledged of $5,000 goal
68 backers
2 hours to go

This one juuuuust squeaked under the wire! \o/ It's one I backed with holiday funds. Catch it quick if you want it, this one is about to close.


Also available is the last of the games I picked which is still in the running:

Fates of Mankind: A Classical Age Fantasy Tabletop Role-Playing Game
FATES OF MANKIND is a role-playing game set in an alternate and fantasy ancient age, where everything is suffused with magical and mythological potential.

$2,984 pledged of $3,306 goal
64 backers
12 days to go