Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Word Lust

To the untrained eye this just looks like a bunch of words. Random and meaningless. To a writer, this is like porn.


Look at those beautiful words all crammed together, one on top of the other in total phonetic orgy. No verbs, nouns, or adjectives, just words. Muscular, lean, beautiful words. Together in the oblivion of the page, not caring what anyone thinks. Free of grammatical confines. It's pure, beautiful, random expression.


This is the product of wordle.net, the ultimate site for word nerds. Enter any text or link to a website, and it will grab a sampling of the words and randomly display them in a text mosaic. The larger words are the ones that appear most often in the selected text. You can change the colors, and decide whether you want mostly horizontal, vertical, a mixture, or a total free-for-all. Click and they all rearrange creating new pairings, unexpected phrases, accidental alliteration, glimmers of brilliance.

frantic cartoon half existence
life comes ebbing

lusty orchard afternoon
simplicity begins

like honey gossamer inspiration

imperceptible sentinel
former dying green edge

gentle brutish
sun
pale winter meadow
mud-heavy valley
heaven speaks


These were all random pairings. Oddly beautiful on their own, strung together they don't make a half bad poem.

And the most beautiful part? You can do it over and over again and never get the same result. Very dangerous for obsessive compulsive types.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

In Honor Of National Poetry Month


Dear Author
We deeply regret having to use this form letter
Dear Author
Please be assured
Dear Author
Your work is like piss in the Pacific
Dear Author
It pains us to inform you
Dear Author
Your rent is due
Dear Author
Look unto the mailbox
from whence cometh your next soul-crushing rejection letter
Dear Author
Why do you continue to torture yourself this way?
Dear Author
What makes you think anyone wants to read your
pitiful little moments of joy or beauty or truth or revelation
Your ornate ways of presenting simplicity
Your overt attempts to turn the mundane
into a thing of transcendent glory
Your supine opine
Your so-called clever use of alliteration
Your assonance and innocence
Your metaphors and mindfucks
Your illusions and invitations
Your passions and sorrows
Pains and sufferings
Your subtle repetition for dramatic affect
Your attempts to build to a climactic rise and clever resolution
That will fall into the lap of your reader like a ripe plum
Surprising him with its satisfying sweetness
Bringing a small smile to the corner of her unwitting mouth
And carving the merest notch
into the edge of a heart brimming with discontent.
Dear Author
We wish you luck.

by Julie Hall, in celebration of a drawer full of rejection letters.