Finally getting back to posting my warm-ups for next month. This 2nd one was a bit more difficult than the tautagrams.
The object: to look for blank verse among the prose.
It’s been a while since I’ve worked with iambic meter (unstressed/stressed syllables), so it took a little adjustment and focus to get started. However, once I got in the habit (and made sure I was listening to music in mostly 4-4 time), the work flowed more smoothly. I found it best to catalog various sets of iambic feet (each foot is two syllables), so that I could graft together my 1-foot and 4-foot phrases and my 2-foot and 3-foot phrases instead of relying only on natural pentameter. I found it fun to create 3-line stanzas that roughly followed the pattern:
1-foot/4-foot
2-foot/3-foot
5-foot
Since there were far fewer isolated iambic feet, this allowed certain sestina-like repetitions in the stanzas. I like how the collage-pattern also creates recurrences in themes and reference across the poem, but each time the theme gets altered — something I’ve always appreciated about Ted Berrigan‘s Sonnets. I’m sure I’ll have to give myself extra time for this form, when I tackle it next month, but If I block out an extra hour and read some iambic pentameter the night before I should be in good shape. Here’s my warm-up blank verse among the prose.
They Also Vowed to Block a Move
among a little noticed outcome of
a shootout in the state a month before
addiction had significantly few
career across the Gulf of Thailand to
a window or suspected fragment spot
that little pocket is all you can do
invent a car in how they get around
believing right this month the market has
in greater numbers than at any time
become to 35% of those
a fishing pole we also offer you
without a trace in water miles deep
careered to protest the proposal which
officials say our smallest most discreet
behemoth transit network saw again
become available exclusively
the average price the special offer ends
the public took advantage of an x
invent instead of how you’re hearing it
to set their clocks experience depends
as evidence the nation’s urban shift
among the other transit systems in
insurance plans Americans are bored
few prisoners have incomes high enough
become a blip expanding bus and train
I’ve known about today in history
the trembler struck at 9:18pm.
Ouliposting 