Poetry Fishbowl Report for Tuesday, October 5, 2010
The theme this month was "Horror: Vampires." A handful of prompts arrived early on, and a few more later, but it was a slow day for prompting -- a lot of my regulars missed for various reasons. (I hope everyone's life is settling into something more comfortable.) I worked from 1 PM to 1 AM, so about 10 hours accounting for breaks.
I wrote 18 poems. They were almost all medium, only one each of short and long, no epics. All were based on single prompts, though I did pull in some outside inspiration in a few cases. Most were free verse, but I did get a few repeating/interlocking forms as well. Randomly of interest: several of the titles are questions, and the tones included a lot of horror-mixed-with-something-else. Please welcome new prompters alycewilson and paradigmshifty -- you have them to thank for the second freebie poem.
Read Some Poetry!
The following poems from the October 2010 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:
" Afflictions of Blood and Flesh"
" bowls of rice" -- an Origami Mage poem
" Can She Bake a Scary Pie?"
" Death and Marriage"
" Halfway to Eternity"
" Mutant Fruit"
" The Scent of Desire"
" This Curséd Gift"
" The Vampire Frogs"
" What Scares the Monsters?"
" Who Monsters the Monsters?"
" The Wind Eaters"
* Additionally, there are six new verses of "RUT?" posted.
Buy Some Poetry!
If you plan to sponsor some poetry but haven't made up your mind yet, read the list of unsold poems from October. That includes the title, length, price, and the original thumbnail description for the poems still available.
All of the sponsored poems have been posted. Copies of the rest have been sent backchannel to their sponsors. The donor perk-post is online, featuring a discussion of cultures in literature. There is no poll this month, as all the contributions were sponsorships rather than general donations.
Donors for October include: ellenmillion, miintikwa, ladyqkat, minor_architect, marina_bonomi, janetmiles, and alycewilson. Huzzah for new prompter alycewilson! Thank you all for your support.
Let's talk about prompts...
The last couple of fishbowls have run a bit slow, although I got some good poems out of them. Based on some things I've heard from various people over time, I'm going to offer some thoughts on how to revive participation. If you folks can think of anything else, please let me know.
1) If you are a regular prompter or, especially, a donor -- don't miss the fishbowl just because of a scheduling conflict. You may give me your prompt(s) early if you expect to be away from your computer while the fishbowl is open. I tell people "wait for the open-post" so I don't have to chase comments all over the net, but I'd rather make a note in my datebook than miss one of my regulars. Regular participants get this option as a perk.
2) It's okay to give me more than one prompt at a time. If the traffic is heavy that day, I may only use one per person. On a slow day, though, it's the extra prompts that keep me going, because I can double back to those.
3) If you aren't particularly familiar with or fascinated by the theme, or you're blank out of ideas for some other reason, there are backup options. You can check my post for links, because I often give explanatory pointers for the less-obvious topics. You can type the theme phrase into your favorite search engine. You can browse the prompts by other participants, and the poems as they go up, and if you comment on those then I might nab what you said as a prompt. You can also recommend a poetic form, which is a type of prompt always welcome.
The Poetry Fishbowl project also has a permanent landing page.
I wrote 18 poems. They were almost all medium, only one each of short and long, no epics. All were based on single prompts, though I did pull in some outside inspiration in a few cases. Most were free verse, but I did get a few repeating/interlocking forms as well. Randomly of interest: several of the titles are questions, and the tones included a lot of horror-mixed-with-something-else. Please welcome new prompters alycewilson and paradigmshifty -- you have them to thank for the second freebie poem.
Read Some Poetry!
The following poems from the October 2010 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:
" Afflictions of Blood and Flesh"
" bowls of rice" -- an Origami Mage poem
" Can She Bake a Scary Pie?"
" Death and Marriage"
" Halfway to Eternity"
" Mutant Fruit"
" The Scent of Desire"
" This Curséd Gift"
" The Vampire Frogs"
" What Scares the Monsters?"
" Who Monsters the Monsters?"
" The Wind Eaters"
* Additionally, there are six new verses of "RUT?" posted.
Buy Some Poetry!
If you plan to sponsor some poetry but haven't made up your mind yet, read the list of unsold poems from October. That includes the title, length, price, and the original thumbnail description for the poems still available.
All of the sponsored poems have been posted. Copies of the rest have been sent backchannel to their sponsors. The donor perk-post is online, featuring a discussion of cultures in literature. There is no poll this month, as all the contributions were sponsorships rather than general donations.
Donors for October include: ellenmillion, miintikwa, ladyqkat, minor_architect, marina_bonomi, janetmiles, and alycewilson. Huzzah for new prompter alycewilson! Thank you all for your support.
Let's talk about prompts...
The last couple of fishbowls have run a bit slow, although I got some good poems out of them. Based on some things I've heard from various people over time, I'm going to offer some thoughts on how to revive participation. If you folks can think of anything else, please let me know.
1) If you are a regular prompter or, especially, a donor -- don't miss the fishbowl just because of a scheduling conflict. You may give me your prompt(s) early if you expect to be away from your computer while the fishbowl is open. I tell people "wait for the open-post" so I don't have to chase comments all over the net, but I'd rather make a note in my datebook than miss one of my regulars. Regular participants get this option as a perk.
2) It's okay to give me more than one prompt at a time. If the traffic is heavy that day, I may only use one per person. On a slow day, though, it's the extra prompts that keep me going, because I can double back to those.
3) If you aren't particularly familiar with or fascinated by the theme, or you're blank out of ideas for some other reason, there are backup options. You can check my post for links, because I often give explanatory pointers for the less-obvious topics. You can type the theme phrase into your favorite search engine. You can browse the prompts by other participants, and the poems as they go up, and if you comment on those then I might nab what you said as a prompt. You can also recommend a poetic form, which is a type of prompt always welcome.
The Poetry Fishbowl project also has a permanent landing page.