It's the Poem-A-Week Challenge Discussion Thread

[42BelowsBack]

This poem is absolutely beautiful.

Dear Ari / A Kabbalah Poem by @Waeponwifestre

Check out. @Angeline, Photograph.

Meh! Chick poems. Bask in your glory ladies, bask in your glory. Inaugural winners of the @sapio Award.

 

[Angeline]

(I so wanted to write in all caps that)

This poem is absolutely beautiful.

Dear Ari / A Kabbalah Poem by @Waeponwifestre

It's my favorite poem she's posted here yet. It's timely and painful, fragile and at the end hopeful. Just all so well put.

 

[42BelowsBack]

A request. Because I know you’re a nutter,

42, write your thoughts please on the superbly crafted @NivKay poem Au de la

Thank you for your attention to your homework.

DONE (Unlike your knuts).

Now Your HOMEWORK. I want a Pablo Clockwork Kubrick orange themed poem on the World economic forum in Davos. And I want it Yesterday please.

 

[42BelowsBack]

Oh, go on.. I cannae wait..

Lol. @sapio post or perish. Or @sperm will beat you to your poem.

As though in Davos, Who will come first… the chicken or the eggs?

And I vote, next week everyone write spank me poems in homage to Literotiica. And if you do I was just joking

 

[NivKay]

DONE (Unlike your knuts).

Now Your HOMEWORK. I want a Pablo Clockwork Kubrick orange themed poem on the World economic forum in Davos. And I want it Yesterday please.

Ah.. ok… I see the genesis.. 42, you’re a tough task master

 

[NivKay]

Also, may I say, @Waeponwifestre ’s poem,
It is incantation, prophecy, honeyed velvet all in one

 

[Waeponwifestre]

Also, may I say, @Waeponwifestre ’s poem,
It is incantation, prophecy, honeyed velvet all in one

Thank you - and I really enjoyed your poem as well. It reminds me of some of Meister Eckhart’s writings. The imagery of eyes and vision and seeing different facets of yourself through different lenses and the world itself was really amazing - can I ask what the inspiration for it was?

 

[Waeponwifestre]

Also there are too many good poems lately and astounding poets here. I’m stunned and awed by the quality of the poetry I read here every day. I feel like just beginning to post here and read here more or less daily has been such an enriching experience both in terms of just seeing amazing poems as well as sharpening my own craft.

 

[42BelowsBack]

B

Also, may I say, @Waeponwifestre ’s poem,
It is incantation, prophecy, honeyed velvet all in one

Best one liners award goes to

 

[42BelowsBack]

Ah.. ok… I see the genesis.. 42, you’re a tough task master

I imagine the following conversation.
@SpermFactory “It’s called revenge.”
42 “No it’s not. It’s called stop fucking around.”

 

[NivKay]

Thank you - and I really enjoyed your poem as well. It reminds me of some of Meister Eckhart’s writings. The imagery of eyes and vision and seeing different facets of yourself through different lenses and the world itself was really amazing - can I ask what the inspiration for it was?

Oh...I'm not sure I can really pin it down to one thing. Like everyone else here, it's a feeling innit, that evokes poetry? I suppose it boils down to me being a brown person, and wearing it like Hester Prynne wears her "A", a constant negotiation of the world, tempered by a subliminal awareness of my otherness. I often forget that, and then its a short lived forgetfulness, because I step into the world and I am reminded. I'll give you an example of an incident years ago now (which I think might be the launching pad for the poem):

I'm at a bookstore at Glebe in Sydney (Aussies would know which bookstore, which carries the name of the Suburb), and there is a lovely lady behind the counter, and she's been helping me to put an order in for a book - I can't remember which now - because they were out of stock, and while she's doing that, we're talking about Literature and philosophy, and of course, at this point, I've forgotten my Brown-ness.

Then she says, You speak English very well. An innocent enough statement - till today, I do not believe she meant anything malicious by it, not consciously anyway.

So, I respond in the only way I think appropriate.

Thank you, so do you.

Needless to say, the conversation died then. Had I become in her eyes black gold on sodden ground, surprisingly shiny?

But I've always felt weirdly atmospheric - I am part Indian, part Scottish, part Cameroonian, and I live in Australia. But the world always tries to pin me down. Hence...the poem.

Hope that answers your question...Thank you though for liking the poem...I was a little unsure about it...too...on the nose...? Maybe..

 

[Waeponwifestre]

@NivKay

Thanks so much for sharing, that really helps contextualize the poem for me. Also it’s obviously different in a lot of ways, but as a very visibly queer trans person (read: non-passing a lot of the time) I relate pretty heavily to the feeling and experience of just going about normal human stuff when all of a sudden you find yourself being reminded of your fundamental Otherness to someone you’ve been having a more or less normal interaction with. It really does feel like being a bug under a microscope sometimes.

 

[NivKay]

It really does feel like being a bug under a microscope sometimes

Yes, Kafka's ungeziefer! There's a Gregor Samsa in us...etymologically relating to 'unclean-ness' Your experience of who you are is clearly very different to mine, riddled with a lot more trauma, needless to say, but yes, the underlying principle between the two...Others of the world, unite!

 

[42BelowsBack]

There are sooooooooooooooooo many excellently crafted poems written this week I am too shy to post mine.

You did it! First place.Thanks for sharing your poem with your community of poetry lovers. Next time you feel shy just think of @SpermFactory flying through the air off to Davos on hee-haw-One. No longer shy right

 

[42BelowsBack]

DONE under a day 24 hrs.

Well done! Written at Sperm speed racing to catch @sapio with tight constrictions. Oh What Fun Are we done with assigning each other homework yet?

I appreciate the subtly in your omission that Samuel Burgess wrote Clockwork Orange and not Kubrick (who wrote the screen play adaptation).

I also liked how you bent the rules, including Dali to suit your purposes i.e Dali wasn’t meant to be there.

And, the subtle hints to Picasso having distinct periods, the blue period, cubism, the pink period, surrealism. Of course Picasso arguably had eight periods including ceramics all of which are superfluous to the poem. And you cheated truncating Picasso’s Blue period into your cubism verse.

Which unpinned the whole poem with fact checking. Salacious fabulous.

Loved the clock licks, droogs to Kubrick: Simple. Exceptional. Stealing periods inter verse shifts. And the way you land the poem stealing from the author, the screen play, mixed in with actual transcript from Davos. In my mind I was saying -Liar. All the way through your Davos poem.

 

[42BelowsBack]

An op-ed on my opinions.

An empty vessel sounds loudest. Oh how sweetly doth thou bell ring. Oh! Doh! Duff man.

On popular opinion. The stupid are the quick. The smart their match.

 

[Angeline]

DONE under a day 24 hrs.

 

[nudeblaqgirl]

For What is the Difference Between a Rapper and a Poet? is a short poem by @VerbalAbuse which I took to be mockery of rap.

He is certainly entitled to have his opinion and to express it.

Likewise, I believe I'm entitled to respond (appropriately), which I did, with an untitled poem on the 2026 Poem a Week poem thread.

Rap is, in many cases, an inspiration for me. It is poetry that reflected, originally, the Black experience in America, but now is an art form used in cultures around the world. It matters to me when people appear to disrespect it.

 

[SmilingLez]

For What is the Difference Between a Rapper and a Poet? is a short poem by @VerbalAbuse which I took to be mockery of rap.

He is certainly entitled to have his opinion and to express it.

Likewise, I believe I'm entitled to respond (appropriately), which I did, with an untitled poem on the 2026 Poem a Week poem thread.

Rap is, in many cases, an inspiration for me. It is poetry that reflected, originally, the Black experience in America, but now is an art form used in cultures around the world. It matters to me when people appear to disrespect it.

100% agree. Rap is indeed storytelling. It is heartfelt, raw, and honest. I do believe anyone should be able to express themselves in whatever format they choose. All are equally valid

I posted a rap on the main site called Hers 2.0. My brother added the music.

 

[nudeblaqgirl]

For What is the Difference Between a Rapper and a Poet? is a short poem by @VerbalAbuse which I took to be mockery of rap.

He is certainly entitled to have his opinion and to express it.

Likewise, I believe I'm entitled to respond (appropriately), which I did, with an untitled poem on the 2026 Poem a Week poem thread.

Rap is, in many cases, an inspiration for me. It is poetry that reflected, originally, the Black experience in America, but now is an art form used in cultures around the world. It matters to me when people appear to disrespect it.

OMG i'm so stupid I posted this in the wrong thread

I didn't realize this was REVISE A POEM CHALLENGE

VerbalAbuse's poem and my responding poem are in the regular 2026 Poem A Week Challenge!

Sorry everyone!

 

[VerbalAbuse]

For What is the Difference Between a Rapper and a Poet? is a short poem by @VerbalAbuse which I took to be mockery of rap.

He is certainly entitled to have his opinion and to express it.

Likewise, I believe I'm entitled to respond (appropriately), which I did, with an untitled poem on the 2026 Poem a Week poem thread.

Rap is, in many cases, an inspiration for me. It is poetry that reflected, originally, the Black experience in America, but now is an art form used in cultures around the world. It matters to me when people appear to disrespect it.

It's a joke. Take it as such.

 

[nudeblaqgirl]

It's a joke. Take it as such.

It's not a joke to me. I'll take it as I choose.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

It's not a joke to me. I'll take it as I choose.

and that's where all the trouble starts. people electing to feel insulted, when no insult was ever meant.

 

[nudeblaqgirl]

and that's all the trouble starts. people electing to feel insulted, where no insult was ever meant.

You're responsible for the impact of your words, whatever your intent. Write more carefully if you want to avoid "misinterpretation."

And there's no "trouble." You wrote something I strongly disagreed with, and I responded. As I have every right to do.

 

[NivKay]

@SpermFactory I feel a Ginsbergian howl coming on when I read this.