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Entry tags:
the Secret Society of Stealthy Sonneteers
Society members by code numbers: 9 – ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ardyforshort; 16 – fyreharper; 24 – J.J. the Pointed Verse of Reasoned Debate; 28 – firecat; 29 – untonuggan; 34 – okrablossom; 35 – Pau Amma; 40 – bookblather; and 41 – primeideal.
"There's something intimate about secrecy. When someone glances about and lowers their voice, you instinctively lean in. Whatever it is that the two of you discuss, your soft-voiced conversation creates a illusion of a private space, one set apart from the crowded world outside.
"Let's create such a space here [...]" Thus begins the Covert Collaboration Challenge, "a little experiment in secrecy as a recipe for intimacy". Over the course of a week, myself and my eight fellow Society members wrote two original sonnets; the majority of the lines in each were written with only one to two preceding lines for reference, and in the case of the second sonnet, the prompt ("spontaneous musicals, or What if life was more like theater?'").
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METAMORPHIC UNDERSTANDING
I study you, re-view, learn one fact more
Geology of body, face, and time
Show twisted veins of life's remember'd ore
Recalled as gold, no longer worth a dime
Tis trash or treasure, turning with the tide
And trash to treasure turns the Midas eye
Until what has been thrown away outside
Becomes engulfed, and gleaming troughs rise high
So furrowed brows relax into delight
And arms unfolded show beneath your skin
What's drifting downwards, what had been uptight
Now lapping back, looped deeper, found within
All life is change, as all that grows is changed
Light glinting from perspectives rearranged
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HELLO, TROLLEY
A supermarket aisle is, too, a stage
We moan high prices, sing out each great deal
Excelsis Savings! Fruit is today's steal
And lemon drops: a treat for any age!
A song bursts forth within the batting cage
Of joy foretold in making tonight's meal
And rudeness met with sly banana peel
the little pleasures make a living wage
So life is joy, and joy is life unbound,
with sweeping gestures, dance and song and jest
To lift the happy, comfort the distressed
Who yelled at their child after one of those days,
Extol the virtues of beef cut in the round,
Of checkout baggers sing sweet songs of praise.
===
All are welcome to comment and discuss. Society members, was this experiment successful in fostering intimacy? Do you have any favorite exchanges or quotes you'd like to share from our Top Secret discussion threads?
ardyforshort; 16 – fyreharper; 24 – J.J. the Pointed Verse of Reasoned Debate; 28 – firecat; 29 – untonuggan; 34 – okrablossom; 35 – Pau Amma; 40 – bookblather; and 41 – primeideal."There's something intimate about secrecy. When someone glances about and lowers their voice, you instinctively lean in. Whatever it is that the two of you discuss, your soft-voiced conversation creates a illusion of a private space, one set apart from the crowded world outside.
"Let's create such a space here [...]" Thus begins the Covert Collaboration Challenge, "a little experiment in secrecy as a recipe for intimacy". Over the course of a week, myself and my eight fellow Society members wrote two original sonnets; the majority of the lines in each were written with only one to two preceding lines for reference, and in the case of the second sonnet, the prompt ("spontaneous musicals, or What if life was more like theater?'").
==
METAMORPHIC UNDERSTANDING
I study you, re-view, learn one fact more
Geology of body, face, and time
Show twisted veins of life's remember'd ore
Recalled as gold, no longer worth a dime
Tis trash or treasure, turning with the tide
And trash to treasure turns the Midas eye
Until what has been thrown away outside
Becomes engulfed, and gleaming troughs rise high
So furrowed brows relax into delight
And arms unfolded show beneath your skin
What's drifting downwards, what had been uptight
Now lapping back, looped deeper, found within
All life is change, as all that grows is changed
Light glinting from perspectives rearranged
==
HELLO, TROLLEY
A supermarket aisle is, too, a stage
We moan high prices, sing out each great deal
Excelsis Savings! Fruit is today's steal
And lemon drops: a treat for any age!
A song bursts forth within the batting cage
Of joy foretold in making tonight's meal
And rudeness met with sly banana peel
the little pleasures make a living wage
So life is joy, and joy is life unbound,
with sweeping gestures, dance and song and jest
To lift the happy, comfort the distressed
Who yelled at their child after one of those days,
Extol the virtues of beef cut in the round,
Of checkout baggers sing sweet songs of praise.
===
All are welcome to comment and discuss. Society members, was this experiment successful in fostering intimacy? Do you have any favorite exchanges or quotes you'd like to share from our Top Secret discussion threads?
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Yes!
Re: Yes!
I only collaborated with the main collaborator, jjhunter! So I don't think you did it wrong?
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24 says: "Match those numbers to the unmasked Society members at the start of this post, and you will know who wrote the line before yours and who wrote the line after."
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24 says: "But as Pau Amma notes, knowing the big picture doesn't necessarily make it easier - the Society member who finished the other sonnet mentioned that it felt intimidating."
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24 muses: "I wonder what this implies about how meaning is chunked / developed over the course of different types of sonnets..."
24 asks: "Do you think subsections of particular rhyme scheme patterns make useful containers for pacing out the development of the sonnet's meaning(s)?"
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Contrast this with the Twitter account @pentametron, which automatically retweets random lines from unrelated users when they happen to form heroic couplets. Here where there's absolutely zero expectation of coherence, then on the rare occasion the two lines have something to do with each other, it's hilarious.
(Kudos to whoever came up with "batting cage" though. Got to love batting cages.)
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I had the last lines of MU and one line of HT, and it was definitely easier to do the one line with limited context. But that was because there really was only so much I could do; only one line (and a general topic) to match it to, so my ability to optimize was limited. Having the responsibility of wrapping up MU as well as possible - and, wow, y'all, that turned out so lovely! so "as well as possible" was a pretty high bar :) - that was harder. Because the last lines of a sonnet are kinda important, and I wanted to do the rest of the poem justice... and because, being able to see the whole poem, there was a lot more for me to take into consideration!
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24 says: "Around the middle both sonnets shifted from each line being written by one person to individuals writing two (MU) or three (Hello, Trolley) lines at a time. Part of what may have made MU hang together better is that we were pressed for time to finish yesterday, so
24 writes down author numbers as follows:
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24 chews them pensively.
24 asks: "Is production of meaning a prerequisite for increasing intimacy?"
24 asks: "Might I trouble you to quote an example you like from @pentametron?"
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41 blushes. "No, it's just something I happen to enjoy sometimes. Does anonymity help, though?"
41 proffers the couplet of:
"JUST HURRY UP AND FUCKING ANSWER ME!!!!!!!
how patient can a person truly be?"
41 also volunteers to self-promote some imitations and pastiches of more from @pentametron, maybe some other time.
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24 says: "In this case, my dear 41, I think we are pseudonymous rather than anonymous."
24 whips out a sign, scribbles something in thick purple marker, and holds it up for all to see:
24 offers: "Perhaps rather than secrecy, the ingredient I've been groping for is playful shared purpose?"
24 says: "I really like that pastiche! Ooo yes please, do elaborate on @pentametron / @pentametron-inspired stuff more when you have time & opportunity."
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41 heartily supports the use of numbers as names!
41 strokes chin.
41 suggests "playful shared purpose sounds like an excellent end in itself. Maybe I'm just the type to nom up raw materials, rather than trying to cook up something more culinary?"
41 will be happy to elaborate at some future time. Let me know when and where would be a good format! :)
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24 says: "The upcoming 'Diction's Dicty Delights' community week might be a possibility..."
24 says: "Also, these would be fun to share at any (or even every!) Sunday Picnic."
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[putting on poetry critic hat] The poems hang together pretty well given the constraints. Because everyone is working on the same theme but only had access to one or two lines that went before, the poems seem a bit like ponds full of ripples. That made me realize that I'm used to sonnets that seem to have a single sweep of movement in one direction. But I didn't realize that until I read these. It's fun to learn things that way!
It would be fascinating to see what kinds of movement could be created by tweaking the rules of the collaboration.
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24 chews them over pensively.
24 asks: "What other kinds of movement might there be beside ripples or one-way sweeps?"
24 muses: "I wonder what kind of collaboration rules might foster greater intimacy in the act of using them..."
Such a delight to read
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