Coffee Shop Meet and Greet with pt_lightning

[somnolentblue]

Hi! Welcome to the first informal coffee shop-style meet and greet with poetree and pt_lightning, which rounds out our week together.

We've enjoyed your company, and we'd like to open an informal space in the comments for people to talk with each other. Feel free to ask questions, chat with each other, perhaps see if anyone's interested in joining you on a group project.

We suggest that you open a new comment thread by introducing yourself and writing a sentence or two, whether it's "always know where your towel is," "would anyone be interested in doing a pt_lightning project featuring a villanelle and a Vogon," your favorite cookie recipe, or "I'm thinking of signing-up and seeking a cheerleader, help!"

We hope that you can pull of a chair and enjoy a lovely chat!

Comments

[jjhunter]

'ello, all!

I'm J.J., one of the poetree admins. I'd be delighted to talk today / this weekend / in general with people about poetry, poetry for performance, ways of incorporating poetry in writer-podficcer collaborations, pretty much anything you can think of related to poetry... ;o)

More generally, I am offering to act as a cheerleader for the first three people / groups that ask who sign up for this round of pt_lightning. (n.b. 'cheerleader' is not quite the same thing as 'beta'; depending on your style & needs, you and/or your group may find both types of support helpful, or only one, or neither.)

[kaberett]

I would really, really appreciate you making words at me about how to make poems work with podfic, because I... yeah, as you know I don't reaaaally tend to tell stories w/ my poetry as much as sketch emotions (through TREES)? So. Yes. Thoughts. *chinhands*

[jjhunter]

Apologies for the delay on this.

This is a fantabulous question, and one whose answer I find still unfolding for myself. While narrative poetry may feel like the most natural fit for podficcing, I would encourage you to expand your sense of what podficcing can be (and thus what kind of poetry is appropriate for it). Podficcing is, at its heart, transformative work in its own right: a performance, an embodiment-via-voice, of a written work. Think less, how can poetry be like fiction, and a bit more — what kinds of poetry lend themselves to performance? How are some poems like plays? Where would you encounter poetry — in writing or being performed somewhere — offline? A poem for podficcing could be in the voice of a particular character — internal narration or dream or meta such somehow in their words or giving expression to some experience (slam poetry-style, perhaps?) — or articulate some series of insights or impressions about a particular scenario or canonical themes (oh the possible villanelles that might soar for certain Roaring Rampages Of Revenge -packed canons) — or be interspersed with prose song!fic-style, or be multiple poems written by & exchanged between one or more characters to each other, or otherwise haunt or complicate or take over entire a story-making.

I would say: take a canon with one or more characters / tropes / aspects / whatever that inspire strong feelings for you, and feel liberated to make what you write from those places come out as much or as little in poetry as you choose. If that's a nonlinear, non-traditionally-narrative-type thing — hey, why not? This is a short challenge. It is okay sometimes not to go vastly in excess of the minimum word count. If it would help take the edge off, consider doing two projects with whomever you sign up with — give yourself something that doesn't 'have' to be poetry, and an opportunity for poetry also, and see what comes.

Hope that helps jump start for you. I'd be very much interested in your thoughts in return. :o)