Poem: "A Hole in the Blanket"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem began with my post about "Always Chaotic Evil" races in fantasy, which led to LJ user marina_bonomi's thoughtful discussion. Together we came up with the core ideas for this piece of "sword and soul."

Basically, I looked at some standard tropes and decided that they were stupid, limiting, and boring; and that doing something different would be fun. So the dark-aspected "evil" and light-aspected "good" imagery is reversed, with the location in a fantasy-Africa instead of a fantasy-Europe. The objects of power, plot dynamics, problem-solving approaches, beauty standards, voice, etc. all derive from African perspectives, mainly Akan. In terms of poetic techniques, look for repetition, mythic imagery, and strong cadence -- all features typical of African poetry. Africa has a very strong oral tradition.

 

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