POETREE

This poem came out of the February 2012 Crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from LJ user siege about a rural commune with flexible sexual practices. It was originally posted on LiveJournal as the free perk for that session. Further comments and prompts quickly turned this into a series as people asked questions and requested characters of interest to them. You can read more about Hart's Farm on the Serial Poetry page.

This is history fantasy set in Sweden. Like many of my series, it draws on local culture, cuisine, terrain, and language. The setting is not just a backdrop but an inspiration for poems. There is a mix of cultural background, though, including Norse and Irish. One useful thing about this first poem is that it introduces an outside character coming to the farm for the first time, which makes it easier to describe things in a way that readers will understand. Hart's Farm is the place that people most often say they'd like to visit or live in, out of the settings in my series.

This poem came out of the March 1, 2011 Poetry Fishbowl. It was crowdfunded by a bunch of different people, and originally posted on my LiveJournal. While writing this poem, I did a bunch of research on Italian wildlife and culture. You can find the other poems in the series Fiorenza the Wisewoman on my Serial Poetry page.

One interesting thing is that this poem contains a number of cliffhangers between verses, and some of those came up during the crowdfunding process. That helped encourage more donations. After verse 12 is a notable one, and after 17 another. It's kind of fun to look for these potential cliffhangers in my longer narrative poems, and then watch to see if any of them activate depending on how the donations come in.

Torn World is a science fantasy shared world about a place that was broken and is slowly mending itself. As the scattered shards of time rejoin, they leave behind dangerous remnants such as time crystals. The people in Torn World learn how to deal with these challenges, but that's a gradual process and it has some casualties along the way. As you read poems from this setting, you can see how the different cultures evolve over time.

This poem came out of the June 5, 2012 Poetry Fishbowl. It was sponsored by Anthony and Shirley Barrette. The characters belong to the Duurludirj culture, a race of tough seafarers most of whom are dwarf-sized. This poem explores what happens when a time barrier falls early in their history, allowing access to new territory -- and new hazards. You can read the original post on Torn World.

This poem began with a prompt from jjhunter  about how, if everyone had wings, there would be people providing professional wing care. That got me thinking about the politics of ethnic hair and discrimination against African braiding in cosmetology. So I extrapolated what might happen with wings, and I looked up bird species (Jardine's Parrot and Red-bellied Parrot) from Africa to go along with this. 

The poem has proven very popular. You can read some feedback under the original post on Dreamwidth (the biggest discussion) or on LiveJournal, or under a signal boost on Poetree. See also the lovely sketch by onewhitecrow . The ideas and discussion points stuck in my mind. They emerged again during the October 2-3 Poetry Fishbowl through a cluster of poems about demons (the month's fishbowl theme), angels, and wings. None of those deal with the same characters or voice, and they haven't been sponsored yet. However, they share common themes and a subtle resonance that, in my mind, places them within the same world and series, now entitled Fledgling Grace. Visit my Serial Poetry page to see a description of the series and a list of the other poems.