POETREE

The Silk Road Allies tells of a world in which China and Italy became close friends. It started with a prompt that I left in a Poetry for the Masses session by LJ user thesilentpoet. From there it grew to include poetry by myself and LJ user marina_bonomi. Each of us has different relevant experience to add to this project.

This poem came out of the July 3, 2012 Poetry Fishbowl. It was sponsored by Marina Bonomi. It reveals the roots of the alliance. This poem originally appeared on LiveJournal. You can read more about the Roman Empire, Roman legions, the lost legion, and Emperor Nerva online.

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.