LEADERS - not followers

Sunday, August 29, 2010

WORDLE YOURSELF

FOR WE WRITE POEMS

Nicole Nicholson brings us this week’s prompt, which is to Wordle yourself. She says,
“For this week’s prompt, we’re going to do a little something interesting. You’ll make your own Wordle from one (or more) of your own poems, and then write a new poem out of the resulting Wordle.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1. Visit
http://www.wordle.net/ and click on the “Create your own” link near the top left of the page.
Step 2. Paste the text of one of your poems into the first text box at the top of the “Create” page.. If your poems tend to be under ten lines or if you wrote a bunch of really rockin’ short form poetry (like haiku, haynaku, lunes, or tanka) then you can use several of those poems for this exercise.
Step 3. Click the “Go” button right below the text box. You will be taken to the resulting page where your brand new Wordle will appear! (Note: you can monkey around with the color, font, and layout as you like using the menu options shown above your brand new Wordle.)
Step 4. Write down between six and twelve of the largest words in your Wordle and use those words to write a brand new poem.
Here’s an
example of a Wordle that I did this with my poem, Backwards. You’ll have to come back Wednesday for the Post Your Poems post to see my resulting poem.
If you can’t do the Wordle for technical reasons, then here’s another way to approach the prompt: take a poem (or two, or five) of your own and pick out between six and twelve of your most frequently used words, and then write a new poem.
Feel free to post your Wordle image with your poems. And have fun with the prompt this week
!”


Wordle from this post


GUILTY SECRET

You moved in circles populated by important men
To centre your attention on your own self-serving needs

Conflicting images, provoked by indirect, free thought
Compel you to explore the words that issued from your lips

As ready as you’d ever be to face up to your flaws
Your weaknesses exposed, revealed the depth of your self-doubt

Decreasing popularity, a rapid fall from grace
A half-truth half uncovered and a hasty exit made

The tightly-woven web of lies surrounding your affairs
Displayed a calm exterior; concealed a troubled mind

Unguarded overnight, the rusted gateway to your past
Saw souls forgotten breach the threshold; dominate your dreams

By morning light, decaying fibres frayed, dissolved to dust
A solitary strand survived intact; remained untouched

9 comments:

  1. Ah..the dissonance between public and private selves.

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  2. Ah— perhaps there's a longer story here.

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  3. Hmmm, I won't name names, but this reminds me of a politician or two!

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  4. Stan there seems to be a very deep story hidden behind these words! Excellent work!
    Pamela

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  5. Umm, I want to read the original poem it was taken from, or an essay, maybe? Such a provacative writing. Deep buried secrets and a voice that almost seems to hesitate in revealing the little it reveals. Wonderfully mysterious.

    Elizabeth

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  6. Shakespeare indicts the failed Machiavelli?

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  7. A wonderful story is in the back of it. Do write it down.

    pitching forward

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  8. Stan, you have us all curious here! As Elizabeth said, wonderfully mysterious.

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  9. secrets and lies, and whatever else - I sense an anger here, not quite revealed except in effect - in a way that makes it more accessible, less personal, perhaps more identifiable for the reader (haven't we all felt the emotion at one time or another?)

    the language, very evocative: I especially liked the rusted gateway to your past

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