You can’t say sci-fi
If you want us to take you
Seriously
Don’t use time travel
Post-modern SF holds it
Unrealistic
Any fool can write,
But science fiction is a
Highly refined art
Prompt: Genre poetry
Form: Linked haikus
Kell Willsen
Kwills
Kell Willsen is a fantasy author, and occasional poet, who believes that good art is a blend of form and content. One day, Kell hopes to make good art. Until then, you get this.
Fishing
Compliments hang, speared
On subtly barbed comments,
Disguising deadly intent.
Weave between the lines,
Better to be a cold fish
Than a terrible warning
Prompt: Fishing
Form: Sedoka
What Might Have Been
The poem was done in under fifteen minutes. Uploading and editing the video took over six hours.
No more BSL poetry from me today.
Captioned in English. No audio.
Click here to view: Limits – a poem in BSL
Blink
Fall asleep.
Blink.
Good morning.
Begin the day.
Blink.
Good evening.
A child is born.
Blink.
University.
Chase after hours.
Blink.
Memories are fading.
Go back to reclaim them.
Blink.
Catch the soft moonlight.
My children’s children.
Blink.
Grown and leaving.
Fight the darkness.
Blink.
Fall asleep.
Prompt: Incorporate three of five suggested phrases.
Form: Invented. I’ll think of a name for it tomorrow.
Fragile
In such a narrow margin, close confined,
Between the crushing depths and empty space.
This thin, sustaining band where life can grow.
How perilous existence is for fish.
PROMPT: Set underwater.
FORM: Unrhymed blank verse.
Warm Up Stretches
Last month, I attended a poetry workshop. After most of the others there had shared their work, and had constructive feedback, I shared mine. I got told that I demonstrated “good use of language”, but that my offering was “not poetry”. The instructor didn’t explain what I was doing wrong, just that I was, definitively, wrong.
That hurt, far more than it should. Some people are jerks, and I know that. But it really hurt to have my work shot down with no explanation. When I saw this challenge, I knew that I had the perfect way to put that hurt behind me, and get back to writing.
So here is my warm-up piece, a kidney punch to the ogre of insecurity. Warning: naked sarcasm ahead.
Feedback
The English is good, and the grammar correct,
But this is not poem.
The rhythm is fine, and the stresses line up,
But this is not a poem.
The metaphor struggles on atrophied limbs,
The rhyming is weak, and the words just don’t sing,
And it’s not the way I would have written the thing;
No, this is not a poem.