The Poetry Marathon

J.A. McDonald

A name is a stone; a unique granite slab,

Chisel, chisel, break away all surplus,

It is not mass a name needs; meaningless,

But a picture, illustrious.and bright.

 

The artist sits and ponders, then begins,

Breathe. Breath the love into it; rest later.

For sleep is eternal once the work done.

Each day labor spent, deadline unknown.

 

What will the artist bring into this world?

A sculpture of love, light, laughter, gentle?

A sculpture of faces noble, decent?

Visages that inspire men to more?

 

Or perhaps will darkness guide the hand stray?

Eyes brimming with anger peer from the face,

A spear in one hand, a heart opposite,

A hand guided by hate may create such a namesake

 

Or worse yet,

Blandness, white,

Unadorned rock,

Work unfinished.

 

To each name a tender love is given,

To each sculptor a muse guides, ill or good.

Some love is that of benevolence, true,

Some follow Narcissus, cold to others,

And some find love too weak; never complete.

At the starting line …

Hi everyone. This is my test post and self-intro. I’ll be working on a visual poem called SCRO that’s been underway for a while. Starting at 6 am tomorrow, I’ll be generating 24 panels, one an hour, from 24 handwritten pages.

Got the base text finished today. Here’s the first page.

Am I cheating? since the writing’s done ahead of time? My feeling here is, the poem isn’t the writing, it’s the visual poem that the writing turns into. I’d do that with the page above to show you – but the marathon hasn’t started yet! so that would be cheating.

Here instead’s a transcription of the page …

— pictures of the house I could
send him now that the land-
scaping’s almost done. Bay
+ I set raised beds—2 big
ones for summer vegetables + 3
smaller ones where I’m going
to plant fruit trees I need to
drive up to Cloud Mountain
Farm to choose. There’s a
greeting. Another is, before
I’d even heard that the mort-
gage was more than a
bank was going to lend me on my
own, he’d e-mailed to ask if he
could help. The house is my own
—bought w/ my labour —
but his name verifies mine. A
bed under the LR window for
perennial herbs, a bed under
the kitchen window for edible
flowers. We laid drainage in the
fall + raised + levelled the
yard w/ topsoil to try to dry

And links to a description of the project, on my blog, if you’re curious.

https://artofcompost.wordpress.com/2016/07/30/scro-part-i/

https://artofcompost.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/scro-ii/

Looking forward to racing among you all tomorrow!

Chris

Orlando

This may be my first and only published poem.

I consider it the start of my intentional poetry writing.

Submitted to check the process

Paul Robert Sanford

June 12 at 4:14pm

In Orlando,
Happy faces
Young beautiful people,
Vibrant bodies,
Jumping for joy.
Smashed into offal and
Cooling meat.
There is no moral,
No lesson,
No political gain,
Only blood and emptiness and tears.

self info for fb group addictionurse Paul Robert Sanford

Paul Robert Sanford

1 min

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Testing to see if this works

Testing testing testing

Introduction

Hi everyone,

My name is Amanda. I will be participating in the half marathon. This is my first year with the marathon and I am excited for the challenge. I love writing poetry and usually just post to my instagram account to share. I can’t wait to get writing and see all of the creative entries from other participants.

Did I just take a challenge to write a poem every hour for 24 hours?

Wow. What was I thinking!?

I do so well with a good challenge, and a challenge to write 24 poems in 24 hours takes up a lot less time than say… committing to a NaNoWriMo challenge, which takes a month of insanity…

Tried that, and got about 25K words in and am still working on that one a few years later.

I write Haiku. Not always, or exclusively, but it will help for swiftness of poetic agility.

But I love this idea and I am going to set an alarm for every hour and go! Let’s see what happens!

Ready Set GO!

 

My instructions

Poetry Marathon
1. Saturday, August 13 at 9:00 am – Log on to Poetry Marathon
a. Remember password
2. Once I am on Marathon site, click on DASHBOARD
3. Look at PROMPT
a. Or use own idea
b. Write 1st poem
4. 10:00 am – save 1st poem on DASHBOARD
5. 10:01 am – look at 2nd PROMPT
a. Or use your own idea
b. Write 2nd poem
6. 11:00 am – save 2nd poem on DASHBOARD
7. 11:01 am – look at 33d PROMPT
a. Or use your own idea
b. Write 3rd poem
8. 12:00 noon – save 3rd poem on DASHBOARD
9. 12:01 pm – look at 4th PROMPT
a. Or use your own idea
b. Write 4th poem
10. 1:00 pm – Save 4rt poem on DASHBOARD
11. 1:01 pm – look at 5th PROMPT
12. Continue each hour through 24th hour
13. Sunday, August 14t at 9:00 am – enter 24th poem
14. You are Finished with the 2016 Marathon!

Hello

Hi all,

This is my second year; last year I was part of the half marathon.

A copyeditor by profession, I scribble when I can.

Here for the synaptic workout. And to enjoy the work of wordsmiths at play.

Yes, this is an intense ride. Mind-numbingly so.
Yes it is fun, loads of fun. Especially with Jacob’s wacky prompts 😉
And coffee. Lots of coffee.

Looking forward y’all 🙂

Hello…

I’m Alyssa, a current English writing and literature major and art minor at the University of New Haven in West Haven, CT. I’ll be participating in the poetry half-marathon tomorrow. I’ll be drinking coffee and writing all day 🙂