{"id":70731,"date":"2020-06-27T20:25:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-28T00:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=70731"},"modified":"2020-06-27T20:25:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-28T00:25:48","slug":"2020-poetry-marathon-hour-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/2020-poetry-marathon-hour-12\/","title":{"rendered":"2020 Poetry Marathon, Hour 12"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Last one! The <a href=\"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/the-poetry-marathon-prompts\/prompt-12-hour-12\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">prompt<\/a> for hour 12 is to (1) grab a book at random off the shelf; (2) read the first line of the book, and the last line; (3) pick one; and (4) use every single word in a poem.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>The book I ended up using is Alphabet Juice, by Roy Blount Jr. (one of my mom&#8217;s books).<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>The first line:<\/em><br \/>\n<em>According to scholars of linguistics, the relation between a word and its meaning is <b>arbitrary<\/b>. [Emphasis in the original.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em>The last line:<\/em><br \/>\n<em><b>Aah.<\/b> [Emphasis in the original]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Because that last line is so short, I decided to use both lines. I started with the shorter line, and was thinking of having the poem consist of two parts\u2014but then it came together at the end. So\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">According to the laws of the universe,<br \/>\nthe free radicals that govern my life,<br \/>\nand a few thousand quacks on the internet,<br \/>\nall I have to do is watch this short clip<br \/>\nand everything I want will come to me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">But if the relation between a word and its meaning<br \/>\nis arbitrary,<br \/>\nI could end up with a Ford Transit van<br \/>\nfilled with scholars of linguistics<br \/>\nand their pet gnus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Or, you know, a thousand gross<br \/>\nof Bazooka bubble gum or something.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">So maybe I should be wishing<br \/>\nfor something completely outrageous,<br \/>\nover the top, beyond the boundaries<br \/>\nof good taste, with caterpillar frosting<br \/>\nand ninja star syrup;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">complete the definitive translation<br \/>\nof every <i>shamon!<\/i> in the recorded works<br \/>\nof Michael Jackson;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">or attempt to say <i>the happy man<br \/>\nbuys his canned ham wholesale<\/i><br \/>\nin Oppish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Aah.<br \/>\nI really shouldn\u2019t be surprised.<br \/>\nBands and bonds are snapping all over the place.<br \/>\nBut now that all that\u2019s done with,<br \/>\nthis is kind of nice, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p>(27 June 2020)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last one! The prompt for hour 12 is to (1) grab a book at random off the shelf; (2) read the first line of the book, and the last line; (3) pick one; and (4) use every single word in a poem. The book I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":793,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3453,1173,179,1163],"class_list":["post-70731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","tag-2020-poetry-marathon","tag-half-marathon","tag-hour-12","tag-kevin-j-oconner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/793"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71031,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70731\/revisions\/71031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}