April 3rd - WILD CARD

Six of Clubs - WILD CARD
Wild card? What does this mean? As in previous years, I've included a handful of cards in the deck that will switch up the rules of the project for the day. This year, some of these cards are directly associated with a previously successful form.
So, Six of Clubs = Craigslist Missed Connection, which will be writen on the topic of:
Jack of Clubs - Crohn's Diesease


Every year needs at least one creepy missed connection:

http://boston.craigslist.org/bmw/mis/2939162141.html 

Let's Make Things Equal - w4m - 29 (Some GI Clinic)

---

Date: 2012-04-03, 11:16PM EDT
Reply to: ccptc-2939162141@pers.craigslist.org

---

I shouldnt post this but I want to see you again and I want to try to make things equal

You smiled at me right when you walked in and were so nice
I was hoping you would ask me out cause I couldnt ask you out
You made a joke when my hand was around your bicep
We laughed about it
It was so nice getting to know you
You looked at me with youre hungry bluegray eyes
Youre blood pressure was a little high
Was that cause you were looking at me?

I got to see you again
You didnt see me
It was after the anesthesia
It was my job to turn your body over
It was my job to put in the scope
I watched youre insides on the screen
I saw inside you

Ugh this is weird I know and I dont mean it to be weird
I defenately didnt do anything weird
Its not weird for me cause its my job but I think it will weird be for you
And I cant go back in time but I like you
So
Maybe we can make things equal
I want you to see all of me
Inside and out

• Location: Some GI Clinic
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 2939162141

Week 1 - Six Forms

As I mentioned, I will be switching things up by writing (an) additional non-tweet length poem(s) every week.

This week, the form will be determined by a six-sided die:
1 - Prose
2 - Acrostic
3 - Ruba'i
4 - Rondeau
5 - Villanelle
6 - Free Verse

And, this week I will write:
King of Clubs - Frozen feet on the way to the Orchestra
4 - Rondeau

Expect the result to be posted between now and Sunday...

April 2nd - Ladies Reading

Queen of Hearts - Ladies Reading

The Girls and The Ladies

On fields and straw mats
The girls are seeding, breeding
Bruised and back-bent
Ever-ceding

On verandas above
Laze ladies (children) reading

April 1st - Female Gladiators

Unless otherwise noted, all poems will be in tweet length form: 140 characters or less (not including title).

Ten of Diamonds - Female Gladiators

Check out this engaging article on the subject via J. Liggan


Bodies in the Arena

Before the leering crowd they warred
All covering their hungry faces
Forsaking any girlish graces
None ever won a wooden sword*


* handing a wooden sword to a Gladiator was a bestowal of freedom

p.s. This was done hours ago, but held up thanks to crappy internet on the megabus.

National Poetry Month 2012

Welcome (back), Friend!

For those of you not familiar with my annual poetry project, the premise is as follows:
I have a deck of cards, each card is associated with a particular topic. Every morning in April I will draw a card, write a poem on that topic, and post it here before I go to sleep. Whereas in previous years, there was fluctuation in form controlled by a 20-sided die, this time around there will be one form: 140 characters or less, AKA Tweet Length.

There are three reasons for this choice:
(1) This form has yielded some of the best results in previous years.
(2) I'm making a statement on the struggle to retain emotion and meaning as our language adapts to our ever-progessing world, or whatever.
(3) I'm a busy, busy dude and if I have to write a Sapphic Ode followed by a Hip-Hopera followed by a Sestina, I'm going to not sleep and go crazy.

To increase the randomness that makes this project so successful, I have included a couple of rule-changing curve balls in the form of WILD CARDS. Additionally, all topics were reader submitted, and I have only had access to them for about 24 hours - so my ability to prepare is still minimal.
Without furhter ado, the topics are:

RULE CARD WILD CARD
RED JOKER WILD CARD
2C The Boob Tube
2D Breakfast Television
2S Piper Perabo/Covert Affairs
2H Work in studios all day, listen to NPR on the way home, then get furious at how stupid TV is
3C Old guys using "hip-hop" slang
3D Mike Piazza
3S Living in Santorum's America
3H Peach & chipotle glazed quail
4C Crystal Pepsi
4D 1989
4S Chameleons
4H WILD CARD
5C Spin Doctors
5D Trying to pick someone up at Burger King (AKA The BK Mack)
5S Subway Alliances
5H HeroQuest
6C WILD CARD
6D The Morning After the Wreck (Turner)
6S Racist Hunger Games fans
6H Being dumped for a vampire
7C Primanti Brothers sandwiches
7D Island nations, who they fakin'?
7S The psychological problems of Mighty Mouse
7H The demise of the space shuttle program
8C That point when you don't think you're drunk but you really really are
8D Goldschlager (see above)
8S "You're always happy with your work when you're drinking"
8H That fortune teller at PJ Killroy's
9C Filing down ones teeth only to surgically replace them with worse teeth
9D WILD CARD
9S Otter Genocide
9H High school girlfriend's wedding
10C Office printer/scanner/copiers
10D Female Gladiators
10S WILD CARD
10H Acrimony
JC Crohn's Disease
JD Airport Hellos
JS Public Goodbyes
JH Hotel Sex
QC Ingrid Bergman
QD Dame Maggie Smith
QS Feminist Blogs
QH Ladies Reading
KC Frozen feet on the way to the orchestra
KD "Joseph Kony"
KS Inside Jokes
KH Time Square in the 80s
AC Boston vs. New York
AD The Mets, obviously
AS Theft of the poetic license
AH The life of a barista
ORANGE JOKER WILD CARD
YELLOW JOKER WILD CARD
(I don't know why there are three jokers in this deck)

In addition to daily poems, there will also be weekly peoms, drawn from the same topic pool, but with different form (20-sided die will return!).

A few rule clarifications:
- Once a card is removed from the deck, it will not be put back.
- If on the off-chance that I have to write more poems than topics (it's possible), I will be drawing from some topics that just missed the final cut.

Thanks to all who submitted, thanks to all who continue to read. Enjoy!


P.S. April is also National Grilled Cheese Month

NPM Year 3, Coming Soon

As you've probably noticed, this space has been nothing more than a spam graveyard as of late. Some of the highlights: "Come to see us now to grasp more knowledge and facts anyway," "The entire number of query to be tried is hundred," and "gut mit nützlich und angenehm."

Well, this is all about to change.

The third annual National Poetry Month project is coming here in just a few days! The setup is going to be a little different this year, and one of those differences is that every topic will be reader-submitted.

So get involved! Want me to write about something? Tell me here: putyourcollardownelvis@gmail.com

I'll be checking the above address on March 31st, at which time I will assemble the cream of the crop and post a construct for this year's project.

Thanks for your submissions!

Here are a handful of my favorites from the last two years to keep you occupied until April 1st:
http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-11th-bill-clinton.html
http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/2011/04/april-13th-whaling-ships.html
http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-28th-pizza_29.html
http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/2011/04/april-15th-invisible-people.html
http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-14th-ducks.html
http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-3rd-abroad.html
http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-6th-irrational-fears.html
http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/2011/04/april-4th-fat-elvis.html

5 - Vices

Four of Diamonds - Vices
5 - Rondeau



New poem coming here at some point...

So...

It was hard to be in a misanthropic state of mind after a stint in Hawaii, and then I just let things get away from me. I can't guarantee I'll get back up to a weekly or even bi-weekly pace, but dear readers, consider the following the seal-breaker of a new flood (or trickle) of content:


Seven of Clubs - Misanthropy
6 - Sapphic Ode

Trash compactor stench lingers acrid along
Tar and granite arteries bleeding live noise:
Coughs, carousing laughs, empty bleating voices
Warped as this scaffold -

Corrugated aluminum that breezes
Teeters loudly below a burned-out building
Whistles sound as bricks, cement fall demolished
Dusting sidewalks where

All the city colors coalesce blue-gold
Needles float cascading through gutter water
Rainbowed beneath black Baptist church or gray gay
Bar with a torn flag

There or law practices or beside flower sellers
Under my feet even as I cross fourth street
Dry-mouthed shaking mess but I'm lucid among
Cruel ashen faces

4 - Misanthropy

Seven of Clubs - Misanthropy
6 - Sapphic Ode

I'm going on vacation m-fs, so I'm giving myself two weeks for this one. Expect a poem here by Sunday, June 26th.

3 - Righteous Gentiles

King of Spades - Righteous Gentiles
15 - Acrostic


Sugiharara, Half-Asleep

Escaping, finally, the bonds of hierarchy and of a
Xenophobic climate, here
In the arms of his wife, he
Thinks of them:

Victims: an elderly woman with tiny wrists,
Infants - he can
Save them!
All he has to do is
Sign his name


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Righteous_among_the_Nations_by_country