{"id":137990256,"date":"2025-01-30T11:15:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T17:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=137990256"},"modified":"2025-01-30T11:15:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T17:15:14","slug":"playfully-formal-verse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/playfully-formal-verse\/","title":{"rendered":"Playfully Formal Verse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s chosen poetry form was the Contrapuntal<\/a> \u2013 which seemed much easier than I thought, at first, being essentially the solo version of a Tapestry<\/a>\u00a0form \u2013 a collaborative form that Necia Campbell and I wrote together last year, and which appears towards the end of the recently released,\u00a0Poems from the Rebel Outpost<\/strong><\/a>. The previous link will take you to Barnes & Noble; to buy from Amazon,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But then again, the Tapestry form might have been easier because it was a collaboration, and in the Contrapuntal, the left hand knows exactly what the right hand’s doing, destroying the element of surprise and risking too much cohesion, in a way. In other words, the counterpoint may be less of a counterpoint for knowing exactly where the poet wants to lead.<\/p>\n

Progress, They Call It (a Contrapuntal Poem)<\/h2>\n
progress, they call it: slashing, burning, progress\u2014\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0can\u2019t stop the forward motion of a nation!<\/span>\r\nencroaching, elbowing, uprooting the living\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0who would want to thwart the people\u2019s will, or kill the<\/span>\r\ncanopy of verdant sunlit trees that once breathed\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0sweet aroma of crisply minted bills enrobed in leather with<\/span>\r\nour exhalations. we breathed theirs until they gasped\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the faintest whiff of manliness, invoking will,<\/span>\r\ntheir last, until they fell to saw and ax, bulldozed\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0determination. ancestors\u2019 words forgotten as new money\u2019s<\/span>\r\nburned to make a way for strip malls and\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0wealth, unfettered by past sense, decorum, grows,<\/span>\r\npower lines\u2014such progress don\u2019t go well with pines\u2014\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0it goes to feed the engines of industry that only thrive<\/span>\r\nincinerating cedar selves in swirling smoke\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0coal-fired on the backs of miners, steelworkers, \u201clittle people\u201d\u2014<\/span>\r\ntheir ashes drifting heavenwards and carried\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0those dispensable, extra mouths to feed until<\/span>\r\non the santa ana winds to add a colored layer\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the robots shove them off the ledge<\/span>\r\non the cliffs of palo duro choking out the summer sun.<\/pre>\n
I was first introduced to the form by the poet Mervyn Seivwright<\/a>, who is kind enough to let me call him friend and mentor. He made it look easy, with poems like, “Manhood’s Gambit<\/a>,” but that’s the trick of any good writer. It should look natural and almost effortless. It’s not.<\/p>\n
Today’s “alphabet challenge” poem, which I won’t publish here (I have other plans for that one!), uses the Diminishing Verse<\/a> form.<\/p>\n
The following poem was inspired by another participant in The Stafford Challenge<\/a> who, bafflingly, was advised by AI to “doglificate their love life.” I suggested that even if the mean girls couldn’t make “fetch” happen, maybe a bunch of poets could make “doglificate” happen and in the process, confuse the hell out of the machine. I have never claimed not<\/em> to be mischievously subversive.<\/p>\n
Doglificate<\/h2>\n
We have been ill-advised in this, AI\u2019s insistent
\nurging to \u201cdoglificate our lives.\u201d Imagine
\ndocile canine friends pontificating
\nfrom a coffee table soapbox or
\nthe nearest fragrant hydrant hoping
\nthey might radicate the notion that
\nthe dogs should be in charge? Oh, woe
\nto cats and tender, tasty humans then \u2013
\nour fate, thus sealed, as we
\nare slowly licked to death, complacent,
\ngrinning, thinking we had any say at all.<\/p>\n
Please – whether you consider yourself a poet or not – join in the fun. Let’s make this word, “doglificate,” a thing. Short story writers, you, too! Come back and post a link to your doglificate creations in the comments so we can all enjoy them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Or, it must be nice to doglificate your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137990259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[],"wds_primary_category":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[2733,2732,2730,2731,2725],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-137990256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-formal-verse","tag-made-up-words","tag-poem","tag-poetic-license","tag-poetry"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 18:33:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137990256"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137990260,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990256\/revisions\/137990260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137990259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137990256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137990256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137990256"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=137990256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}