Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco #23 Click Trick

Welcome to Writing Prompt Pit Stop! I didn’t get this one completed on the 23rd because of grading and going to auditions for a play that I’m directing, so I had to go back and do it as I plan to get all 30 poems in for the 30 days of National Poetry Month! So for this PoMoSco prompt, we were to use a computer program to create our “erasure” poem. I used Paint and Microsoft Word since I didn’t have time to play around with the free version of Photoshop…which I used to know a bit about…but that was years ago! Here is my Click Trick poem, “Reputation.” Enjoy!

Here is the Day 23 prompt, Click Trick:

Start by gaining access to Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Acrobat. Free 30-day trials of both software programs can be downloaded at http://www.adobe.com/downloads.html.

You’ll also need a digital copy of your source text in an image or PDF format.

If you are using Adobe Photoshop:

Open your source text in Photoshop — when you do so, it automatically opens the image in its own layer. Add a new layer on top of your source text. Select the brush tool and choose a color swatch of your choice. You can use the eyedropper tool to select the color of your page background (for a true erasure look), or select another color of your choice. Paint over your source text, obscuring lines until only the words of your erasure poem remain.

For a video tutorial, watch Jenni B. Baker’s 8-minute demonstration of how she creates erasure poems for her Erasing Infinite project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T__RD1aDsPY.

Save your completed work as an image file (JPG or PNG preferred).

If you are using Adobe Acrobat:

Open your source PDF text in Acrobat. Navigate to the “Tools” then “Protection” Toolbar. Click “Mark for Redaction” and then drag your cursor over the sections of the text you wish to remove. Click “Apply Redaction” to remove that section permanently. By default, Adobe places a black bar over any redacted text; however, you can change this color (to white, for instance) under “Redaction Properties.”

For a video tutorial, watch How Tech.Office’s demonstration, “How to Redact in Adobe Acrobat”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Cm4Owomlg

Save your completed work as either an image file (JPG or PNG) or a PDF.

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 23. 25 Apr 2015.

Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco # 25 Crowdsource

Welcome to Writing Prompt Pit Stop! Well, with today’s PoMoSco prompt # 25 there’s only five more to go! I have one more prompt to go back and post for those of you that have been following along, and that’s Day 23 – Click Trick. Nevertheless, I did get today’s done on time! This is one that took me outside of my comfort zone, as it involved me either sitting in a public place with a sign for people to come over and talk to me, or to go up to random people with my concrete noun to define…and that’s the option that I chose. There is a big art event here in Toledo, Ohio, called Artomatic 419 and so I figured that was a pretty good place to find some people that wouldn’t find my request strange. So, here is my Crowdsource poem, “Written Emotions.” Enjoy!

Here is the Day 25 prompt, Crowdsource:

Pick a public place with a lot of foot traffic. Select a concrete noun (e.g. tree, wax, mouse, window). Hold or display a sign inviting the public to contribute their definitions of the word or talk about what they think about when they hear that word; alternately, walk around and ask random people to contribute.

Collect a minimum of ten definitions, and use those words to write your poem. Do not include the chosen noun anywhere in the poem’s body or title.

Cite your collection method, location and chosen word at the bottom of your post.

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 25. 25 Apr 2015.

Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco # 24 Best Laid Plan

Welcome to Writing Prompt Pit Stop! Today, I skipped one since I didn’t get yesterday’s done yet – so today’s PoMoSco prompt is the Best Laid Plan. I chose to do a poem from the Toledo Museum of Art’s member magazine, arTMAtters. It was taken from an article on Werner Pfeiffer, and I omitted anything that had to do with art or creativity…which would leave us with a pretty grim world, huh? Here is my poem, “The Possibilities of Harsh Realities.” Enjoy!

Here is the Day 24 prompt, Best Laid Plan:

Approach a text with a plan to remove something. Think beyond just a single word and instead consider removing references to a subject or emotion, actions taken by certain characters, colors, etc.

Whatever you choose, apply your approach and, keeping as much of the remaining text intact as possible, create your poem from results.

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 24. 24 Apr 2015.

Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco # 22 Dialed In

Welcome to Writing Prompt Pit Stop! Well, I’m caught back up with this one to the 22nd prompt from PoMoSco for National Poetry Month. For this one we had to use a phone # (real or imagined) and use that to make our own formula to create a poem. I used John Ortberg’s book Soul Keeping for this one. I used only the first line of each page starting with Chapter 1. So, 10 numbers X 6 times through to get my word bank = 60 words (or thereabouts) to create my poem…and I can’t believe I’m talking math again two prompts in a row! Anyway, here is my poem “Your Image.” Enjoy!

Here is the Day 22 prompt, Dialed In:

Start by choosing a phone number — your own, one from a business, or one you make up. Write out the full number (including any area codes) as a series of digits without dashes or parentheses.

Decide what your numbers will correspond to — words, sentences or pages.  For instance, if your first number is two (2), you could choose to grab the second word on a page, the second sentence on a page, or the second page in the book.

Do this for each digit in the phone number. You can cycle through the phone number series multiple times if necessary to generate enough text for your poem.

Post your completed poem to the site, and add a citation for your source text. Do not post the phone number you used, out of privacy considerations.

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 22. 22 Apr 2015.

Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco # 21 Pinch an Inch

Welcome to Writing Prompt Pit Stop! I’m almost caught back up, one more after this one and I’m even with the days of National Poetry Month again, whew! So today’s PoMoSco prompt I chose to use was “Pinch an Inch,” and, just like it sounds it uses some math skills…or at least using a ruler and a text! I’m not big on math, but I have come to realize that a lot of poetry does use a lot of it…I just choose to ignore that fact! LOL! Anyway, I chose the novel, Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver to get the needed words for my 21st poem of the month: “Nobody Territorial.” Enjoy!

Here is the Day 21 prompt, Pinch an Inch:

Begin with a source text of your choice and a ruler. Mark off a column of  text one vertical inch wide down and extending down one or more pages — you might choose, for example, to use an inch down the center of your page, or along the page’s left or right margin. Craft your poem using only words located within your vertical column inch(es).

If you decide to use multiple pages, locate your vertical column inch in the same location on each page (i.e. all center columns, all right margin columns, etc).

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 21. 22 Apr 2015.

Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco # 20 Off the Shelf

Welcome to Writing Prompt Pit Stop! So, I’m still playing catch up, but I’m getting back on track! For PoMoSco prompt 20 we were to go to a library or bookstore…and while on our way there make note of our surroundings/observe. I was still in Indianapolis when I did this prompt yesterday, so that was obvious to me. I selected my books to peruse in Barnes & Noble on Indianapolis. Here is my resulting poem, “Indianapolis: Concrete & Humanity.” Enjoy!

Here is the Day 20 prompt, Off the Shelf:

Head to your local library or bookstore, making a mental note of things you see on your journey there — you might, for instance, see construction taking place, drive by a used car dealership, pass a printing shop or spot a group of birds  in the trees.

Make one of the things you saw your research topic for the day and find five books related to that topic in your library or bookstore’s stacks. Compose a poem using only the words and phrases  found on the first five pages of each text, excluding introductory matter.

Make a note of your sources and include the citations along with your completed poem.

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 20. 21 Apr 2015.

Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco #19 Quiet on the Set

Welcome to Writing Prompt Pit Stop! Well, I had to travel on Sunday to not only visit friends, but to read at a wonderful poetry reading in Indianapolis on Monday afternoon – Poetry in Free Motion at the Indianapolis Artsgarden. So that was a great event where I got to read with my two friends that make up Company of Women, but even though my days there were surrounded by poets and poetry, I didn’t get a  chance to write and post PoMoSco poem #19: Quiet on the Set. But, I was able to complete the prompt last night, write the poem today, and by tomorrow night I should be back on track with the daily prompts. So without further ado, here is my poem “Your Moment of Zen.” Enjoy!

Here is the Day 19 prompt, Quiet on the Set:

Choose a television program, podcast, or movie of at least 30 minutes in length.  Press play and start transcribing what you hear — no pressing pause, turning on subtitles or referencing a script allowed! You won’t be able to keep up, and that’s the point.  

When completed, create a poem out of your transcribed words. You can delete — but not reorder — your transcribed text.

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 19. 21 Apr 2015.

Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco # 18 Open Book

Welcome to Writing Stop Pit Stop! Here we are at day 18 of National Poetry Month already! Today was the prompt where we find a book, open it to two pages and then select words and phrases that we want to use, but as with all PoMoSco prompts, there’s a constraint with that! So, the prompt is found below. In the meantime, I had a great time with this as I opened up a book I own about Georgia O’Keefe and the words that jumped out were pretty racy…and fun to work with. I went with it and let the words and phrases I found lead me. I enjoyed writing this poem, and I guess we’ll see if anyone else likes it. Here’s my poem, “Bare Abstract.” Enjoy!

Here is the day 18 prompt, Open Book:

Choose a book or magazine as your source text. Select a two-page spread, scan through the text, and copy down any interesting words and phrases in the order you encounter them on the page.

When you’ve finished, write a poem using only these words and phrases without changing their order. No non-found words may be included in your poem. Poems should be presented in type, similar to a standard poem, and not contain additional visual elements or emphasis (you’ll do that for other badges).

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 18. 18 Apr 2015.

Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco # 17 Spelling Bee

Welcome to Writing Prompt Pit Stop! Today is day 17 of PoMoSco, and the prompt sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. The main thing is to find your seed phrase, and then find a source text that will generate a lot of words. The way that I wrote my poem was to keep the first word in the poem the same as the first word of the seed phrase. So, I used Vonnegut’s phrase: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. Hence, the first words of each line of my poem starts with w a w w p t b s w m b c w w p t b.  By running my source text through the generator provided in the prompt I was able to come up with a poem I was happy with. Here is my resulting poem, “Eagles Birding: Excited Arrivals.” Enjoy!

Here is the Day 17 prompt, Spelling Bee:

You’ll need your source text and a “seed” phrase, Your seed phrase is a sentence or fragment that contains at least 20 characters, which can be related or not to your source.

For instance, if your source text is a book on baseball, you might choose “Take me out to the ballgame” as your seed phrase. If your source text is on the Beatles, you might choose, “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

Visit the Diastic Poem Generator at http://www.languageisavirus.com/diastic-poem-generator.html. Enter your seed phrase and source text in the corresponding boxes, then click “Generate.”

The program will create a “spell-through” of your text. Using the “take me out to the ballgame” example, the program will search through your text for the first word that has T in the first position (it might be a word like “the,” “travel,” or “true”) and add it to your word list. Next, it searches for a word that has “a” in the second position (e.g. “cap,” “batboy,” “game”), and so on, until it reaches the end of your seed text.

Add the results to your word bank, and keep clicking “Generate” to add additional iterations. For a more experimental text, keep the resulting text intact. Otherwise, remove text to create your poem — but try to keep the words in order.

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 17. 17 Apr 2015.

Writing Prompt Pit Stop: PoMoSco # 16 The Blender

Welcome to Writing Prompt Pit Stop! Here we are on the downward side of the PoMoSco project for National Poetry Month. It’s amazing how time flies! Today we have the 16th prompt which is a “remixing” one titled The Blender. We were to choose a source text and then put it in the link provided to mix it up. I’ve been using my favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut, for many of my prompts this year and decided that his short story “Harrison Bergeron” might be a fun one for this. I cut and pasted sections in the blender and then I generally cut it again and pasted one more time, so that the words were even mixed better. Sometimes it was more jumbled than I liked, but I ended up being able to get a fairly decent found poem from it. Here is my poem, “The United States Handicapper Was Required By Every Screen.” Enjoy!

Here is the day 16 prompt, The Blender:

Choose either a source text that already exists in digital form, or a printed text that you’re willing to type out. Next, navigate to The Text-Mixing Desk at The Lazarus Corporation (http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/cutup/text-mixing-desk), paste your text, adjust the controls and click “Start the Mix!”

Copy down the result exactly as it comes out of the Text Mixing Desk. Repeat the mixing process with additional sections of text if you want a longer language bank to work with.

Craft your poem from the results using words IN THE ORDER they appear in the original. You may delete words but not reorder them.

The Found Poetry Review. PoMoSco. Prompt 16. 16 Apr 2015.