Poem-image-poem game?
 

Hello,

There is a ‘challenges’ space here, and I have an idea to throw out.

Whether this idea has legs depends on the amount of people who create visual images as well as poems, but it's worth asking.

I used to play a game with friends (before the world turned sad and inwards-looking).

The game is based on mail art. One of us would write a poem, then send it to an illustrator, who would illustrate the poem. Then the illustrator would send their illustration to a poet, who would write an ekphrastic based on the illustration.

It created some exiting & intriguing work. Rough, but interesting. Like a crazy game of chinese whispers looping through words and pictures. Half a zine's worth. That's a shimmering thing.

Would anyone here be interested in seeing how/if this worked on the internet? For example, if the starting post was a poem, I’d leap in and stick my hand up and create an image in response to that poem. Then I’d post my image. Then someone else would stick their hand up and create a poem in response to the image, then someone else respond to the poem with an image…

Any thoughts? (and all thoughts welcome, including ones that say this wouldn’t work and/or I should be quieter as a new member).


Sarah-Jane

This could be fun for Drills & Amusements, though I'd exclusively contribute to the poem side of things. My visual talent is nil.

Thank-you Aaron! That's super-cool. One apprehension of multiplicity further sideways in this game-of-possible.

Any itinerant image-hawkers out there?

Sarah-Jane
(images don't need to be 'good'. 'Good' is the least part of the game as well as being as relational as the ghost of a dust-mote on a spider-web. They just need to exist. I can help with the technical bits.)

We did some things a bit like this in conjunction with the Art forum. Here's one...

https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showt...o n+challenge

Ann, that looks amazing and thank-you for the signpost/link with lovely compound images and a very interesting rhizomatic conversation. Both are complex and beautiful.

This idea may be less beautiful and more playful - I was thinking more of illustrations of poems (or pictures inspired by poems) and vice-versa.

A more fixed kind of conversation between image and poem?

Sarah-Jane

The man doing
little or nothing
is the man with
little or nothing
to do.

OK folks, this looks like fun so let's go for it... I'll move it over to Drills & Amusements.

Thanks Jane.

Jayne

Oooh, fab. I'm not going to start with a poem though as I think this space is lighter on illustrators/visual than poets/words. But I will stick my hand up for the first illustration/visual response if someone else posts a poem.

Sarah-Jane

Well, I'm not sure how you'll illustrate this, Jane, but I'll kick off with my "Spinster’s Lament" pantoum...

Tell me, where can I find Mr. Right?
I seem destined to stay on my own.
Talk of marriage and men get uptight,
- same old story with each one I’ve known!

I seem destined to stay on my own;
why are some men afraid to commit?
Same old story with each one I’ve known -
I fall madly in love, then we split!

Why are some men afraid to commit?
Aren’t their feelings and needs just the same?
I fall madly in love, then we split.
It’s beginning to feel like a game.

Aren’t their feelings and needs just the same?
After all, love’s no different for men.
It’s beginning to feel like a game,
being let down again and again.

After all, love’s no different for men.
Will I always be left in the lurch,
being let down again and again?
I’m determined to keep up the search!

Will I always be left in the lurch?
Talk of marriage and men get uptight.
I’m determined to keep up the search!
Tell me, where can I find Mr. Right?

Oooh, that's great. Thank-you Jayne.

The thing that's brilliant about this is that it isn't something I'd normally come across and it will be exciting to think about. I've a few ideas. Give me a couple of days and I'll post a response.

thank-you!

Sarah-Jane