[Sharon Passmore]

Process, inspiration and meaning are different things, no?

[Jones Pat]

It appears we don't have many takers for this one. It might be fun to try a drill where poets respond to art or vice versa...or choose an Erato poet partner and work collaboratively....that would be really fun. Just a thought for what it's worth.

[basil ransome-davies]

Originally Posted by Ann Drysdale

 Riddle

right royal family
all in a row
bid for supremacy
go go go

square my circles
sing my song
to a dear little griffin
or a great big tong

riddle me this
and riddle me that
non-stop jiggle-plop
ware mid chat

round peg square hole
who goes through
size really matters to a
coochy coochy coo

That's a hilarious standalone poem whatever. My morning chuckle. Ta muchly.

[Sharon Passmore]

Jones Pat - I love that idea

[Ann Drysdale]

Well, it's nearly the 20th, so here's my process.

Sharon posted a picture as a prompt, seeking pictorial responses. I am not equipped, technology-wise, to answer with a picture, but Sharon said I could do a word-response; a new piece that retained the two main images. Grids and circles.

The picture had two different faces. A collage of grid-shapes, all squares and corners and a long line of roundnesses underneth, all different sizes. I searched for something I knew and understood that used those two shape-thoughts to make a third.

Grids with different hole-sizes, roundies with different dimensions. I would make a puzzle-poem, using all the different words I found when I researched the thing that was now in my head.

Royals are potatoes; ware, mid and chat are sizes. Griffin, Tong and Cooch are specialist riddles for sorting them. The Griffin is an oldfashioned wooden one and the Tong is a huge industrial machine. But they all have interchangeable grids for doing their shuddery work. I loved researching this, especially when I found out what "cooch" means in Merkin.

That gave me the idea of presenting my poem as a nudgy sort of thing, with undertones of double entendre. Like the old cryptic poems in the Exeter book that is part of my British heritage.

The answer to this riddle is "riddle".

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Ann Drysdale

The answer to this riddle is "riddle".

Blimey, Ann, that's devious! But what's the answer to "riddle"?

[basil ransome-davies]

non-stop jiggle-plop
ware mid chat

These lines suggested to me that you shouldn't take a major dump while talking on your mobile.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by basil ransome-davies

non-stop jiggle-plop
ware mid chat

These lines suggested to me that you shouldn't take a major dump while talking on your mobile.

And it would certainly be most inadvisable to take a major dump, while talking, on your mobile.

[Ann Drysdale]

That, Brian, would only be possible if you were talking out of your arse.

[John Whitworth]

But Brian never does that. I concur with the general feeling here that your poem is a very good one.