All These Rooms

An online poetry workshop.

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(a very symmetrical) Challenge

July 31st, 2008 · 2 Comments

If you want the hallowed whomper stick (TM), you must win the following challenge. And since you are naughty, asymmetrical little (all these) room-mates, I challenge you to write a somehow-symmetrical poem. The symmetry can be something like lines of equal length, number of letters, number of words, etc. Or pick some other type of symmetry. Non-participants will be whomped and eaten with a side of succotash by the next winner.

Tags: Contests · Monthly Challenge · Poems

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Natalie // Jul 27, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    hey mac

    this note in concerning yr comment on my poem but i’m leaving it here because i don’t think you’ll get the email that i responded if i left it on my post. or would you? (just wondering so i can help keep the site well organized.)

    thanks for changing the poem to one stanza. i think it works better this way. and you’re definitely write about striking the first line. why ar eyou always soo right?

    i think the thing i like best about the process of workshopping poems is that you guys help me cut stuff that’s too literal and/or distracts from the meaning of the poem.

    thanks!!!!!

  • 2 mackenzie // Sep 16, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    It starts how it ends,
    or maybe there’s no beginning, no stopping at all.
    Either way, when I walked on all fours
    and my dreams at night were lifting my hands, were
    faces making faces,
    I don’t think I was what I am.
    But when have I ever been
    what I am? Maybe yesterday,
    maybe the day before, lifting myself
    up off the cement, my legs asleep,
    stumbling while I waited for the feeling
    to come back. It came back,
    tripping on the level ground as the rest of me still felt like I was sitting
    on the cement, like my legs dreampt
    of the day before, carrying my body into the air
    forgetting what I am. Maybe yesterday
    I was what I always am.
    I don’t think I am what I was,
    just faces making faces
    and my dreams scratching up the night with my empty hands, air
    taking both ways, walking on four legs,
    finding some beginning without even knowing, not stopping, too small
    to notice it starts how it ends.

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