December ramble meme, day 2: Raven Cycle poems (WHY?!)
Oh my god, so ikel89 CHALLENGED me to write a Gansey poem, throwing out the following ideas: "I want a Gansey poem :D :D :D Make it as ironic as you want: Gansey writing a sonnet to Dead Welsh King boyfriend, or idk, a set of haikus where all cast members sing odes to Gansey (I'm especially looking forward to Ronans XD), or anything, really."
Of course this turned into everybody writing poems about Gansey.
Gansey himself first:
Gansey's Limerick
There once was a poser named Gansey
Who talked unremittingly fancy.
He was searching all over
For Owen Glendower
And other such things that he can't see.
I feel like a limerick would be what he would choose, because it's self-deprecating and jocular, which are things Gansey tries to be and frequently fails at. And of course he would have a big old word in there even while lampshading it. This limerick also has no punchline, which feels apt.
I wondered for a long time what kind of poem Blue would write, because she doesn't strike me as the poetic type. I was pretty sure it would be free verse, but besides that it just didn't seem like the right medium -- her creativity takes a different shape. And then I remembered about a way of writing found poems that goes like this: you take an existing poem and then basically cut words out of it (in the technique I've seen, preserving the order, though that doesn't seem to be required in general?) and arrange them into a poem of your own. Apparently it's called cut-up technique or decoupe. Now, isn't that the Bluest thing you've ever heard?
I figured Blue would pick for her source something thematically fitting and likely to be studied in high school, 'cos I don't think she's sitting there reading poetry on her own, so, the source is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43 ("How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."). And the resulting poem by Blue is:
Blue's Decoupe Poem
how do I count
the depth and reach
sight and grace of every day's quiet sun-light?
freely strive, right passion
use old childhood’s faith (seemed lost)
breath
......... tears life better
Which is not what I would write, but hey, that wasn't the purpose of the exercise.
When it came to Adam, I clearly lost my fucking mind. Like, you guys, you think the glyoxylate sonnet for trick-or-treat was hard? (it kind of was) But then I thought, Adam -- Adam would write in a really complicated, tortuous, dwelling-on-the-same-thing-over-and-over form. Like a sestina, I thought, and then I remembered I hate sestinas. No, seriously, if there is a least favorite poetic form for me, it is the bloody sestina, because it goes on forever, and it is so needlessly complex, and what does it even accomplish? mostly nothing. So, I thought, maybe a nice triolet, that shouldn't be too hard. But the more I thought about triolets, the more I was sure that was a Noah form -- they are repetitive and cyclical, yes, but also kind of childish, and apparently tend to lean towards humour, which seemed perfect for (a) [book 1 spoiler]a ghost and (b) Noah.
Which got me this:
Noah's Triolet
Gansey will keep us together, us five,
All snug in this wonderful place.
Blue and us Raven Boys, them four alive,
Gansey will keep us together, us five.
Going along in the Pig for a drive,
Shopping, talking, just passing the days,
Gansey will keep us together, us five,
All snug in this wonderful place.
But sestinas are ponderous and self-involved and take themselves very, very seriously (mostly), which is very Adam.
Wikipedia says: The structure of the sestina, which demands adherence to a strict and arbitrary order, produces several effects within a poem. Stephen Burt notes that, "The sestina has served, historically, as a complaint", its harsh demands acting as "signs for deprivation or duress".[14] The structure can enhance the subject matter that it orders; in reference to Elizabeth Bishop's A Miracle for Breakfast, David Caplan suggests that the form's "harshly arbitrary demands echo its subject's".[38] Nevertheless, the form's structure has been criticised; Paul Fussell considers the sestina to be of "dubious structural expressiveness" when composed in English and, irrespective of how it is used, "would seem to be [a form] that gives more structural pleasure to the contriver than to the apprehender."[39]
So I knew I had to do it, even though I'd never written a sestina in my life and can barely stand to read the bloody things. I hope you're happy, ikel89!
Adam's Sestina
Oblivious hero-king of Aglionby
Gifted in friends, in smiles, in dreams, in words,
What are you searching for? Such a strange drive
For one who can have anything, from old
Coffers or new. Perhaps not a charmed life
But closely guarded, grown from such rich soil:
A sense of self no fear, no doubt can soil.
Alone, amidst the din of Aglionby,
Privy to secrets of a deeper life
Which can be glimpsed in dreams. Just simple words
(But tinged with something infinite and old):
A fistbump and, "Hey, let's go for a drive."
Eclipsed by orange and by fumes, we drive
Out to the countryside. Virginia soil
Seems too bleak to sustain something as old
As what we search for. Back in Aglionby
Are books and homework, candy-bars and words,
But he is chasing dreams beyond this life,
Beyond us all. But, surely, what is life
If not this search, if not a restless drive
For dreams (or monsters), and a place where words
Take root and grow in unknown soil,
The branches reaching back to Aglionby.
We know he'll have no chance to grow old
(We two), but like the knights-errant of old,
We follow him in darkness, dreams, in life,
Stretching beyond the walls of Aglionby,
Beyond the space where one can fly or drive,
Beyond the roots that drink from common soil,
Into the world of dreams and dreams of words.
For such as this, there can be no words,
No novel coinage or forgotten old
Name for this, for him. We will not soil
The time remaining of our shared life
With doubts. We will go for a drive,
Have pizza, fix the Pig, talk Aglionby.
When Aglionby's walls fade, when ends the drive,
When dreams of old rise from a monstrous soil,
Then I will speak the words to save his life.
(Of course, it ended up being a lot more about Adam than about Gansey, but that's kind of Adam's whole deal with Gansey, really.)
And the piece de resistance. Ronan would probably actually write something in (bad) Latin, immitating Martial or whoever, but obviously I can't do that. And in the absence of Latin, he would of course do the least amount of work, thus:
Ronan's Haiku:
Gansey is a dick.
Won't let me borrow the Pig.
Haikus are fucking lame.
Haiku have five syllables in the last line, Ronan. Also, the plural of "haiku" is "haiku".
Gansey is a dick.
Won't let me borrow the Pig.
HaikuSSSSS suck. Fuck off, Gansey.
But actually all this is amateur hour, because I challenged K in return. I said, "dare you to write a poem by Kavinsky about Gansey". And boy did she deliver. Here is her masterpiece, which is actually about a thousand times more in character than any of my stuff up there:
Kavinsky's Poem by ikel89
ROSES ARE RED
VIOLETS ARE BLUE
SUCK MY DICK GANSEY
AND FUCK YOU TOO
Also, for such poetic insight, I made K a Kavinsky icon:
Which she further Kavinskified to this:
I don't even know who I am anymore...
Of course this turned into everybody writing poems about Gansey.
Gansey himself first:
Gansey's Limerick
There once was a poser named Gansey
Who talked unremittingly fancy.
He was searching all over
For Owen Glendower
And other such things that he can't see.
I feel like a limerick would be what he would choose, because it's self-deprecating and jocular, which are things Gansey tries to be and frequently fails at. And of course he would have a big old word in there even while lampshading it. This limerick also has no punchline, which feels apt.
I wondered for a long time what kind of poem Blue would write, because she doesn't strike me as the poetic type. I was pretty sure it would be free verse, but besides that it just didn't seem like the right medium -- her creativity takes a different shape. And then I remembered about a way of writing found poems that goes like this: you take an existing poem and then basically cut words out of it (in the technique I've seen, preserving the order, though that doesn't seem to be required in general?) and arrange them into a poem of your own. Apparently it's called cut-up technique or decoupe. Now, isn't that the Bluest thing you've ever heard?
I figured Blue would pick for her source something thematically fitting and likely to be studied in high school, 'cos I don't think she's sitting there reading poetry on her own, so, the source is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43 ("How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."). And the resulting poem by Blue is:
Blue's Decoupe Poem
how do I count
the depth and reach
sight and grace of every day's quiet sun-light?
freely strive, right passion
use old childhood’s faith (seemed lost)
breath
......... tears life better
Which is not what I would write, but hey, that wasn't the purpose of the exercise.
When it came to Adam, I clearly lost my fucking mind. Like, you guys, you think the glyoxylate sonnet for trick-or-treat was hard? (it kind of was) But then I thought, Adam -- Adam would write in a really complicated, tortuous, dwelling-on-the-same-thing-over-and-over form. Like a sestina, I thought, and then I remembered I hate sestinas. No, seriously, if there is a least favorite poetic form for me, it is the bloody sestina, because it goes on forever, and it is so needlessly complex, and what does it even accomplish? mostly nothing. So, I thought, maybe a nice triolet, that shouldn't be too hard. But the more I thought about triolets, the more I was sure that was a Noah form -- they are repetitive and cyclical, yes, but also kind of childish, and apparently tend to lean towards humour, which seemed perfect for (a) [book 1 spoiler]a ghost and (b) Noah.
Which got me this:
Noah's Triolet
Gansey will keep us together, us five,
All snug in this wonderful place.
Blue and us Raven Boys, them four alive,
Gansey will keep us together, us five.
Going along in the Pig for a drive,
Shopping, talking, just passing the days,
Gansey will keep us together, us five,
All snug in this wonderful place.
But sestinas are ponderous and self-involved and take themselves very, very seriously (mostly), which is very Adam.
Wikipedia says: The structure of the sestina, which demands adherence to a strict and arbitrary order, produces several effects within a poem. Stephen Burt notes that, "The sestina has served, historically, as a complaint", its harsh demands acting as "signs for deprivation or duress".[14] The structure can enhance the subject matter that it orders; in reference to Elizabeth Bishop's A Miracle for Breakfast, David Caplan suggests that the form's "harshly arbitrary demands echo its subject's".[38] Nevertheless, the form's structure has been criticised; Paul Fussell considers the sestina to be of "dubious structural expressiveness" when composed in English and, irrespective of how it is used, "would seem to be [a form] that gives more structural pleasure to the contriver than to the apprehender."[39]
So I knew I had to do it, even though I'd never written a sestina in my life and can barely stand to read the bloody things. I hope you're happy, ikel89!
Adam's Sestina
Oblivious hero-king of Aglionby
Gifted in friends, in smiles, in dreams, in words,
What are you searching for? Such a strange drive
For one who can have anything, from old
Coffers or new. Perhaps not a charmed life
But closely guarded, grown from such rich soil:
A sense of self no fear, no doubt can soil.
Alone, amidst the din of Aglionby,
Privy to secrets of a deeper life
Which can be glimpsed in dreams. Just simple words
(But tinged with something infinite and old):
A fistbump and, "Hey, let's go for a drive."
Eclipsed by orange and by fumes, we drive
Out to the countryside. Virginia soil
Seems too bleak to sustain something as old
As what we search for. Back in Aglionby
Are books and homework, candy-bars and words,
But he is chasing dreams beyond this life,
Beyond us all. But, surely, what is life
If not this search, if not a restless drive
For dreams (or monsters), and a place where words
Take root and grow in unknown soil,
The branches reaching back to Aglionby.
We know he'll have no chance to grow old
(We two), but like the knights-errant of old,
We follow him in darkness, dreams, in life,
Stretching beyond the walls of Aglionby,
Beyond the space where one can fly or drive,
Beyond the roots that drink from common soil,
Into the world of dreams and dreams of words.
For such as this, there can be no words,
No novel coinage or forgotten old
Name for this, for him. We will not soil
The time remaining of our shared life
With doubts. We will go for a drive,
Have pizza, fix the Pig, talk Aglionby.
When Aglionby's walls fade, when ends the drive,
When dreams of old rise from a monstrous soil,
Then I will speak the words to save his life.
(Of course, it ended up being a lot more about Adam than about Gansey, but that's kind of Adam's whole deal with Gansey, really.)
And the piece de resistance. Ronan would probably actually write something in (bad) Latin, immitating Martial or whoever, but obviously I can't do that. And in the absence of Latin, he would of course do the least amount of work, thus:
Ronan's Haiku:
Gansey is a dick.
Won't let me borrow the Pig.
Haikus are fucking lame.
Haiku have five syllables in the last line, Ronan. Also, the plural of "haiku" is "haiku".
Gansey is a dick.
Won't let me borrow the Pig.
HaikuSSSSS suck. Fuck off, Gansey.
But actually all this is amateur hour, because I challenged K in return. I said, "dare you to write a poem by Kavinsky about Gansey". And boy did she deliver. Here is her masterpiece, which is actually about a thousand times more in character than any of my stuff up there:
Kavinsky's Poem by ikel89
ROSES ARE RED
VIOLETS ARE BLUE
SUCK MY DICK GANSEY
AND FUCK YOU TOO
Also, for such poetic insight, I made K a Kavinsky icon:
Which she further Kavinskified to this:
I don't even know who I am anymore...