When You Feel Stuck (a chance operation poem)

Poetry

stuck-in-mud

this change waited
feeling responsibility
feeling quicksand
stuck

waited forever felt
the pull possible
nothing
stuck

within the need born
destiny here, while
conditions procrastinate
stuck

what fixed future —
we feeling spiritual
feeling truly
stuck

wept change
when someone
felt nothing
you stuck

that feeling — change
with response
overwhelming responsibility
it stuck

whatever the changing
reality
(circumstances forever
feeling pull)
encounters you

when they change
with nearly nothing
surprisingly —
yourself

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POETIC FORM: A Chance Operation Poem

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PROMPT:

 

 

SpellingBee

 

To earn the “Spelling B” badge, you’ll need your source text and a “seed” phrase, Your seed phrase is a sentence or fragment that contains at least 20 characters and 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. Post your poem to the site, along with citations for your source text and seed phrase.

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PoMoSco (Poetry Month Scouts)
Found Poetry Review’s 2015 National Poetry Month Project

– April 2015 – 213 poets joined together as a troop to earn digital merit badges for completing experimental and found poetry prompts.
– Prompts are divided into five categories – remixing, erasure, out and about, conceptual and chance operation.
– Each category offers six distinct badges to be earned.
– Poets choose their own source text.
– For more information, check out pomosco.com.

A dear friend and fabulous poet, Von Thompson,  is a participant. When she told me about the challenge, I decided to play along at home.

—–

SOURCE: 10 Powerful Quotes to Read When We’re Feeling Stuck by Becky Volimer on Elephant Journal
SEED PHRASE: “When We’re Feeling Stuck”
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