Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Tuesday Birthday Poem Finished!


Well. we had a blast. It started a week ago on Tuesday, at one minute past midnight. The first lines were posted and off we went - a tag team of poets in NZ, Australia, the US, the UK (and one unexpectedly in Italy), across time zones and countries - passing the baton. One by one we wrote 1-2 lines in our allotted slot between 8 am every morning and midnight every night.

Day One there was a small technical hitch that promised to unhitch the whole thing - easily sorted. Day Two, sadly one of our poets - T Clear in Seattle - had a personal crisis that forced her to withdraw. Not so easily sorted. We keep T's name on the list above in solidarity, and because she baked our delicious birthday cake.

Astonishingly. 'Tuesday' the poem unfurled at its own pace and with its own heartbeat. Every four hours we'd check in to find a line or two - - - - of new words - - - - like the tiniest stitches discovered in the shoemaker's fairytale shoes each morning.

It was such a pleasure to see a word or phrase recurring or bouncing off another one, a line break leading to a new stanza, a long line stabbing out into whiteness, a short sentence tucking up in a corner. Fun to read a colloquial turn of phrase or a pun or a word scooped out of another time.

more here.

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