The Full Metal Archivist started a neat little game that can eat up a half an hour on a car ride if it goes well: family poetry. Each person in the car contributes a line of poetry based on what they see outside until the poem is done. Here are two examples. Try to guess which lines are mine, the FMA's, and onechan's!
I-90 to Erie, 1/4/08
Bald trees
No leaves left
Grass-stubbled snow
Yellow with pee
Clouds with water
Weight my tears
Twinkle twinkle little star
I am the yellow one
18-wheeled dinosaurs
And 4-wheeled rabbits
Pass the sign
Of Westfield-Mayville
A V-shaped patch of blue sky
And Phantom Fireworks
Overlook empty vineyards
And old Christmas lights
I-90 to Buffalo, 1/12/08
Zombie grass lurks
The cars are golden
Two red eyes
In the Lion's Den
Skeleton towers
The trees are red
Imoto is crying
2 comments:
Very Japanese. As I'm sure you know, in classical Japanese poetry circles, the group would improvise a poem. One person would offer a stanza, and then the next would offer another stanza, and so forth, until everyone had contributed. The stanza's were short - in fact, I believe that the haiku is simply one of the stanza forms used in this activity - and, of course, there were requirements about coupling between successive stanzas.
Does imoto add vocables, that is, nonsense syllables - at least, nonsense to you, if not to her?
We've been very logocentric with respect to imoto, I'm sorry to report. She's beginning to get the concept of taking turns, so next time we'll include her.
I'll check with the FMA to see if she was intentionally drawing on Japanese poetics!
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