[A. E. Stallings]

Julie Stoner wrote suggesting this Funexercise:

"Following your ekphrasis thread over on Musing on Mastery, I'd like to see original ekphrastic poetry from Sphereans--in a light vein, of course--posted on FunExcise.

For the purposes of this exercise I'll define ekphrasis pretty liberally: a poem closely based on a single work of art, which might be a work of visual or performance art or a work of literature.

Suitable poems might provide a plot summary of Mrs. Clinton's new book, or help us experience a live performance of a Grateful Dead song, or replay a television commercial..."

Sounds good to me! Didn't I run across a Stephen Burt "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" sonnet somewhere?

Alicia

[Julie Steiner]

Just setting the bar low, in hopes of encouraging some other efforts...

Ode on a Greasy Shirt

Thou horseman blest to never shovel dung,
Thou strenuous but silent silhouette,
For ever panting, and for ever young,
What mad pursuit is this? Thou'lt never get
Thy charger's silken flanks to budge a thread.
Bold Player, never, never canst thou score.
E'en winning near the goal exceeds thy reach:
Thou'rt ball-less. "Beauty's easily misled,"--
That's all ye need to know, save one thing more,
O attic-destined shirt! I've spilled the bleach.

Julie Stoner

PS--after trying both &bnsp; (HTML code to insert blank space) and(the UBB tags to place around text to be indented), I must concede defeat and leave the above text unindented. GRRrrrrr! If anyone knows the proper abracadabras, I'd be grateful if you'd post them.




[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited August 12, 2003).]

[Lightning Bug]

.

Julie, I like your parody ...of one of my favorites, and as irresolute as I was in my studies, I'm always glad to see a reference I can recognise. This should keep that bar low:

"A Modest Endorsement"


As mentioned in most any forum,
everyone who knows me grants
I’m known for culture and decorum –
tres chic, as they say in France.

In fashion, cinema and art,
admirers want to know my choice.
Before they'll take a thing to heart,
they wait for blessing from my voice.

In music, as it's known my zest
is drawn to tones, slow, ripe and mellow,
where can this be witnessed best?
“Sonata for Bassoon and Jell-O”.

I love the woodwind’s mournful notes,
it’s plaintive drone is extra neat.
But what, above all, gets my votes –
you listen with a tasty treat!

Young Mozart showed such aptitude,
I marvel at his clever knack
to blend a chamber piece with food –
a fine tune AND a yummy snack!

But maybe they should change the name.
I'm sure I hear a violin,
or something that can rightly claim
to raise the hairs upon my skin?

But, that’s a quibble, on the whole,
just take it from this well-bred fellow –
get some headphones and a bowl,
for “Sonata for Bassoon and Jell-O”!

- Bugsy

<L>

[Zita Zenda]

Amid the darkened light there is a tree
whose pointed shape depicts the chapel’s spire
centered in the distant town below.
Above this province with its vale aswoon,
the wind is shown to have its own esprit;
it reels upon itself with mad desire,
traveling between the stars that grow
in self-concentric circles, as the moon.

The wind, the stars, and moon in painted plea,
encompassing the realm with midnight mire,
dream in lunacy; they mean to slow
the world entire -morning comes too soon.
The bedlam of this Starry Night is set
on canvas, dried, and dampened of its threat.



[This message has been edited by zbaby (edited August 16, 2003).]

[diprinzio]

You should workshop that one, Zita, it's promising, though I think it needs some major overhauling. I can't find a step by step logic to the anthropomorphisms and the conclusion. "Plea" seems contradictory with "overthrow". "Burgled" seems out of place. With "chapel" and "aswoon" "desire" and plea" you could turn it into some sort of seduction, rape thing. "soil could not impugn" though I can make it make sense---it's weird. I hope you haven't already workshopped this.

Nighty nite,
Greg

[TeeJaay]

Hey, Julie,

This sounds like fun, although I'm confused about one thing. You indicated the ekphrastic should be about a single work of ART, right? Soooooooo...how does Hillary's book figure into that? Or did you mean to say, a single work of fiction? Seriously, I'll try and come up with something soon...hmmmm...let's see...Oh!


BILLARY

I knew a girl from Arkansas
Whose husband liked to roam and stray.
Each time it was, “The very last straw!”
Then changed her hair and mind in May.

Okay, okay, whatdaya’ expect for 10 minute posey, Peegy Noonan?

Regarding the indenting. I know of just two ways to accomplish it, (perhaps there are more?) one is the, BANNED POST & n b s p ;

just make sure the semi-colon appears only once per indentation, e.g., just before the first letter of the word/line you're indenting, thusly:

& n b s p & n b s pBANNED POST;(begin indent here).

I've spaced the letters here so they don't disappear into the html code when you read this.


Or, if you don't mind the font changing, you can create your text in Word and then put the word "code" in brackets ,(no quotes) in front of the first letter of the text and then, "/code" in brackets after the last word. USUALLY that works fairly well, like so:


TJ



[This message has been edited by TeeJaay (edited August 22, 2003).]

[Roger Slater]

Another thing to do is fill the indents with characters (like periods) that you surround by a white color code. Highlight the following line and see the "invisible" characters that create the appearance of an indent:

Hightlight these wordsIndented text.

[peterjb]

Hello, Alicia. I’ll be in this!



Dag en Nacht (Woodcut by Maurits Cornelis Escher, 1938)
....

Day and Night

River facing river, silver confronts black;
Right reflecting left, fields become birds;
Night pierces day.

Yin and yang, female and male;
Inside–outside, inseparable;
Plus and minus, light and shade.

Tessellations and intertices
Interlock
Interstices and tessellations.

Shade and light, minus and plus;
inseparable outside-inside;
Male and female, yang and yin.

Day pierces night;
Birds become fields, left reflecting right;
Black confronts silver, river facing river:

Night and Day.

....

(In case it isn’t obvious, think “reflection”.)

The method described by Roger Slater is the best for indenting individual lines. The HTML nonbreaking space character doesn’t seem to survive through the preview process here. To indent a whole block of lines, enclose them between &lt;blockquote&gt; and &lt;/blockquote&gt; — which is how I did this block. This is usually not suitable for indenting single lines, since most browsers render the blockquote with extra space above and below.

....

[TeeJaay]

Speaking of indentation, I suppose the best way to indent is whatever manner one feels most comfortable with in keeping with the task at hand. In that regard, I would add yet another method, one that has worked quite well for 'five space' indentations on ezboards, and appears to work equally well here, (now that I've recalled it), and that's the tried and true:

"dd" (without quotes) enclosed by < >, preceding the text one wishes to indent, and then termination of indented text with "/dd", once again, enclosed by < > . Each enclosed 'double dd' will space, (or indent) approximately five spaces. So if one wants to indent fifteen spaces then a series of three double dd enclosures pasted sequentially in front of desired text should do the job; then terminate by just one enclosed double dd.

TJ

[Julie Steiner]

Many thanks for the indentation advice! I can't wait to try out the various options. (Now no one can call me shiftless, heh, heh.)


Still Life by Pieter Claesz

The gent who recently was here
....and swallowed half this glass of beer
....and patronized the town's premier
....tobacconist for many a year
....and was prepared forthwith to spear
....these salty fish, with little fear
....of hypertension, that is clear,

has just dropped dead of stroke. Dear, dear.

Julie Stoner

[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited August 22, 2003).]