The Wordsmith's Forge

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED.  Thank  you for your time and attention.  Please keep an eye on this page as I am still writing. Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Leadership and Followship." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for leaders, followers, world figures, dance partners, beat partners, housemates, communards, comares, superheroes, supervillains, mentors, activists, counselors, other people who provide or seek guidance, building trust, establishing loyalty, creating intimacy, making friends, getting to know each other, growing closer, relying on each other, asking for help and getting it, teaching people, making plans, cooking together, discovering things, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, government seats, mentorship organizations, dance halls, sharehouses, schools, clubs, workplaces, laboratories, makerspaces, nonhuman environments, other places where people lead and follow, organizational structures, family dynamics, dominance theory, partnerships, leading/following as an orientation, layered personal boundaries, emotional closeness, first contact, interspecies relationships, trial and error, lab conditions are not field conditions, innovation, loneliness, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Platonic Love Fest Bingo Card 9-1-21


Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One is about neurovariant people developing their own society.

The Blueshift Troupers travel in a living ship with a solid group structure.

Clay of Life follows Menachem the blacksmith and his friend Yossele the golem.

Daughters of the Apocalypse is largely run by women, and leaders are often quite young, given the pattern of losses.

Feathered Nests has very different social structure between humans and Fifers.

Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania, plus werewolves, vampires, and a mummy for a wide variety of social dynamics.

Hart's Farm is a free love community generally run by elders.

The Moon Door mixes a women's chronic pain group and lycanthropy, which includes pack dynamics.

Not Quite Kansas has demons and angels quite alert to respective ranks.

The Ocracies all use different systems of government.

One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis features Shaeth, who keeps attracting more followers than he knows what to do with.

Path of the Paladins has the paladins leading people while following their patron deity.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all of whom have their own interpersonal expectations.  Relevant threads include Antimatter and Stalwart Stan, Aquariana, Broken Angels, Cuoio and Chiara, Dr. Infanta, Iron Horses, Officer Pink, Pain's Gray, Rutledge, and Shiv.

Schrodinger's Heroes save the world from alternate dimensions. World without Alex = life expectancy of a glass hammer.

Or you can ask for something new.

I have a linkback poem, "Begin to Understand Ourselves" (8 verses, An Army of One).

( Read more... )

Today is mostly sunny, warm, and quite blustery.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a flock of house finches and a squirrel.

Assorted wasps are all over the sedum.  I think some are double-banded scoliid wasps.