A Medusa Poem · 6:27am Jun 1st, 2019
Last June:
Just before one of the minific contest on the Writeoff site, I decided I wanted to write some poetry.
Not sonnets, though, 'cause, I mean, I'm always writing sonnets! So how 'bout an ode in terza rima, I asked myself, the sorta thing like ol' Shelley did with "Ode to the West Wind"?
"Well, okay!" I answered myself, and when the prompt dropped that Saturday morning, it was "Hiding in Plain Sight." Since odes are kinda ancient Greek things, I thought maybe I'd write about figures from Greek mythology living among us today, and the immediate image that hit me was Medusa slithering down the street to a pet store run by Pan so she could get some mice to feed to her hair.
The concept changed during the 24 hour writing period, but I got "Ode to the Artistic Temperament" finished, submitted it, and won 1st place. I took the comments I got, did a rewrite, ran that past Pascoite, Horizon, and Present Perfect, did another rewrite, and started sending it out to poetry magazines. It collected two or three "no, thank you" notes during the past ten months, but then it found a home at Silver Blade magazine where it just got posted today. You can even hear me reading it if you wanna!
Mike
What? c.c I don't remember this...
But congrats!
5067792
It may have been:
That I asked you if you'd have time to look it over, and you said you wouldn't. But now you can!
Mike
5067998
I have zero recollection of this. @_@ But okay!
...Another excellent job, of course. :D Though what I'm most surprised by is name-dropping EQD, the RCL and the Writeoff, all on what I must assume is a reputable publishing site. :B
Congratulations!
5068055
5068229
Thanks!
The site editor asked me for a bio, and, well, all this Pony stuff has been a pretty big part of my life for getting on toward a decade now...
Something I know you two will appreciate, though: in one of the rejections I got on this piece, the editor said the meter was "too tightly controlled," and he suggested that, if I broke the meter in a couple places, he'd be happy to take another look at it.
I wrote back, thanked him for his thoughts, and told him I was both too stodgy and too flighty to ever even consider such a thing.
Mike
5068692
Where is he? >:B I'll make him like tightly controlled meter!