Dear Yulegoat
Oct. 22nd, 2022 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mme_hardyTo begin with, I love things that are big and gaudy and outrageous. This year I've requested three poems that are wildly overblown. What depths do you see in them? Would they make more sense if all the characters were amoebas? Would they make much less sense if all the characters were platypuses, but in a good way?
Please write the story you've always wanted to read. Write the story you've never dared to post. Write a sonnet sequence, or a detective story, or an acrostic. Experiment. Have an adventure. I will delight in your daring. I have absolute faith in you, because you love these poems, too. Do with them what you will.
The Eve of St. Agnes. The story in this poem is complete, as far as it goes. Something mysterious and bad is happening in Madeline's family (implications of forced marriage, maybe). Madeline performs a ritual to see the future and lies down to sleep. Porphyro finagles his way into the castle and awakens Madeline, and they escape together. In the original draft, which is not binding on you, they have The Sex; Keats's editors made him take that part out. Courtesy oflnhammer, the original manuscript, if you're curious.
Anyway! What's going on in the rest of the castle, at the implied wild party? Who is dwarfish Hildebrand? What evils was Lord Maurice up to? Expand the backstory, or tell us of the wild chase after Madeline and Porphyro, or something even better that just occurred to you.
Kubla Khan, Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
What a fragment it is! Glorious words spangled as far as the eye can see. Hints at interesting places, at things that were about to happen, at things that had happened.
But they didn't. Whether or not you believe in the Person from Porlock (I don't), what we have is part of a magnificent introduction. I'd like you to do some worldbuilding. In the fragment we have, build your own castle or hovel or underwater cavern; people it with your own characters, or tell a legend, or tell us what the damsel with the dulcimer was saying about Mount Abora, or, again, write something I haven't conceived of but you have.
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
Browning sure did personify emotion. There's an evil river that is petty and spiteful! There's evil farm equipment! There's an evil horse! (Poor horse.)
In short, Childe Roland is in a Mood. He is probably dressed in black and wearing heavy eyeliner.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to add to the story. Fill out some of those references to Cuthbert, or The Band. What exactly was the hoary cripple up to?
There are so many possibilities. Somebody Roland doesn't even notice is sitting down with a picnic and planning how to clean up the landscape and put in a nice tea-shop. The Band are bitching about Roland and planning to ride off after him.
And, of course, what happened after Roland blew that horn?
Do not wants: urine, feces, vomit, omorashi, forced feeding, prolonged embarrassment, emotional abuse, sex with kids under 15, violent rape*, vore, explicitly described torture.
* The usual "sex pollen", "I know I shouldn't but I must", and other flavors of dubcon/noncon are fine. Just nobody being threatened with death or violence.
Thank you. I wish you a joyful and surprising Yuletide.
e: It turns out that this year you have to opt-in to treats; by default you don't want them. If you feel like writing me one this year, please do! Also, hi, mods!
Please write the story you've always wanted to read. Write the story you've never dared to post. Write a sonnet sequence, or a detective story, or an acrostic. Experiment. Have an adventure. I will delight in your daring. I have absolute faith in you, because you love these poems, too. Do with them what you will.
The Eve of St. Agnes. The story in this poem is complete, as far as it goes. Something mysterious and bad is happening in Madeline's family (implications of forced marriage, maybe). Madeline performs a ritual to see the future and lies down to sleep. Porphyro finagles his way into the castle and awakens Madeline, and they escape together. In the original draft, which is not binding on you, they have The Sex; Keats's editors made him take that part out. Courtesy of
lnhammer, the original manuscript, if you're curious. Anyway! What's going on in the rest of the castle, at the implied wild party? Who is dwarfish Hildebrand? What evils was Lord Maurice up to? Expand the backstory, or tell us of the wild chase after Madeline and Porphyro, or something even better that just occurred to you.
Kubla Khan, Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
What a fragment it is! Glorious words spangled as far as the eye can see. Hints at interesting places, at things that were about to happen, at things that had happened.
But they didn't. Whether or not you believe in the Person from Porlock (I don't), what we have is part of a magnificent introduction. I'd like you to do some worldbuilding. In the fragment we have, build your own castle or hovel or underwater cavern; people it with your own characters, or tell a legend, or tell us what the damsel with the dulcimer was saying about Mount Abora, or, again, write something I haven't conceived of but you have.
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
Browning sure did personify emotion. There's an evil river that is petty and spiteful! There's evil farm equipment! There's an evil horse! (Poor horse.)
In short, Childe Roland is in a Mood. He is probably dressed in black and wearing heavy eyeliner.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to add to the story. Fill out some of those references to Cuthbert, or The Band. What exactly was the hoary cripple up to?
There are so many possibilities. Somebody Roland doesn't even notice is sitting down with a picnic and planning how to clean up the landscape and put in a nice tea-shop. The Band are bitching about Roland and planning to ride off after him.
And, of course, what happened after Roland blew that horn?
Do not wants: urine, feces, vomit, omorashi, forced feeding, prolonged embarrassment, emotional abuse, sex with kids under 15, violent rape*, vore, explicitly described torture.
* The usual "sex pollen", "I know I shouldn't but I must", and other flavors of dubcon/noncon are fine. Just nobody being threatened with death or violence.
Thank you. I wish you a joyful and surprising Yuletide.
e: It turns out that this year you have to opt-in to treats; by default you don't want them. If you feel like writing me one this year, please do! Also, hi, mods!
