The SDMB Poetry Sweatshop, June, 2013 edition - Logistics Thread

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the logistics thread for the June 2013 SDMB Poetry Sweatshop. These have been tremendous fun in the past, and have produced some top notch work from the participants.

I’m actually astonished that it has been so long since the last Poetry Sweatshop; we are long overdue!

I would like to begin this month’s Poetry Sweatshop on Thursday, June 27th at 9:00 AM EDT, and close it on Monday, July 8th at 10:00 PM EDT. This is an extra long period of time (including a Holiday weekend in both Canada and the US) in which, I hope, many Doper poets can find a one hour window in which to write.

As with the past Sweatshops, any interested poets will have one hour to write a poem - any style, form, length, rhyme scheme (or no rhyme.) - but the poem must incorporate three words which I have chosen at random.

The words will be found in an auto-reply message that can be received by writing to sdmbpoetrysweatshop at gmail dot com after 9 AM EDT on Thursday, June 27th. (Please remember to mention your SDMB username…) Send the poem in a reply to the auto-reply, and the time stamps will show whether the poem was completed within the hour or not. Sorry, lurkers - entry is restricted to those who are permitted to post on the SDMB, be they Guests, Members, Charter Members, Mods, Admins or other interesting titles. (Though if you have been reading here for a while and have always wanted to join, this would be an ideal opportunity.)

In the last hour of the Sweatshop, an Anthology Thread is started and the words are announced in its Original Post; at the end of the Sweatshop (i.e. at 10 PM EDT on Monday, July 8th) a poll is established, in which readers are encouraged to vote for their favourite poem. At the close of the poll, the poet with the most votes is acclaimed Poet Laureate of the SDMB.

The Roll of Honour of Past Poets Laureate reads -

tracy jo - October, 2009
Maserschmidt - December, 2009
The Hamster King - January, 2010Pandoranoid - February, 2010
Maserschmidt - March, 2010
Elendil’s Heir - April, 2010
mauxlicious - May, 2010
Elendil’s Heir - June 2010
Serenata67 - July 2010
Le Ministre de l’au-delà - August, 2010
Le Ministre de l’au-delà - September, 2010
Maserschmidt and Elendil’s Heir - Joint winners, November 2010.
Woeg - January, 2011
Angel of the Lord - March, 2011
vdgg81 - August, 2011
Elendil’s Heir - February, 2012

Since the April 2010 Sweatshop, we have used a multiple choice poll, and I’ve been very pleased with the results. Unless there are any strenuous objections, I’d like to keep the poll multiple choice.

And, of course, if there are any logistical considerations, this is the place to bring them up. I’m hoping lots of you can find a spare hour sometime in the near future.

Best wishes,
Le Ministre de l’au-delà

O frabjous day! I’m in - thanks again for organizing this, Ministre.

In!

I just want to give this a bump - I’ve sent PMs to our regular poets, but I’m also hoping to attract some of the many people who’ve always thought it would be fun to work on a poem, but never had the excuse. This is a great excuse!

Absolutely!

I hope you will not mind, but…

Owing to unforeseen busy-ness chez nous, I would like to start tomorrow at 6 AM EDT instead of 9 AM. (See, I have to write my poem at the start time.)

My best wishes to all of you,

Le Ministre de l’au-delà

Suits me. Thanks.

Just to clarify, I should not send the e-mail requesting the words until the moment I am ready to start writing, correct? And then I have One Lousy Hour to write the thing? Geez, sweatshop I guess!

You have it.

If it were easy, any slob could do it…

The auto-responder is set; we are up and running. Off to write…

I finished mine before 7 AM. I just looked and there’s one from Prof. Pepperwinkle, plus another from an unidentified source.

I truly love getting to be the first person to read a poem after its creation!

Hey btw I was wondering whether the words must be used exactly as they are, or whether they can be inflected.

In my opinion, I think that’s up to the poet to decide and for the reader to judge - if one of the words happened to be a verb, for instance, there’s no reason to leave it in the infinitive. Without giving any of the words away, (Please keep them secret until next week!) one of them could be construed as either a noun or an adjective in that spelling, depending on the context.
And just to keep track, I now have 4 poems from
Le Ministre de l’au-delà
Frylock
Prof. Pepperwinkle
and
koeeoaddi.

What fun!

…and another from Yllaria - thank you!

How long does the auto-reply typically take after a request is sent?

Trinary - I just found your message from 4 hours ago in the spam bin. I’ve rescued it, but I’m not sure if that will trigger the auto-reply or not. If not, figure out when next you have an hour clear, and try sending again.

No, it doesn’t seem to trigger the auto-reply when I tell gmail that somebody’s message isn’t spam. That’s good - that means it should send you an auto-reply to your next message.

Entry sent.

… and received, along with a poem from DMark - great work!
Our poets thus far -

Le Ministre de l’au-delà
Frylock
Prof. Pepperwinkle
koeeoaddi
DMark
Trinary

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

My poem is submitted, but I hated one of the words.

You know the one.