Fic-poem/fan poetry roundup

[bironic]

A little reminiscence for Poetry Month, because some of my favorite fanworks that I've posted have been poems. Let's see: Spanning 2006-2011, I appear to have posted nine complete poems, one unfinished poem, one set of haiku, one "found" poem, and one poetry-inspired fic.

The first real fic I ever posted, Dissonance (House, Wilson/Julie), filled a request for "a Steinway concert piano, T. S. Eliot and two bagels." I read Eliot for hours and then got cracking, structuring sections with lines from "Burnt Norton" and trying to loosen up the prose to let in more of a poetic voice, the way reading any good author for a stretch can make you start thinking and writing in a style influenced by their cadence. Whether it worked in "Dissonance" or just sounds overwrought is up to readers to decide. :)

Then there were the sestinas. I loved working on those. Well, except for the stubborn, clunky parts, heh. The form worked so well for characters with obsessive or repetitive thought patterns, like House and like McKay on the Wraith enzyme, and for a show like House that followed the same structure year after year. Still wish I could have made it work for Remus Lupin.

• House post-infarction (House)
• A Typical Day in Diagnostics (House)
• Breaking the Cycle (House)*
• The Truth in Dreams (House)
• An Unanticipated Side Effect of Dosing Oneself with Wraith Enzyme (SGA) **
• Sestina: John (SGA)
• And the half-finished one about Remus (Harry Potter)

*which queenzulu transformed into Load Cycle (Breaking Free Remix)
**which inspired imperfectcircle's totally cool double sestina, Hold

Okay, but even more fun was writing the mock epic for Remix Redux '08: A Princeton Odyssey (Alexander Pope Is Turning In His Grave Remix) (House).

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Rodney (SGA) happened in between nightdog_barks's Thirteen Ways of Looking at Wilson and deelaundry's Thirteen Ways House Looks at the World, all riffs on "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." jadesfire then translated "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Rodney" into Latin and worked it into an SGA story as Ancient. Huge thrill when Teresa Nielsen Hayden recced both last summer on her blog.

Rodneyo and Johniet: A Prologue (AO3 link) (SGA) still holds a soft spot in my heart, even if it portrayed popular slasher mindsets that I don't necessarily share.

Mission reports in 17 easy syllables (House and SGA) was a joyful and silly group exercise on a long afternoon at work. Any of you remember joining in?

And most recently, the "found poem": I'll Always Remember / The Time the Aliens Made Us Do It (SGA). Owing everything to linabean for concept, to synn for thinking to apply the concept to this Kink Bingo fill, and to a slew of SGA writers for shaping and reveling in the AMTDI trope.

Lots of people don't like fan poetry. Probably a lot of it sucks, just like a lot of any category sucks. But I think it can be great, and I'm so happy to have found so many LJ/DW/etc. friends and community members who welcome, enjoy, read, write and critique fan poetry as well as regular fic. And I am proud to have work featured in the Fanlore article on fan poetry. Here's to more yet. ♥

Comments

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

A Princeton Odyssey was one of my favorite finds ever!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

♥

*

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I love fan poetry! My friend Petra at Dream width writes a lot of it quite well.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Yay!

I have read things by Petra but don't recall if any of them were poems. Will have to go digging through her works on the AO3.

[cold_clarity]

fan poetry is something I've never encountered before! like, not even as a concept--but you've certainly made it seem appealing!

I don't know if I'll ever write any myself (because I'm...definitely not a poet, by any measure), but just knowing that it's out there is pretty awesome. I'm definitely going to read the Fanlore article later, too.

thanks for sharing!