100 Days of Poetry Challenge Update [Day 10]
100 Days of Poetry Challenge
-----Update [Day 10]-----
Winners of Day 6 Announced!
Introduction
Hello! Welcome to another update for our 100 day poetry journey. Day 10 will be beginning as of 6 PM GMT. Our live poetry class in the Steemit School Discord will begin at that hour as well, lasting until 8 PM GMT. All interested in learning more about poetry are welcome to attend, not just participants in the challenge. Today we will have a bit of a recap of the first 9 days and an open-ended session for anyone with specific questions and/or requests to bring them forward. We also have time towards the end of our class to recite poetry for each other, so feel free to bring something in to read! Tomorrow (Saturday the 17th) we will not have class.
Changes to challenge operation & reminders
The biggest change moving forward is that I would like to schedule off days for our poetry classes where we don't meet each week, and I'd like to get everyone's feedback here. For instance, instead of taking off Saturday and Sunday as is the norm for schools, it may be that people have more free time on the weekend when they are off work. In this case, we could have breaks on weekdays. I'm going to poll people that are in class today, and you can also DM me or comment on this post if you want to weigh in. I will announce the weekly off days as soon as it is decided. Either way, we will not have class tomorrow (Saturday 17th.) But please join today's class (Friday 16th) if you are able!
Winners
Day 6 winners are announced! Thank you for all the poems :-)
Day 6
Beginner — @sammynathaniels
"The man who cheated his nightmares"Intermediate — @rexdickson
"Voices in my head"Advanced — @fego
"The path of a poem"
Class recap
Yesterday's class topic was metaphor & simile. It is such a basic aspect of poetry I was almost at a loss to expound upon it! However we discussed that it is one of the basic tools of the human mind to comprehend reality. For with metaphor, we can use the concrete things we are familiar with from daily life to draw parallels to more abstract or philosophical truths. They aid us in climbing to ever-higher, loftier peaks of conceptualization and feeling. We discussed the fact that in actuality, all language is a form of abstraction, a layer removed "that which is." We also got to hear many great poems read by participants towards the end. Thanks everyone for attending and for sharing your pieces!
As I mentioned, today will be a bit of a wrap-up day for poetry fundamentals, so bring all of your questions, requests, and suggestions moving forward. I'm considering starting our poet focus series going forward, where we look into specific writers and poets each day. If you have writers you want to look into in class, let me know! https://discord.gg/yZvYjfM
Workshops / Special Events
No workshops or events are currently announced. If you are interested in holding one in the future, please let me know!
Gratitudes & reflections
Some people are starting to drop out of the challenge! We are about 10% of the way through. People are capable of much more than they think they are. What's better: slow, extensive, editing to produce a handful of excellent pieces? Or cultivating the ability to produce excellent pieces on a daily basis by destroying perfectionism and breaking through to new levels of artistry?
Writing is already inherently an editing process. One is taking thoughts, feelings, concepts, inner and outer sensations, etc. and filtering them through the funnel of semantic structures. One must prune and compress through writing all these myriad components to create a piece. The more quickly and effortlessly one can perform this process, with the least influence from the extraneous process of dualistic thought, the better a writer one will become.
Is a carpenter allowed to produce only one piece of furniture a month? A cook, one meal a week? How about a farmer, one head of lettuce per week? Poetry is a trade as any other, its viability ascertained by BOTH the quality AND the quantity of its output. Both should improve as the poet grows in experience and prowess. In my view, poetry is something supremely normal, a common instinct of every culture throughout history.
It is not an elite craft to be practiced pretentiously but one civilian, to be scribbled down in the trenches of life. Poetry has suffered many a strange convolution in the funhouse mirror of modern culture over the preceding decades. It is destined, phoenix-like, to arise through the rotation of fickle sentiment to prominence again. It is only a matter of time, which the poet bides with quill in hand, even beyond the grave: with infinite patience, come to inspire the downtrodden, uplift the despairing, and console the heartbroken.
All this through the peculiar graces of twisted phrase that elicit universalities of feeling: it is the ability of language to transcend itself and beckon us back to the pristine state of conceptlessness from which all originates.
Thank you for your donations!
1.@hopehuggs (50 SBD)
2.@carmalain7 (11.11 SBD)
3.@madushanka (10 SBD)
4.@violetmed (10 SBD)
5.@yahialababidi (6.615 STEEM)
6.@moeknows (5.44 SBD)
7.@taliakerch (5 SBD)
8.@josediccus (5 STEEM)
9.@whack.science (3.14 SBD)
10.@corderosiete (1 SBD)
11.@johnrenald (1 SBD)
12.@nicholas83 (1 SBD)
13.@flysky (1 SBD)
14.@mineopoly (1 STEEM)
15.@emekasegun (0.2 SBD)
16.@setiagunawan (0.1 SBD)
17.@nasrol (0.1 SBD)
18.@rexdickson (0.1 SBD)
Donations go towards the daily (9 SBD), weekly (15 SBD) & overall (TBD) prizes for this challenge. They are highly appreciated because otherwise, the rewards are coming directly from my own earnings/savings. To donate, you can send to our dedicated account @steemitpoetry, or directly to me, @d-pend. I am keeping track of them all in a spreadsheet. Please let me know if you feel your donation was somehow missed. Thanks again!!
Writing & images
By @d-pend
3/16/18
Join the Steemit schoolDiscord here: https://discord.gg/yZvYjfM
Become part of the movement!
I do hope most of keep up with it:)
Great idea
> We also have time towards the end of our class to recite poetry for each other, so feel free to bring something in to read!
> The biggest change moving forward is that I would like to schedule off days for our poetry classes where we don't meet each week, and I'd like to get everyone's feedback here.
congratulations to the winners of day 6 of the challenge of the 100 days of poetry ..
I already join with this discord group.
That's a good challange. Every body should atten.i will also try to attend.
The section on Gratitudes & reflections was top notch -- I feel quite the same about a daily practice and have tried to inspire others with this mind-set.
Anazing the winners, congratulations to them, the contest is really moving forward
You shared some great photography ... and I enjoyed your post very much .... I think, your writing experience is very good .... thank you
Congratulations! to all the winners who actually took part and did a tremendous job trough their art, wonderful job guys <3
Thank you so much team #steemitschoolpoetry :)
Wow feeling great about this.
Thank you for this opportunity @d-pend
wow this is really getting better day by day all the best :D