Dedication

DEDICATION

To RKS
you were my first
you could have been my last
you are my lost

And to YHWH
You are my first
You are my last
I'm no longer lost
Isaiah 61:1-3
"...beauty for ashes..."

- Mildred Achoch, 4th September, 2011

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A big thank you to David Citino and his amazing, inspirational book "Paperwork", for reminding me that poems - and poets - are worth something.

Many thanks to my namesake "Mimi" Mik for taking the time to read my crazy poems, and for giving me her invaluable feedback. You rock!

Asante sana to Murfy's Flaw for being one of the coolest and 'down-to-earthest' Kenyan rock bands! And for allowing their awesome song "In Silence" to be part of the soundtrack of this book of poems.

I salute the prolific poet Phatalvision for reading ALL my poems! By the way sir, "old school" is "gold 'n' cool" :-)

I am very thankful to my mum, dad and sister, for putting up with me all these years. I love you!

Saturday, April 12, 2014

OULIPOST #12: One Hundred Years of Surreal

Every day this April, nearly 80 poets will write one poem per day by applying constrained writing techniques sourced from the Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle — or “workshop of potential literature”) group to text sourced from their daily local newspaper. This is the twelfth of thirty prompts in the Oulipost project.

The found poem below is in response to this prompt:

OULIPOST #12: SONNET
Write a sonnet sourced from lines found in newspaper articles.

Below is my attempt. I don't know what's going on in this poem :-)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, briefly
malleable in forming complex numbers
in total solitude and poverty,
through mass arrests, rescued kidnapped workers.

news of his ailment beamed across the world,
worst flaw is hubris - fast destroying him
"Arrest me, I have killed my baby girl
Inside the battle for workers billions"

Simultaneously, angelic monstrous
Kenya Airways plane skids off Dar runway,
hospitalized in Mexico across
compassionate writers like Hemingway.

Mass arrests and assassinations will
give glimpses into the real and surreal.

REFERENCES

Siundu, Godwin. "Celebrating the father of Latin American literature" The Daily Nation. 12 Apr. 2014: pg 19

Various newspaper headlines from the 12 Apr. 2014 Daily Nation.



4 comments:

  1. I like the surreal feel of your poem, Mildred - not to mention the inclusion of several writers! :-)

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  2. Definitely an interesting surreality of juxtapositions!

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  3. Really? You tried slant rhyme here and there, on top of the other sonnet aspects? I'm sitting putting words together still! I am glad your timezone permits me to read your poems before writing mine!

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  4. I had to break the rules and use some headlines instead of just lines from articles. :-)

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