Continuous Ripples
A parliament of poets create abecedarian poems
A few days ago I received an email from a far away poet friend. She invited a group of us to compose abecedarian poems and submit them to the Only Poems contest. (Ends at 9 pm Pacific on January 7th, if you happen to have a poem banging around!)
Inspired by the Fragments project created by Lily Tobias, I shared the challenge in a note. I didn’t really think through the logistics of submitting poems and sharing them here. I just wanted the circle to widen, for the ripples to keep on going.
And miraculously, they did!1
Fritz was the first to jump. His list poem tumbles out like a bag of beach-combed treasure.
Margaret Ann Silver cataloged a wild 24 hours in Idaho.
Ann Collins brilliantly shared this fragment from the middle of the alphabet.
Melanie Bettinelli shared a great poem by Jessica Greenbaum. She also wrote an abecedarian fragment.
Kym documented a wonderful camping trip with pictures and a poem!
Tavia shared an abecedarian marking a solstice celebration with her children.
There were also wonderful conversations with X.P. Callahan, Zina Gomez-Liss, and Renee Emerson about poetics, submissions, and publishing in the strange in-between space here at Substack.2
And me? I’ve always got a pile of poems near to hand tracking the moon, the birds, the long river down the hill. Taking inspiration from Ann’s microseasons work, I printed up the names in translation of the 72 seasons. Then I began sifting through my pile of short poems, editing here and there to bring a certain letter to the opening line. I picked out my favorite season names and randomly added them to the micropoems as titles. Here’s the result.
And what about you? What have you been working on at the turn of the year?
Did you share an abecedarian and I forget to link to you? Send me a note or comment here. I would *love* to add yours to our collection!
I did find this in Only Poems submission guidelines: “We only accept previously uncurated work. This means that yes — you can submit poems that have previously appeared across social media, blog posts, Discord channels, scribbled on your foggy bathroom mirror, etc. But if a poem has been published in a magazine or anthology edited by someone who’s not your mom, then no.” Seems like a Substack post would not preclude a submission.
Hi Kortney. I saw your initial note after reading Margaret's 24hour abecedarian which inspired me to write my own. I posted it just yesterday. I've read yours now too and it's beautiful. What a way to ponder on the seasons.
I think the best thing for me to do is write a post and link to you. I ended up writing a narrative abecedarian. It isn’t very good, but in a show of encouragement to others I’ll post it anyway. 😂