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Experimental Poetry 18

1/30/20

This experimental poetry idea is to write a poem where each word begins with the next letter in the alphabet until the alphabet is exhausted. For example, if the first word is "always", the next word needs to begin with the letter "b", and the third word needs to begin with the letter "c", and so on, until the last or 26th word in the poem which will need to begin with the letter "z".

For example, consider my Freeverse 261, where I merge talking about chopping down firewood with killing elephants and use this "a-z" idea: 

axes boom!
chopping down elephant firewood
gathered hurriedly
industrial joy, killing large mossy nature
often passing quotas
rotting stumps, trunks unused
vultures whispering
xylotomous yelling
zugzwang!

One could also start such a poem with a word that begins with any letter. For example, starting the poem with "cats" would make the last word in the poem begin with the letter "b". One also doesn't have to be limited to a poem of 26 words. Once a word with the last letter is reached, simply stop for poems with less than or equal to 26 words, or loop back through the alphabet as much as you'd like if you want the poem to have more than 26 words.

A related idea is to have each word begin with the last letter of the previous word. For example, if "cats" was the first word, because "cats" ends with the letter "s", the second word needs to begin with the letter "s", and so on. There are a lot of possible variations.

One can use the technique discussed in my Acrostic Maker to randomly select words beginning with various letters. This can greatly assist in searching for words that fit well.

Thanks for reading.

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