Recently I went to see the musical Wicked in San Francisco.  Ever since, I have been heavily impacted by the music and the story.  It seems to have taken on a profound level for me.  It inspires me to crave beauty in my life.  It calls me to be a better person.  It fills me up with love and hope and… longing.

Longing for purpose and a calling that give shape and meaning to my day.  Longing for the courage to follow my vision.  Longing for the clarity that comes when my life is well in order.

Longing is a form of my muse.  It is something that stirs me up and causes me to want more.  So longing is the theme of this week’s Twitter Laureate show.

What do you long for in your life, in your poetry, in your craft?  How does longing inspire you?  Tweet your reaction in poetic form (any form will do) and tag it with the famous Twitter Laureate Hashtag:  #4tl.  Then don’t forget to check in with twitter search to see what others long for and how they interact with their muse.

I long for community in art.

Dennis

Old Helen of Troy had a mighty fine face — Paris Agamemnon sent a fleet of 1K after her. But who on Twitter could inspire a similar effect?

Tweet a 135 character poem about your favorite Twitter avatar — tag it with #4TL .  And give the object of your affection props — give them an @ recognition and invite them to slam back a short poem about another avatar.

Spread the love. spread the joy. spread the poetry.

Why do you write poetry?  Why do you do it on twitter?

Please share.  We want to know.  There are probably as many reasons as there are Laureates.

Here’s the challenge:  share in 135 characters or less by tweeting your reason and tagging it #4tl

If you want to be really clever, make it rhyme!

This time we collaborated to compose a poem of couplets.

• If you were a poetry critic, what would you say about it?
• Other than your own, which is your favorite couplet?

Tweet your answer with the #4tl tag.

“Determination of Inspiration” (courtesy of @pandadollbaby)

maniactive:
Where do you search for inspiration?
The depths of despair, or the heights of elation?

Pandadollbaby:
The truth lies in our quest.
The effort exerted must be our best.

CharityHisle:
It’s not the time to idle in wait;
start today, we make our own fate

dragonblogger:
Body sluggish and inert,
thoughts conflict and invert

Christwitery:
Soft words blow, unspoken in my heart
incensed by broken promises, on my part

denthewise:
I was the one who left you there
Jilted, alone, it wasn’t fair

maniactive:
So much for finding inspiration in elation
Joyous recollections don’t seem part of the equation!

denthewise:
Turning about I face ahead
the future vibrant, the past is dead

Pandadollbaby:
Renew THE commitment, play by MY rules.
The truth is the key, THE proof we’re NOT fools.

The wind blows soft and gentle down the hill
Infused with scents of flowers yet it still

In the past, Twitter Laureate has encouraged individual poets to create their own compositions and tweet them for our collective enjoyment.  This week we raise the bar and challenge you to participate in a shared poetic venture.  Rather than asserting your independence, we ask you to voluntarily submit to our collective interdependence.

This weeks poetry assignment is for us to ALL collectively build a poem.  Each poet is challenged to contribute one couplet at a time.  Here are the details:

• Your couplet may be in any meter or configuration of iambs (beats).  The only technical requirement is that it has to be composed of 2 lines of similar rhythm (eg iambic pentameter).
• Your couplet must rhyme (sorry, I know this is old fashioned, but we’ll get to blank verse in another challenge).
• Your couplet will continue onward from the most recently contributed #4tl tweet.  Go to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%234tl and find the most recent conforming contribution and compose the couplet which follows it.

At the end of the assignment we will assemble the resultant poem and publish it here in all of its multi-authored glory!

Of course, don’t forget to tag your tweet #4tl so others can find it and build onto it.

The first couplet is, of course, the first 2 lines of this post.  Enjoy

The world was shocked and saddened by the sudden announcement of the deaths of 3 iconic media personalities this last week.  Michael Jackson – the King of Pop.  Farrah Fawcett- Charlie’s Angel, Model, Cancer Warrior.  Billy Mayes – Pitch Man extraordinaire who put Oxy Clean on the national consciousness.

I don’ t know what kind of impact these deaths had on you, but this week’s assignment is to write a poetic tweet – using any short form of poetry (sorry, but the 140 character restriction rules out the epic poem form).  Tag the tweet with #4TL and you have done your little bit to celebrate the lives and mourn the deaths of these 3 people.

As an extra challenge, if you tweet about Michael Jackson, work in the title to one of his songs as part of the tweet.

Thanks for the fantastic response to the #Haiku theme on Twitter Laureate over the last 2 weeks.  9 different poets participated, creating Haiku shaped tweets on all different kinds of topics.    You can always see all the tweets on Twitter Search.    But for fun, I’ve included them here to make it more fun.

gercelt: Saintly the scholars, in earnest mode/following the road to Davy Byrne’s/Clutching worn copies of lessons learned #poetry #4TL

gercelt: Dublin is Bloomsdaying. Joyce’s little soul/ would be so proud to see the fuss/middleaged bourgeoisie all dressed up! #poetry #4TL

DR1665 : Solder components / recycling light sockets / this iron is crap. #4TL #haiku

DR1665: Streaming @Pandora / Twitter, pictures, all at once / suck it, iPhone choads. #4TL #haiku

DR1665: @tehDiceman Dear Mac Fanboy / Can’t we all just get along? / Let’s hate on Windoze! #4TL lol

twitlaureate: Twitter Laureate / Poetry by the people / for all of the world #4tl

TheStudioKid: @twitlaureate… like deep sleep mattress / gravity catches the moon / spooked cat ejects night #4tl

Melhi: #4TL A haiku a day | Won’t keep the doctor away | But that’s not the point.

hyermish : Need to reschedule | tasks, projects, plans, because there’s | New iPhone Software … #4TL #haiku

gercelt: Percussion of rain on eaves and windows/under grey skies and thunderous cloud/slick pavements lead me to the drowning city #poetry #4TL

maniactive: What fresh tweet is this? | Does Twitter rhyme with fritter? | It certainly does. #haiku #4tl

twitlaureate : #iranelection /loud drops of freedom/in a pool of quiet #4tl

DR1665: freedom for iran / make your avatar all green / and that’s about all #4TL #irony

Pandadollbaby : @twitlaureate – #4TL – #haiku – Raining endlessly – We are an Isle of Long – Good thing we drain well

tsk2001: the sun appeared through / a broken cloud pane. I cried / tears of joy like rain #4tl

tsk2001: can’t even find time / to ponder meditation / exploded lotus #4tl

tsk2001: Sisyphus on the / treadmill frantic mad-walk pace / antic uphill race #4tl

Thanks to everyone for participating!  This has been the best Twitter Laureate topic ever!

And we aren’t done yet.  Stay tuned for more community action… But I don’t want to spoil that surprise until the next post.

The Haiku form lends itself very well to the twitter 140 character format.  It is a short form, condensing all of its meaning into 3 lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables.   If you want to get a good view of Haiku on twitter, search for the tag #haiku and you will find them continually being written over a broad range of topics.

This week (until June 23) Twitter Laureate celebrates the form of Haiku and invites all Twitter Laureates so share original Hiaku under the #4TL tag.  There are no requirements or rules.  Only poetry.  If you desire, you can use additional tags such at #poem or #haiku.

At the end of the week I’ll do something (not sure what) to try and assemble all the different contributions so that we can get a sense together of our collaboration and contribution.

I look forward to seeing the result!

#TL has been taken over by a real estate application.  Rather than compete with a bunch of Realtors listing hot properties, we at Twitter Laureate have decided to shift to a new hashtag:  #4TL

Notionally this stands for “For Twitter Laureate”.

As you post going forward, please use the new tag to be included in the collection.

Don’t forget to participate in the Weather poetry for the week.  6/15 is the last day in the cycle.

Specifically the weather where you are.  What would Shakespeare say if he gave the weather report on your local TV or radio station?

As kids we knew how this worked:

Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day!

Now’s your chance to revisit that little piece of Dick or Jane that you may have forgotten about.

The rules are simple.

• You have one tweet – 140 characters to say it all
• Tag the tweet with the #tl hashtag (ok, that leaves 136 characters left for your creativity)
• Check out the other contributions by searching on the hashtag

At the end of a week, we’ll collect up the tweets that we judge worthy and publish them here at Twitter Laureate.

Happy Tweeting!