What about questions like, “What’s the meaning of life?” or “Is there a God?” or “Should I kill my dog?”

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Peter Orlovsky, Poet and Ginsberg Muse, Dies at 76

“Peter Orlovsky, who inspired Beat writers like Allen Ginsberg, with whom he had a romantic partnership for decades, and who wrote emotionally naked, loopy and occasionally luminescent poetry of his own, died in Williston, Vt., on Sunday. He was 76, and lived in St. Johnsbury, Vt.”

More in the NY Times

More in the Advocate

Gary Sullivan gets a pointillist portrait in the Wall Street Journal, which featured last week an article on Flarf vs Conceptual poetry.  Quoth the Journal:

Flarf is a creature of the electronic age. The flarf method typically involves using word combinations turned up in Google searches, and poems are often shared via email. When one poet penned a piece after Googling “peace” + “kitty,” another responded with a poem after searching “pizza” + “kitty.” A 2006 reading of it has been viewed more than 6,700 times on YouTube. It starts like this: “Kitty goes Postal/Wants Pizza…”

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Here are some ideas for finding a focus for your poem:

–A “New York Times found poem” can be composed of words and phrases taken from one Times article, past or present, or several. You can mix and combine these words and phrases into a new piece, or you might simply “find” some Times writing that you feel is already poetic, as Alan Feuer does with “Missed Connections” posts on Craigslist.

–Your poem can be on any topic or theme you like. For instance, it could be about something as broad as politics, music or travel, or it might celebrate something as specific as Lady Gaga, Philadelphia or the iPad.

–Your poem might focus on something currently in the news, whether health care reform, the World Cup, bullying, the Large Hadron Collider or therecession — or you might use the Times archives or our On This Day in History feature to create a poem about an event in the past.

–You could also explore a trend you’ve read about in The Times, such as the local food movement or the effects of technology on contemporary life. Or you might simply collect words and phrases from different articles around a theme, like “identity,” “loss,” or “joy.”

“Mr. Shields’s book consists of 618 fragments, including hundreds of quotations taken from other writers like Philip Roth, Joan Didion and Saul Bellow — quotations that Mr. Shields, 53, has taken out of context and in some cases, he says, ‘also revised, at least a little — for the sake of compression, consistency or whim.’ He only acknowledges the source of these quotations in an appendix, which he says his publishers’ lawyers insisted he add.

“‘Who owns the words?’ Mr. Shields asks in a passage that is itself an unacknowledged reworking of remarks by the cyberpunk author William Gibson. ‘Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do — all of us — though not all of us know it yet. Reality cannot be copyrighted.’”

NYT

Would Mark Twain Tweet?

Is Happiness Catching?

Are Tigers ‘Brainer’ Than Lions?

This month’s winner is Abby in Florida for The Last Time the Cat Meowed.  We quite liked this poegle- fun, and it turned up some interesting language.  There is something marvelously absurd about the sentence, “Since then, he has meowed a little for no reason”.  Congratulations Abby!

The Last Time the Cat Meowed

         The last time the cat meowed, he meowed so much that my husband passed away! My companion, my 16 year old cat, meowed at dawn for MONTHS afterwards. In the last few months though, he has begun howling like a banshee instead. He hasn’t done it all the time, as it started last year after he had to go to the vet for some issues. Since then, he has meowed a little for no reason. Now, since the weather is nice, he jumps from our fence and creeps into the woods. “Maybe you shouldn’t come around here anymore!” he meows sternly to the other cats that come around. He repeats his meow, each time putting extra feeling into it. “The funniest thing happened last night.” My neighbor told me yesterday. “I found out there is no way to stop a cat from meowing.”

-Abby in Florida (search phrase “the last time the cat meowed”)

April winner: Polly in the Blue Ridge for Synchronicity

March winner: Judith in the North for Don’t Flash That Light Anymore, Honey

February winner: Jamie in Brooklyn for At the Edge of the Park.  

January winner: Julie in DC for You Are Entering.  

View the submissions archive.

We will be suspending the Poegles Challenge for the summer- but we hope that you will continue to send us your poegles in the mean time.  We will launch the challenge again in the fall.