This week's contest proved to be A Brilliant, Creative engagement of sorts, with abecedariuses of all shapes, colors, and topics, from gods and goddesses of the world to a sampling of Ginsberg's "Howl" to an ankle bitch (bad boss).
Michael C. Rush’s “She Writes Him on the Eve of the Revolution” was quite the tour de force:
… and be careful, darling,
entering frivolous gardens
heroically. I just keep loving
my next ordeal, properly quarantined,
rousing schmucks to utter venal words
extirpating your zeal, although
by certain demands enveloped,
from gross hope impeached,
justice keeps litigating many new
obscenely-proposed quotas, reacting
slowly to undermining vandals
whose Xmas yawps zing …
Alerted by certain directions,
everyone finds great hope in
justice, kindness, love.
Many now-obsolete promises
quelled reasonable suspicions that
underlying verities were
xylophonic yin-yang zephyrs …
Attack beautifully, cariño!
Don’t ever fear going home
if joining kills laughter. My note
openly permits quitting rather
suddenly to uphold victory
without extinguishing your zest …
and Angela Ball sums up “Paris in 26 Words”:
A bored courtesan damns
Evening’s façade, goes hunting
In jewels, KOs
Love’s menace,
Not only parturition.Quizzes retrograde symbols,
Tells us visions—
Wild xylophones, yuletide
Zydeco.
And one more: Emily Winakur's “Bad Boss”:
Ankle bitch cancer.
Don’t ever forget
How I jilted karma,
Laughed my no-neck
Ogre (piratous, queening,
Rancid self) to undead
Victory. Wealth
Excels. You—zip it.
And lastly, two wonderful announcements! One, that Angela Ball and David Lehman will give a joint reading at Poisson Rouge, the New York City nightspot, on Monday, February 12, 2018 (Lincoln’s Birthday). There, they will read some “Next Line, Please” poems. And two, that Next Line, Please: Prompts to Inspire Poets and Writers (Cornell University Press), will be published in March 2018! Super good stuff.
Visit the American Scholar's page to check out the entire post and to read more abecedariuses!
–Virginia Valenzuela