Author Topic: Twin Cinema Poetry - Marco and Jake  (Read 2031 times)

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Offline Kern

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Twin Cinema Poetry - Marco and Jake
« on: April 08, 2020, 12:34:25 PM »
Hi all! I'm trying this poetry form for the first time; would be great to get feedback on it!

I've included an explanation of the poetry form below, but it should be quite obvious how it's meant to be read.

MarcoJake
------
my best friend,my brother, we’ve been -
alongside each othersince we were young -
we’ve fought many battlestogether.
------
through it all,you were my life,
you weremy reason to fight,
my guiding lightin a war that was brought down upon us.
------
war makes fools of us all.I wanted to grow up,
I wanted to live my lifejust like you:
free of fear, free of suffering,happy years I thought we’d spend together.
------
instead,life never gave us what we wanted.
we had to make sacrificesno one should ever have to make
that kill us inside;decisions to kill their own family…
------
I want to liveI want to carry
on,the guilt of what I have done
past, washed awayForever

-----

Explanation of form:

This poem is a "twin cinema": the twin cinema should be readable horizontally across both columns, as well as vertically down each discrete column. The modern twin cinema is often characterised by a dialogue between two opposing or agreeing voices in the vertical columns that reaches an uncertain harmony when read horizontally across. It is a form pioneered in Singapore (where I live), and gained significant popularity in the poetry group SingPoWriMo (Singapore Poetry Writing Month) in 2016.

The right is Jake, speaking alone to Tom. The left is Marco, speaking alone to Jake. The whole is Marco and Jake, speaking to each other.

Formatting's a **** with this one; Marco's column should really be right-aligned, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without messing up the rest of the table.

(Also, I cheated just a TEENSY bit - the right side of the middle line of the 3rd stanza has an implied "want to", i.e. "I wanted to live my life just like you (want to)", but that kinda ruined the flow of Jake's poem)
« Last Edit: April 08, 2020, 12:36:07 PM by Kern »
“I’m trying to translate what my cat says and put it in a book, but how many homonyms are there for meow??”
? Jarod Kintz