Richard's Animorphs Forum

Animorphs Section => Animorphs Fan Fiction & Art => Topic started by: Kern on April 08, 2020, 12:34:25 PM

Title: Twin Cinema Poetry - Marco and Jake
Post by: Kern 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.

Marco	Jake
---	---
my best friend,	my brother, we’ve been -
alongside each other	since we were young -
we’ve fought many battles	together.
---	---
through it all,	you were my life,
you were	my reason to fight,
my guiding light	in a war that was brought down upon us.
---	---
war makes fools of us all.	I wanted to grow up,
I wanted to live my life	just 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 sacrifices	no one should ever have to make
that kill us inside;	decisions to kill their own family…
---	---
I want to live	I want to carry
on,	the guilt of what I have done
past, washed away	Forever

-----

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)