Neopoet

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weirdelf
By weirdelf, 26 March, 2019
Status
Concluded
Program description/goal

Description: The phrase 'cellar door' is purportedly the most euphonious phrase in the English language. This will be a super quicky workshop starting immediately. Just write a short poem including that phrase or variations thereof with the emphasis on pleasing sounding English.

Leaders: Jess (weirdelf) and Guy (Geezer)

Objectives: To write something pleasing to the ear, using any or all poetic tools including meter, cadence, alliteration, consonance and rhyme. Content and meaning is of little import here, nonsense is fine, we all need practice in making our works harmonious

Level of expertise: Open to all

Subject matter: Must contain the phrase 'cellar door' or variations of it.

Very Important!: Do not post your poems on this thread, post them to the stream but remember to click 'Cellar Door' in the workshop dropdown. You could put it in the title too.

Length
14.00 days
Number of participants (limit)
100.00 people
Participants
Marv45
dpoetessrock
Geezer
weirdelf
Heart- Filled
zebra
Rula
scribbler
quillsveinback
Barbara Writes
brittle light
Lindsay
Eumolpus
Sparrow
Apostolos "Paul" Anagnostopoulos
gregwa8
DrunkHippieMuse
Cloudthings
Drey Hommies
Seren
Skill level
Olympic Pool
Date
-
Short description
Make poetry sound beautiful.
D

dpoetessrock

6 years 3 months ago

work shop

I am excited to be apart of this workshop. Thanks for the invite.

D

dpoetessrock

6 years 3 months ago

NAME

Rock is great. It's actually my nickname. Short for Roxane. Thanks very much weirdelf.

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 3 months ago

welcome to Marv45 too

Since our poems will be posted to the Stream we can use this thread to discuss our ideas about the aurality of poetry.

Please everyone remember, when you post a poem for this workshop, near the bottom just above Save there is a dropdown box where you need to click on Cellar Door, this ensures your poem will be linked to this page.

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 3 months ago

Dive right in folks

any questions or discussion here and post your poem whenever you're ready.

You'll see all the poems linked to the workshop at top right of this page-

Most recent poems
>> View all poems submitted to this workshop

Rula

Rula

6 years 3 months ago

No inspiration

ATM, but this sounds exciting. Plz. consider me in

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 3 months ago

you're in

no doubt inspiration will follow in your wake

Rula

Rula

6 years 3 months ago

Thank you jess

Please forgive my ignorance. This question could be silly for the such as you and othors, but I find nothing pleasing about this word. In fact the only connotations that might come up to mind with this word are cold, loneliness, fear,dread, and death to say the least.

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 2 months ago

There is no ignorance to be forgiven, Rula.

We are only talking about the sounds of words here, not their meaning. I totally understand your feelings about the connotations, which is part of what makes it such a good choice for this exercise.

We are talking about what makes sounds in language pleasing. I could say for example "I murdered him cruelly and with pleasure" and aesthetically that might be more pleasing to the ear than "a cacaphonous overabundance of licking". Do you see where we're going here?

quillsveinback

quillsveinback

6 years 3 months ago

I'm

in if I'm allowed

Rula--poems are allowed to be about all those things.

brittle light

brittle light

6 years 3 months ago

Jess T.

a symphony of poems on "cellar door"
I too, would like to take a seat in this orchestra, por favor

mellifluousness rocks!

L

Lindsay

6 years 3 months ago

hello!

I'll give it a go, thanks for asking!!

Lindsay :)

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 2 months ago

Quiil, Barbara, Al and Lindsay

your all in.

Let the discussion and submissions commence!

Rula has already made a valid point that audio aesthetics need not be pleasing by meaning or connotation.

Barbara Writes

Barbara Writes

6 years 2 months ago

hi jess

i know what a cellar door is but never had to experience or see one in my life time . can it be about any door

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 2 months ago

think of the sounds

is cela de mor me for on ne
sound better than
grishnak mcrkg funckkrum kalga?

both are meaningless.
Are the aesthetics of language we are discussing racist? German uses more consonants than french or Italian.

Barbara Writes

Barbara Writes

6 years 2 months ago

ok

oh so it's about the sound of the words cellar door? im deep south country.

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 2 months ago

Lindsay, go to edit

near the bottom of the page you will see
Workshop
-none-
click on that and you will see
Open to new participants - Cellar Door
click on that then save and your poem will be submitted to the workshop,
ok?

Geezer

Geezer

6 years 2 months ago

Come on folks...

Let's not make Jess do all the work here! I will do a reading of my own poem, as you all should! I think
that doing your own, will put the emphasis in the right places, the way you wrote it. It can be especially important since many of us have not used punctuation in our work. Give it a try. I know that some of us older folks that are tech inept, get flustered when we attempt something like this, but it really is easy. Here I go! ~ Geezer.
.

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 2 months ago

Whilst I am doing reading of your works

and again I would prefer you do your own readings, you are making me work hard here.

I will not comment on the auditory aesthetics. That's up to you guys. How pleasing are the poems to the ear? How appropriate is that?
Are vowels nicer than consonants?
Is grishnak better or worse than alandriel?
Is racism involved?
I'll do the physical work for you but you have to discuss what is good or bad/right or wrong/aesthetic or discordant in the sounds of words.

gregwa8

gregwa8

6 years 2 months ago

When I try and add my poem to

When I try and add my poem to the workshop, the drop down list for workshops available to me are "none". Is there something I need to do to change that, become eligible for the workshop?

Rula

Rula

6 years 2 months ago

Try now again greg

You must be able to add your poem.
You've been just listed among the participants

Rula

Rula

6 years 2 months ago

It's the 24 hour thing

Greg.
Have you submitted anything earlier for less than 24 h now?
If so, plz. unpublish the new submission, add to the workshop first then republish your latest piece.

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 2 months ago

There are four words I would like everyone to consider-

alliteration, assonance, consonance and onomatopoeia. Their meaning and use are critical to this workshop.

We need not confine ourselves to what is aesthetically pleasing. For example Rula pointed out early that 'cellar door' has negative connotations for her, so perhaps the use of hard consonants and short vowels as opposed soft consonants and long vowels would be more appropriate.

Onomatopoeia is a different category to the other three devices.

Does anyone have any questions or disagreements about these concepts?

ps 'cellar door' has positive connotations for me, it leads to where the wine is kept [chuckles]

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 2 months ago

not from me,

who upset you?
I've just reread my PM to you, I can't see how you would find it in any way unpleasant, it was supportive and apologetic.

S

scribbler

6 years 2 months ago

Hi Jess

Is the entire shop going to consist of posting one's poem and critiquing other poems or should we be prepared for something else?

Seren

Seren

6 years 2 months ago

Cellar Door

Is it too late to join this workshop ?

Cheers

Jayne

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 2 months ago

Never too late for you, my dear.

But it is late so post to the workshop soon and let us know on this thread when you have.
Can you do an audio to SoundCloud or Vocaroo?

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 2 months ago

Get those last submissions in please!

I'd like to wind up soon.
So anyone still to post, please let us know on this thread as soon as you do.

For those who have posted and received feedback wodjarekon? Has this workshop been of value to you? Do you feel more comfortable exploring the sound of your words? Used some new tools and devices?

Also any thoughts and suggestions around how the workshop was run and requests or suggestions for future workshops.

Rula

Rula

6 years 2 months ago

Thank you

Thank you Jess. This was really an opening eye workshop on words with pleasing sounds. It gives a kind of inspiration that's been lost for a while.
Highly appreciate it.

weirdelf

weirdelf

6 years 1 month ago

I'm a better mentor and critiquer (sic?)

than I am a poet and I'm ok with that.

For 12 years this insanity of a democratically run poetry workshop has not just survived but grown and improved, with ups and downs and I feel incredibly honoured to have been part of it.

We are about to enter Neopoet V3.0 with 'The Lab' and the return of chat and a concurrent rise in the standard of critique. I'm really excited about it. Though wary of chat, every time I've been suspended it's been for running off my mouth in chat, but I will be teaming up with Geezer there and he keeps me a bit less immoderately insane [grins].

weirdelf

weirdelf

5 years 9 months ago

Um... a small confession

This in no way invalidates this workshop, which produced some fine euphonious works but we may have been the victim of a semantic joke or linguistic mishearing.

Cellar Door, purportedly the most euphonious phrase in the English language, sounds suspiciously like 'cela d'or', French for 'that's gold'. hmmm... eureka?