{"id":2324,"date":"2010-08-06T18:31:06","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T22:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanternreview.com\/blog\/?p=2324"},"modified":"2010-08-06T18:33:10","modified_gmt":"2010-08-06T22:33:10","slug":"weekly-prompt-borrowed-headlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/06\/weekly-prompt-borrowed-headlines\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Prompt: Borrowed Headlines"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
A man-moth? (Image from a 2007 hoax).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week’s prompt is inspired by the story behind Elizabeth Bishop’s famous poem “The Man-moth,” whose concept (and title) were derived from a newspaper’s misspelling of the word “mammoth.”\u00a0 While reflecting on the poem in a 1962 piece, Bishop mused<\/a>,<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve forgotten what it was that was supposed to be “mammoth.” But the misprint seemed meant for me. An oracle spoke from the page of the New York Times<\/em>, kindly explaining New York City to me, at least for a moment.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In “The Man-moth,” Bishop allows the content of the newspaper’s article to be subsumed by the wonderful strangeness of the misprint’s language.\u00a0 She excavates the question of what a man-moth might be, and builds an alternative universe around the idea.\u00a0 We are given a portrait of a subway-dwelling creature that is all eyes and all secrets, to whom the bustle of the surface world is threatening, but who finds comfort in the racing and lurching of the subway trains:<\/p>\n

“Then he returns
\nto the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits,
\nhe flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains
\nfast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.
\nThe Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way
\nand the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed,
\nwithout a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort.
\nHe cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am interested in the idea of what might be done with borrowed and revivified language of this sort.\u00a0 The newspaper-based exercise that I’ve delineated below is only one place to start, but I imagine that one could also get equally interesting results with another type of source: copy from internet advertisements, perhaps?\u00a0 the names of dishes on menus?\u00a0 informational text from a museum, zoo, or aquarium exhibit?\u00a0 The possibilities are pretty well endless.<\/p>\n

Prompt: write a poem that takes, as its title, a headline or article title that has been borrowed from a newspaper.\u00a0 What fresh or alternative meanings might be excavated or derived from the headline’s syntax?\u00a0 Feel free to tweak (splice, loop, embellish) or even completely ignore the article’s actual contents.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you’re looking for a place to start out, here are some titles of New York Times <\/em>articles that I recently came across, which I thought might make for interesting titles of poems:<\/p>\n

Eight Million Bodies in the Naked City<\/a>
\nTwo New Paths to the Dream: Regeneration<\/a>
\nIllinois: Invader Carp May Have Been At Home<\/a>
\nWhat the River Dragged In<\/a>
\nThe Senate’s Important Lunch Date<\/a>
\nBroadway and the Mosque<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s prompt is inspired by the story behind Elizabeth Bishop’s famous poem “The Man-moth,” whose concept (and title) were derived from a newspaper’s misspelling of the word “mammoth.”\u00a0 While reflecting on the poem in a 1962 piece, Bishop mused, “I\u2019ve forgotten what it was that was supposed to be “mammoth.” But the misprint seemed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[13],"tags":[153,72,71],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2324"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2328,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324\/revisions\/2328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}