{"id":14069,"date":"2025-10-28T03:34:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T10:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=14069"},"modified":"2025-10-27T15:38:53","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:38:53","slug":"mistranslation-prompt-855","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/mistranslation-prompt-855\/","title":{"rendered":"Mistranslation . . . Prompt #855"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Playing With Abstract Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract poetry is a form of poetry that prioritizes the auditory and emotional impact of words over their literal meaning or conventional grammatical structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prompt 1 \u2013 The Warmup<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Write for 2 minutes about something troubling or sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Write for 2 minutes about something using the opposite emotion: joyful, hopeful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Write for 2 minutes on something from nature, something from the natural world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep that writing nearby for Prompt 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why write an abstract poem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cScience has shown that when we engage in play, we increase brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, where creative thinking happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou are not striving for perfection. You\u2019re striving for perfectly unpredictable.\u201d \u2014 \u201cWords Gone Wild,\u201d by Dr. Finnian Burnett, Writers Digest, Nov\/Dec 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prompt 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Write an abstract poem, using only the words you have written in Prompt 1. Write for 15-20 minutes. It doesn\u2019t have to make sense. It shouldn\u2019t make sense!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intro to Prompt 3<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homophonic: Words that sound alike, spelled the same, different meaning<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rose (flower) and rose (past tense of rise).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, sound alike but different letters: <\/strong>carat, carrot, caret (blinking cursor)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood<\/em>: “The shops in mourning” where mourning<\/em> can be heard as mourning<\/em> or morning<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas Hood, Faithless Sally Brown<\/em>, birth & berth and told & toll\u2019d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homophones of multiple words are known as oronyms. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples of oronyms:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ice cream and I scream<\/p>\n\n\n\n

depend and deep end<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this sky and this guy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

some others and some mothers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

night rain and night train<\/p>\n\n\n\n

my newt and minute<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prompt 3 Mistranslation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This exercise is homophonic translation: Changing text in one language into another language, with no attempt to preserve the original meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translate one of the following poems any way you want. You can use the method of what it sounds like. Or what the shapes of the letters suggest to you. There is no wrong response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your translation does not have to make sense. Have fun with this!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.<\/strong> M\u016fj man\u017eel a j\u00e1 jsme st\u00e1li spole\u010dn\u011b v nov\u00e9 n\u00e1kupn\u00ed centrum
kter\u00e1 byla \u010dist\u00e1 a b\u00edl\u00e1 a pln\u00e1 mo\u017enost\u00ed.
Byli jsme chud\u00ed, tak\u017ee jsme r\u00e1di proj\u00edt obchody
proto\u017ee to bylo jako ch\u016fze p\u0159es na\u0161e sny.
V jednom jsme obdivovali k\u00e1vovary, modr\u00e1 keramika
m\u00edsy, op\u00e9ka\u010de topinek velk\u00fd jako televize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. <\/strong>\u00a0my eggenoot en Ek het gestaan saam in die nuwe winkelplein
wat was skoon en wit en vol van moontlikheid.
ons was arm so ons gehou van om te loop deur die stoor
sedert hierdie was soos stap deur ons drome.
in een ons admireer koffie vervaardiger se, blou pottery
bakke, toaster oonde as groot as televisies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Credit to writing teacher Terry Ehret<\/a>, who first introduced me to abstract poetry and homophonic mistranslation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contact Marlene at cullenmarlene \u2013 at \u2013 gmail if you want the languages and translations for these poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just Write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Playing With Abstract Poetry Abstract poetry is a form of poetry that prioritizes the auditory and emotional impact of words over their literal meaning or conventional grammatical structure. Prompt 1 \u2013 The Warmup Write for 2 minutes about something troubling or sad. Write for 2 minutes about something using the opposite emotion: joyful, hopeful. Write for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[1190],"class_list":["post-14069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prompts","tag-writing-freely-just-write-writing-prompts-the-write-spot-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-3EV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14069"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14075,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14069\/revisions\/14075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}