Who Was It?

Entombed, the fury – -
ready to shoot and yet
one of the four,
the one with
lesser-used excuses…

…the silver screen star squealer?
…the actress of old surprisingly lively for her age?
…the disco singer with a witch face?
…the TV detective who mounts and dismounts horses?

All with feats defeated,
~the alpha or the omega~
their excuses used useless…

… a tiger in the tank delay.
… a dress that didn’t fit.
… an attack of red-spotted (blank).
… work record lost in container of folding scissors.

Which one
was late arriving,
entombing fury
when ready to shoot?

**

A Found Poem to share with my friends at dVersePoets :OLN#86
Source: The New York Times Crossword Puzzle Clues, 2013 Daily Calendar,  (edited by Will Shortz)

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48 Comments

Filed under dVerse Poetry, Found Poetry, Mystery, OpenLinkNight

48 Responses to Who Was It?

  1. This is an amazing, intriguing piece, Laurie. What a great idea to use a crossword puzzle as a source. Awesome!

  2. What fun – and the story you tell in this found poem – such a wonderful creation, Laurie! K

  3. Cool that you used the crossword puzzle as a source- nice :)

  4. Seb

    That’s just brilliant stuff.

  5. clever and colorful. I am especially fond of your middle stanza… All with feats defeated., the alpha or the omega~ I also enjoyed your interview with Fred at the pub yesterday!!

  6. I find it fascinating that the source of your muse is a crossword puzzle ~ This read like a mystery dinner or something :-)

  7. …the who??? vertical or horizontal???… aha… all of these are kind of looks like a blind item… intriguing… smiles…

  8. Glenn Buttkus

    Gosh, inspiration springs eternal for we of the poetic persuasion. Claudia used her son’s trousers, I used a few lines of Louisiana myth, Brian used feverish historical riffs & rants. Found poems can be delightful, as is yours. Maybe we need to do more for FFA on dVerse.

  9. Creative genius you are/

  10. I’m somehow imaging a dysfunctional red carpet!

  11. Hah–the work record in a box of scissors really grabbed me.

  12. Great to,use a cross-word for writers block. I will remember that ;-) excellent piece

  13. haha so you got that out of the crossword…thta is awesome…there is a nice expediency to your words…there are plenty of excuses….work record int he scissors is that kinda like the dog ate my homework?

  14. I wondered where you got such a creative poem. Love that it’s a found poem.

  15. Good job–I would never have thought to use crossword hints as poetry prompts!

  16. danadampier

    It’s amazing that we can find inspiration in the least likely of places! Love!!

  17. a crossword puzzle…so cool…see i knew it…poetry can be found just everywhere…the tiger in the tank made me smile as it reminded me of a sermon where the pastor said: what use is it to have a tiger in the tank if there’s a donkey behind the steering wheel… smiles

  18. What better place to ‘find’ a poem than in the NYT crossword.\ puzzle! I love this —-poem and idea for ‘finding’ a poem!
    Word Play

  19. You did a great job piecing that together…!

  20. A clever found poem. I just can’t do these, so I admire anyone who can, and you do it with aplomb!

  21. Yes very clever, a crossword, marvelous found poem.

  22. I don’t know how, or why, but this thing really works!

  23. “Found poem” Thanks for teaching me something today! Man, I have so much to learn!!

  24. I love found poems, and have used crossword clues myself. :) You did well with this, and obviously had fun too.

  25. hisfirefly

    I like the tension here, unanswered questions

  26. I think Who is on first base. I’d like to echo congrats on the crossword angle. Very clever. I love English crosswords; good practice, and never thought of combining the seemingly abstrat string of thoughts and images into verse. Bravo!

  27. I enjoyed this one as it was a unique concept with random thoughts that worked well together. Nice done!

  28. I blame the disco singer, fun word play indeed today at your feed

  29. “The one with letter-used excuses” – love this play on words :)

  30. I love your source of inspiration and how you carried it through. Poetry can indeed be found everywhere!

  31. rmp

    definitely an intriguing piece. I’m quite impressed with you unearthing it within the clues of a crossword puzzle—fascinating.

  32. I really like this line: “the silver screen star squealer”

  33. Now, I haven’t done one of those in y e e a r r s s s s ! I suddenly feel like having a big bowl of cornflakes with milk and bananas sprinkled with sugar on top and work on one at my breakfast table.

    Your poem has made me nostalgic…

  34. All with feats defeated,
    ~the alpha or the omega~
    their excuses used useless…

    Liked the wordplay…cool idea to use a crossword as trigger..thanks

  35. wonderful and unique!!

  36. A crossword puzzle made your mind whirl and your pen dance? I usually turn to my Super Thesaurus when inspiration lags – a specific word leads to emotional connections and a poem begins to become born. Very cool.

  37. Found poems can be so cool. So much to like in here laurie, the relation between alpha and omega is a great one, entombed, the fury, just as you’ve written it, pared down to perfection, love that line, and the ellipsis lines are really good. I love crossword puzzles, the times are so hard though, always think I’m making progress than get stumped at a certain spot, only solved perhaps a handful and I’ve done thousands, although much better than the Toronto paper or the LA paper, never solved one of those puzzles, yet still try. Very nicely done here, really enjoyed this great example of a found poem. THanks

  38. This is simply amazing. I’ve never understood how found poetry works, so I second the suggestion of a dVerse FFA prompt.

  39. Thanks for this! Inspiration is everywhere…

  40. Just goes to show you can get ideas from everything :)

  41. love the inspiration Laurie. just this morning ii was looking for inspiration and now i know i just have to look for it–thank you

  42. Can’t add much more to what is posted by everybody above. This is awesome and very creative.

  43. Wow! What else can I say?

  44. AJ

    awesomely creative. reading your poetry makes my efforts better. (I hope!) wonderful.

  45. Reminded me a bit of an Agatha Christie novel.

  46. Just love what you did with this. Makes me look at crossword puzzles from an entirely new perspective. Can’t wait for Sunday, now. :0)

  47. So creative Laurie. I love the suspense and mystery here.

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