Opium Cactus: On the Creation of Found Poetry

a sijo


In a dismal pile are found
stray words from many sources


thrown in a blender, tortured with forks
and aged six years in wooden casks


then inscribed by persian slave
calligraphers upon the floor

(c)  Nissa Annakindt

Another day, another sijo--- this one from my book 'Opium Cactus'. The topic is a totally different form of poetry--- found poetry. In the simplest form of found poetry you simply take someone else's prose words and arrange them like a poem. There was one alleged poet who came out with a whole book of 'found poems' from the words of a government spokesman he didn't care for. This type of found poetry raises for me an issue--- is it really my poem if Bill Clinton composed the words and I just arranged them to spite him?

But there is also found poetry where the poet has the work of not only finding the words/phrases but putting them together from different sources, working with them to express the poet's vision. I find this kind of found poetry very satisfying. I also use the method of finding the words/phrases as if for a found poem, but using about an equal amount of words of my own to create the final effect.

As to why I used one poem form--- the sijo--- to describe another--- the found poem--- I'm just weird that way.

Poetic prompt: write a poem about a poetic form that you like--- or one that you hate.

Lina Lamont gets fourth blogging award

Thanks to Amanda Borenstadt, blogger at A Fortnight of Mustard, which is one of the top condiment-related blogs on the web, for this fine award.

She got the award from Nick Wilford at Scattergun Scribblings.

Click 'read more' to find out why my cat is named Consubstantial and what I always bring to a swordfight.



The rules of the award are as follows:
1. In a post on your blog, nominate 15 fellow bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award.(or 5 like Nick Wilford - he claims you will not be smited.)
2. In the same post, add the Versatile Blogger Award.
3. In the same post, thank the blogger who nominated you in a post with a link back to their blog.
4. In the same post, share 7 completely random pieces of information about yourself.
5. In the same post, include this set of rules.
6. Inform each nominated blogger of their nomination by posting a comment on each of their blogs.

Seven Possibly True Things About Me:

1. I've had a massive crush on Tracy Quartermaine for thirty years. Alas, as she is a fictional character on General Hospital, and in addition she's married to the mad mobster Anthony Zacchara, she probably doesn't like me back. I also have crushes on the Racnoss Empress, Chantho, Captain Jack Harkness and Rose Tyler from Doctor Who, and the Crazy Cat Lady from the Simpsons.

2. I think my cat Chachamaru is pregnant for real this time. Just hope she can manage to have fewer than six kittens this time...

3. The first periodical that published a poem of mine was a Stalinist communist 'zine called 'Struggle'. This was before Al Gore invented the internet.

4. I am the one person on Earth who likes the fact that the Catholic Church has changed 'being of one substance with the Father' to 'consubstantial with the Father. I like the word 'consubstantial' so much I now have a kitten named Consubstantial, though I mostly call her Connie or 'damn you cat, get off the counter!'

5. I've always been religious. Used to be a Protestant, from 1987-2005 was a Norse Pagan, now I'm Catholic. I thought once of becoming an atheist, but I'm just too logical for it.

6. I swear too much. My late lamented dog Jadzia wouldn't come when I said 'Come here', but would if I said 'Come (effing) here'. Very embarrassing when company comes. (My current dog Mina is too smart to come when called since I usually call her when I have plans for her she doesn't care for. So when I want Mina, I call one of the cats.)

7. My rule for winning in hand-to-hand combat: Bring a sword.

Bloggers I nominate for the Versatile Blogger Award

Why these blogs? Look at them and see. Each one is here for a reason. Those who guess the reasons right win a prize. Warning: the prize is a kitten.

Julie Bihn
URL: http://kinynchronicles.blogspot.com/

Thomas Fletcher Booher
URL: http://tulipdrivenlife.blogspot.com

Shane Werlinger
URL: http://www.shanewerlinger.com

John W. Otte
URL: http://www.leastread.blogspot.com/

Fred Warren
URL: http://frederation.wordpress.com/

Epic Rat
URL: http://www.theepicrat.com/

My apologies to those worthy bloggers who didn't get included. If you have a blog that deserves recognition, please comment and tell me what it is about your blog that should earn you a blogging award. (Smart aleck answers preferred.)

Blogcrafting: 10 ways to get more comments on your blog.

Building up a blog? Ignore the cool stats feature on Blogger (or whatever your blog host gives you). The real measure of whether your blog is reaching folks is the number of comments you get.

Why is that? It's because many folks hit your blog while Googling for something else. On this blog the perennial top search term is 'david tennant naked', followed by 'anton yelchin naked', 'billie piper pregnant' and 'billie piper naked'. (But never 'billie piper naked and pregnant' or 'john barrowman pregnant' for some reason). Since my blog does NOT feature naked sci-fi celebrities except for that shirtless John Barrowman picture, most folks don't stay.

A comment means that someone has not only found your blog but has looked at it long enough to want to make a comment. This is great, even if the comment is hostile rant! Hostile rants often spur more sympathetic readers to defend you, and those readers are likely to come back for more.

How to get more comments:

1. Comment on other blogs, especially blogs in your niche. Comment both on the more popular blogs and on the lonely struggling blogs. And make them good comments--- not just a 'nice post' or 'interesting blog'.  Mention something interesting in the blog post and react to it.
2. End your blog post with a question, if only a 'what do you think?'.
3. Write good blog posts of general interests. Even if it's your own author blog/book blog, it shouldn't be all about you/your book. Study articles on ProBlogger to learn how to write better blog posts.
4. Join NetworkedBlogs on Facebook and publish your blog posts in your Facebook feed. This works best if  you have a good number of Facebook friends. NOTE: you will get some of your blog comments on Facebook instead of your blog. This helps your blog also, so don't worry.
5. Make it easy to become a follower of your blog,  with the Google Friend connect widget AND one from NetworkedBlogs.
6. Have good blogrolls. I have one for those who follow my blog, and my big blogroll of all the blogs I follow. They show both blog title and most recent post title. Blogger makes it easy to set up like this.
7. Respond to your commenters by follow-up comments and by visiting your commenters blogs, if they have them. This helps turn your blog into a community. 
8. Be positive and friendly when interacting with commenters, even hostile ones. Take the high road!
9. Allow for commenters of different opinion. I've seen blogs where the blog-authors forbid 'debate' in comments. This scares off a lot of commenters as they conclude you won't accept any comments other than 'I agree completely'. Remember, even hostile comments help.
10. Delete comments only when needful, as in the case of blatant spam comments and comments with excessive swearing and blasphemy, death threats or the like. I've also reserve the right to delete comments with personal attacks on me that I just can't handle at the moment, but if you are thicker-skinned, I'd recommend against that. Remember, comments are good!

I'm sure other bloggers out there have found other ways to increase their comment count. What works best on YOUR blog?

Blogging prompt: Every blogging day, choose one item from the list to increase your blog comments and do it. Go through the list. If you still don't get many comments, go through it a second time.

Welcome to my new blog follower, covnitkepr1, who blogs at AccordingtotheBook. Please check it out!

Opium Cactus: catpoem/claudius (with audio)

To my cat Claudius
there is a military force
at the nervous crane.


(c) Nissa Annakindt

NOTE: Poem from my book Opium Cactus. 
If modern poetry is drawing words out of a hat, this is the high-tech equivalent--- a Babelfish poem. Babelfish poems are created by writing an ordinary sentence, translating it into an exotic language (Asian languages work best) using Babelfish. You then cut-and-paste the Babelfish translation back into the Babelfish window, and re-translate it back to English. Or some other language. You use the resulting word-salad as source material for your poem.

'catpoem/claudius' came to be when I wrote the sentence 'My cat Claudius has a neurological disorder' and translated into-out of Korean using Babelfish. The translation it spat back is exactly what you see here, I only had to arrange it into haiku form.

My cat Claudius, by the way, was the best cat ever invented. He had a neurological condition and walked crooked and stumbled a lot. The vet advised me to let him live in the house. When the house cat Cheney had kittens, Claudius managed to stumble into the kitten basket and became the official kitten-sitter. One of the kittens, Germanicus, became his best buddy for life. Both Claudius and Germanicus died, I believe from drinking some antifreeze from a bottle that was cracked.

Claudius as a kitten

Modern Poetry: Picking words out of a hat

Today on the program 'Bookmarks' on the Catholic television channel EWTN, they lamented loss of things like rhyme and meter in today's poetry, which they compared to picking words out of a hat.

That is so exactly right! To be a modern poet you need to pick words out of a hat. To be a GOOD modern poet, you need to have the right words. And the right hat.

Recipe: My Mom's Christmas Cookies

3 3/4 cups sifted flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp cloves
1 1/2 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar (sifted and packed)
1 egg

Mix and sift flour (does anyone still sift flour?) baking powder, & spices. Cream butter, add sugar gradually & cream until fluffy, add egg and mix. Add sifted dry ingredients gradually and mix. Chill in refrigerator.

Roll out about 1/8 inch thick and cut with assorted cookie cutters. Bake on ungreased baking sheets in preheated 350 degree (Fahrenheit) oven for about 12 minutes. Store in covered container.

Next, make the frosting:
1/2 stick of butter or margarine
1 pkg. powdered sugar (2 or 3 cups)
1 tsp vanilla
milk to mix to right consistency
food coloring if desired

Frost the cooled cookies with the frosting and decorate with sprinkles of various kinds. Get the family together to help with the cookie decorating, and the person who does the best Star Trek uniform for the gingerbread man wins a prize.

These cookies are a family tradition in my family--- perhaps because they taste like traditional German Spekulatius cookies. But the recipe comes from the Milwaukee Gas Light Co. cookbook of 1958. (My mom's baking some right now--- so must end this post and snag a freshly baked cookie....)

Barack Obama may have Asperger's Syndrome

Background sounds from the movie 'Freaks'*: the sideshow performers chanting 'One of us! One of us! One of us!

Today I was thinking about the remarks Obama recently made about his accomplishments in office, and it occurred to me that if Obama, like me, had Asperger's Syndrome, that might put the story in a more sympathetic light.

So I googled 'Obama' and 'Aspergers' and came up with this, (among many other hits):

Does President Obama have Asperger's Syndrome

Obama is not the only US president who might have had Aspergers. Thomas Jefferson is also suspected of being an Aspie. ***One of us! One of us! One of us!***

Obama, of course, has never been officially diagnosed. If he suspects he might have Aspergers he's probably going out of his way not to be diagnosed, and I defend his right to do so. Aspergers is very stigmatizing. One person I told then presumed I was mentally retarded to the point of not being able to sign my own name. (Actually, my IQ is high enough to join the 'genius' organization Mensa--- which is not unheard of among folks with Asperger's syndrome.)

While I still renounce President Obama and all his evil works and ways, this possibility has reminded me that we must not allow our dislike of someone's policies or ideology translate into attacking or mocking that person's personal quirks, which may be caused by something that person cannot help. Besides, why make fun of Obama's social ineptness when we can make fun of his policies?

*Freaks: a 1932 movie featuring real sideshow performers--- pinheads, conjoined twins, little people--- which was rather notorious in its day. I mention it because I rather identify with the sideshow performers in the movie--- though I don't condone what they did to Cleopatra, that was harsh...

Opium Cactus: paper dragons (with audio)

blue & yellow folded paper dragons
sail away in an indigo Tintenfaß
dragons dangerous yet delicate
for they cannot breathe fire
and live


(c) Nissa Annakindt


Poem #4. The word 'Tintenfaß'--- German for inkwell--- is particularly fine, adding that needed note of strangeness. From Where the Opium Cactus Grows

Shared in Poetry Pantry #86

Origami instructions for making your own paper dragon:
Origami Dragon Folding Instructions

And here is an image of the origami dragon from that web site:

Are you really cut out to be a writer? Some common symptoms

Ever encountered a would-be writer that was plainly not cut out to be a writer? There are the ones who've seen a report on TV about the advances paid to a top best-selling author and decide writing is easy money since you do it sitting down, and so they sit down at the keyboard and bang out something for those fools with nothing better to do with their time but read books.

There are also those who don't have the unrealistic money motive, but who think being an author would raise their status, or make them cool, or whatever. Some of these even read books, if only Harlequin romances. But what they write tends to sound like a rehash of their latest fight with their boyfriend or boss. Or else it's something that sounds like pre-teen fan fiction all about getting Harry Potter or Captain Kirk to notice a character who is suspiciously like the author.

Sometimes I think Nanowrimo brings these hopeless non-writers out of the woodwork. The premise of Nano is that anyone can write a novel. The truth is that while most people can bat out enough words or attempted words to meet the word count goal, the result may not be recognizable as a novel. And even if it turns out to be recognizably novel-ish, it may not be anything that another human being would ever care to read.

This brings out some real fears in those of us who dream of being real writers--- even those who've met with some success. It's not that these attempted writers are clogging up the publishers' slush piles or flooding the self-publishing market. It's the fear 'What if I'm one of them? What if I am in denial about the quality of my writing? What if everyone who's said something nice about my work just pities me?'

How can you tell if you are a writer-with-potential rather than a hopeless non-writer? Here are a list of symptoms that can help distinguish the real-writer from the writing-attempting non-writer:

Symptom 1: Lifelong history of making up stories One of my childhood memories involves watching a favorite television program in the afternoon--- Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Batman, Hogan's Heroes--- and then going out of the house, taking a walk, and making up stories based on the television show I'd just watched. I made up stories in my head all the time. Sometimes my real-life environment showed up in the stories, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes I did mash-ups--- a number of Star Trek characters were thrown back into time to visit Stalag 13, the prisoner-of-war camp in Hogan's Heroes. This mental fiction didn't always follow the rules for story-telling--- I'd jump around from interesting bit to interesting bit, go backwards in the story, or replay the best bits endlessly. And it was heavy on non-original characters from television or books. But it was a seed for the more original stories I make up as an adult. (My current head-story involves fighting zombies in Mexico.)

Symptom 2: Compulsive reading If you have nothing else handy to read in the morning, do you read breakfast cereal boxes? Bookcase assembly instructions from an already assembled bookcase? A 2006 goat artificial insemination catalog? The fact is, people with the potential to be writers read, all the time. They read more than one category of book, and when nothing better is available they read whatever is to hand. If you have a history of compulsive reading dating back to childhood, if you read a great deal to this day, that's a sign of writing potential.

Sympton 3: Language awareness You don't have to have had top marks in English grammar class to be a writer. But writers do have or develop language awareness--- an interest in words, their meanings and spelling, their use in comprehensible English sentences.... When you were in grade school, did you ever read the dictionary for fun? Did you ever learn to spell interesting words that weren't going to be on any test? And today, what happens when you encounter an unfamiliar word in your reading? Are you able to cope, or do you put the book down. Not all writers are the kind of people who win spelling bees and know how to diagram sentences with confidence. But the writer's tool kit is full of words and grammar and spelling patterns. If you don't know the tools, aren't interested in them, and aren't willing to learn about them, you won't be able to function as a writer.

Symptom 4: Detachment If you were popular in high school and part of the social whirl, you probably didn't observe things very well. You were too much a part of things to be objective about them. Someone who wasn't so popular, who was often an observer rather than a participant, could probably tell you a lot of things about that part of your life that you were too busy to notice. Observation is an essential skill for a writer, and accurate observation requires you to be a bit detached from the subject. This doesn't mean you have to be a lifelong social outcast (though it helps). You just have to be able to not always be at the center of things, the focus of everyone's attention.

So--- how many symptoms do YOU have? Are there any symptoms that ought to have made the list but didn't?

How I Joined Tencent Weibo, China's Facebook/Twitter

Step 1: Went to the Tencent Weibo home page, English version.

Step 2: Discovered that I needed a QQ account to log in to Tencent Weibo.

Step 3: Went to QQ homepage. There, discovered I needed to go to their English version. I clicked on the 'sign up' button on the right and followed directions.

Step 4: Went back to Tencent Weibo and logged in. Tried to create an account. Found that it seemed to want me to give a real name in Chinese characters.

Step 5: Searched for site to put my name in Chinese. Found lots. Most did not include a cut-and-paste version of the Chinese name. Found one that did. It did not have the name 'Nissa' but did have 'Nessa'. My Chinese name is: 内萨

Step 6: I put 内萨 as my real name. An account was created. http://t.qq.com/nissa_katoj If you start a Tencent Weibo account of your own, you can be my friend (or 'follower').

The Dust Mouse

Once there was a little girl named Demetra who never mopped under her bed. Before long, the space under her bed was full of dust. Little bits of dust clumped together into dust lumps. The dust lumps clumped together into dust balls. Finally, from the biggest dust ball, a dust mouse was born. It was about the size and color of a real mouse, but it looked fuzzier and dustier.

As soon as the dust mouse was born, she was hungry. Luckily, dust mice eat dust, and there was plenty of that under the bed. The dust mouse ate dust and grew bigger and bigger. She got as big as a cat--- she knew because sometimes Demetra's cat came under the bed to play with her. Before long, the dust mouse had eaten all the dust, and she didn't fit under Demetra's bed any more. She was too big.



The dust mouse decided it was time to find a better place to live. She chose the closet under the stairs. There was more room there, and there was plenty of dust to eat in the dust bag of the vacuum cleaner. Sometimes Demetra's mama wondered why the vacuum cleaner's dust bag never got full, but she was happy she didn't have to empty it any more. The dust mouse grew bigger and bigger with all that dust to eat. Before long, she didn't fit in the closet any more. She was too big. And there wasn't any other good place in the house for a dust mouse to live. The dust mouse was sad. She liked living in the house with Demetra and her mama and papa. She liked it when Demetra's friends came over to play. Demetra was the sort of girl who only played with children who were kind to dust mice.

But the dust mouse knew it was time to find a new home. Someplace with a lot of room, and where there was enough dust to eat. The dust mouse remembered Demetra talking about the city dump. That was a very big place. And all the dust from all the vacuum cleaner bags in the city was taken to the city dump by the garbage trucks. There would be lots of dust to eat. So the dust mouse got a ride to the dump on one of the garbage trucks.

The dump was a nice home for a dust mouse. There were hundreds of garbage bags with vacuum cleaner dust bags in them, so she had a lot to eat. There was plenty of room to grow. And the dust mouse did grow. She grew bigger than a garbage dumpster. She grew bigger than the garbage trucks that came every week bringing more bags of dust. Soon she was even bigger than the little house where the dump man lived.

But the dust mouse was lonely in her new home. She missed Demetra and the other children who played in Demetra's house. There were no children playing at the dump, and that made the place seem sad and quiet. After a while, she decided to go back to live at Demetra's house.

But getting to Demetra's house was not easy. Maria and Rolf, the garbage truck drivers, tried to give the dust mouse a ride to Demetra's house on the garbage truck. But the dust mouse was too big to ride on the garbage truck any more. So she had to walk the whole way. She walked through farmers' fields, and got all covered with dirt. She walked through the fishing pond, and got all covered with pond mud. She walked through the park behind Demetra's house, and got all covered with grass seed from the grass seeding machine. Finally she came to Demetra's backyard fence. But she was too big to fit in Demetra's backyard.

The dust mouse was tired from all the walking she did. She wanted to take a long nap before deciding what to do next.

The dust mouse slept for a long time. She slept when the leaves fell from the trees in fall. She slept when the snow fell in winter. She didn't wake up until after the snow melted in spring.

When the dust mouse woke up, she found out she couldn't move from the spot where she'd been sleeping. She thought maybe the mud and dirt and grass seed on her outside had got stuck in place over the winter. But she didn't mind. She liked being outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine. She even wished she could stay there for always.

The spring rains soon made the grass seed sprout. Soon the dust mouse was covered with growing green grass.

"Look, a big green hill! Let's play on it!" said a voice the dust mouse knew well. It was Demetra. Soon all the neighborhood children were playing on the big green hill. They came back every day to play. Before long, grownups donated playground equipment to be put at the top of the hill, so even more children came to play. And the big green hill, which had been born a little dust mouse under Demetra's bed, was happy and stayed there for always.

c 1994 Nissa Annakindt
The moral of the story--- never mop. Ever.

My Nano novel isn't failing badly enough.... yet

My nano novel Bakoun has been stalled for some time, as readers can see from my lack-of-progress meter. But that level of failure isn't good enough. If I'm going to fail, I want to do a good job of it! So I have the following plans:

1. Everything I have written so far is to be junked. Yes, there is a character or two I can keep--- well, one character, anyway. But all the actual word count is to be zeroed.

2. I'm changing the time in which the story is set. Well, actually, the story starts in the Victorian era and then goes to 1984, 1994, 2004 and so on until the actual near-future invasion starts. I'm thinking of setting the whole thing in the Victorian and or Edwardian era.

3. The setting gives me the chance to go all steampunky. Though anything I write could never be true steampunk. According to my sources (random internet sites) steampunk has to be correctly punk by being in rebellion against a prescribed list of things. I never rebel against the correct things in the correct manner.

4. My new plans require me to write up a brief timeline of Esperanto history, and of the eugenics/euthanasia movement. There are lots of cool quotes about the need for 'lethal chambers' which I can work in.

5. Another research requirement: I must throw together an outline of an alien invasion novel (Worldwar: In the Balance) so that I can see how a real writer handles a global story with multiple groups of characters, including alien ones.

6. The Korean characters I was planning to introduce will now be living in the American West, and running a Chinese restaurant (which serves Korean food, since Americans of the time can't tell the difference.)

7. There will be a boy named Alf from Linz, Austria who might be Hitler. There is a man who may be a time traveler who wants to kill him.

8. There will be robots. Big ones. And steampunky computers. Perhaps the result of alien technology being leaked? Perhaps also a steampunky 'blood-reader' machine that scans DNA?

9. Given these plans, by the end of NaNoWriMo, my word count should be around zero. Is it too early to think about National Novel Finishing Month???

Happy Birthday to Who?

Amanda Borenstadt shared this with me on my birthday yesterday. The Doctor and Weird Al--- totally the best present I got! Way better than the mammogram that my new doctor's office inflicted on me on the day (that's why you should never get poor, they schedule your appointments without asking you and then get huffy when you say you have plans....)