Day 12: Imagination Stands in the Road

Our imagination is a powerful thing, it's what fuels us as children and hopefully continues to fuel us as adults. As I'm writing this, I have the Disney-Pixar movie "Inside Out" playing in the background. If you haven't seen it, it's a fun watch with some important life lessons that anyone can gather from it. 

One of the supporting characters is Bing Bong, the main character Riley's imaginary friend who she might have forgotten. He's mostly cotton candy, part cat, part elephant, and part dolphin as he describes himself. They went on adventures on their imaginary rocket, usually trips to the moon!

 Did you have an imaginary friend as a kid? Do you have one now? What about your kids if you have them? What are some adventures you went on? 

On a sadder note, when did you stop playing with your imaginary friend? What was the moment where you grew past that? 

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For those prompt lovers that commented nice things about my prompts last time, I have another for you! You'll either love me or hate me for it. Let's go around the world to France, for a 39 line poem called the sestina

Today I challenge you to try your hand at a sestina. Back in college when I was getting my poetry degree, I had to write several of these and hated most of those minutes. However, once I found my beat, I really found it and that was a pretty awesome feeling. 

A sestina is 39 lines, 6 stanzas with 6 lines each plus a tag. 

First, start with 6 words of your choice. Make sure you like them because you'll be using them over and over again. Take those words and rotate them at the ends of your stanzas. They rotate in a round with the last word of the last line being the last word of the first line in the next stanza.  Your lines can be any length, though it just looks nicer if they're quite regular. 

Example of how that will look with the words imagine(A), joy(B), coffee(C), clouds(D), rocket(E), music(F)

Stanza 1
Line 1-imagine (A)
Line 2-joy (B)
Line 3-coffee (C)
Line 4-clouds (D)
Line 5-rocket (E)
Line 6-music (F)

Stanza 2
Line 7-music(F)
Line 8-Imagine(A)
Line 9-rocket(E)
Line 10-joy(B)
Line 11-clouds (D)
Line 12-coffee(C)

Stanza 3
Line 13-coffee(C)
Line 14-music (F)
Line 15-clouds (D)
Line 16-imagine (A)
Line 17-joy (B)
Line 18-rocket(E)

Stanza 4
Line 19-rocket (E)
Line 20-coffee (C)
Line 21-joy (B)
Line 22-music (F)
Line 23-imagine (A)
Line 24-clouds (D)

Stanza 5
Line 25-clouds (D)
Line 26-rocket (E)
Line 27-imagine (A)
Line 28-coffee (C)
Line 29-music (F)
Line 30-joy (B)

Stanza 6
Line 31-joy(B)
Line 32-clouds(D)
Line 33-music (F)
Line 34-rocket(E)
Line 35-coffee (C)
Line 36-imagine (A)

Stanza 7
Line 37-imagine(A), joy (B)
Line 38-coffee (C), clouds (D)
Line 39-rocket (E), music (F)

There is a modification for an envoi for Stanza 7 

Line 37- imagine (A), joy (B), coffee (C)

Line 38- clouds (D), rocket (E), music (F) 

1. ABCDEF
2. FAEBDC
3. CFDABE
4. ECBFAD
5. DEACFB
6. BDFECA
7. (envoi) ECA or ACE or AB, CD, EF 

Do you love or hate me now? 

For those that hate me, maybe I can redeem myself with more normal prompts: 

Imagine yourself on a mountain: 

Word prompts: 

Joy, clouds, music, rocket, coffee, imagine. 

Cheers and sunshine, 

-Beverly Tan