Next Line, Please

Control Panel

By David Lehman | July 12, 2016

 

With thanks to all who contributed lines or comments on lines, we have a title (“Lucky You”), a first line (“Watching The Purple Rose of Cairo on the Independent Film Channel”) and now we have a rhyming second line provided by Millicent Caliban:

You’re freed from all that’s tawdry, dull and real by using your control panel.

So here is our poem so far:

Lucky You

Watching [The] Purple Rose of Cairo on the Independent Film Channel
You’re freed from all that’s tawdry, dull and real by using your control panel.

 

This opening promises a poem of rhyming couplets, with polysyllabic rhymes optimally. Each couplet will form a stanza. The polysyllabic rhymes will ensure a comic (perhaps satirical) edge.

But will it be a poem of maxims—or an examination of television and movies, Woody Allen’s in particular—or something else altogether? Line three will prove crucial.

Let’s have candidates for line three. They can begin with a participle (“-ing”) or not. They can name a different movie or not. They must end with a polysyllable such as “biology,” “faker,” “candidate,” “smart phone.”

Good luck to all. This is fun, so have fun with it.

Deadline: July 19, 2016, midnight in any time zone.

Permission required for reprinting, reproducing, or other uses.

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