A couple of years ago I invented a form without being quite aware of it. I wrote a poem consisting mostly of lines lifted from other sources with exactly one letter changed in each lifted line.
The poem began, "A thong of beauty is a joy forever." Other lines included "'Dope' is the thing with feathers" and "'Deaf' was all he answered." (Thank you, Keats, Dickinson, and Frost.)
You get the idea.
Some might think this a sophomoric parlor game, and maybe it is, but you can say that of a lot of parlor games and of, too, a lot of embryonic forms and literary sub-genres, and this may be another case of the undervalued asset, limericks and puns being two others. Anyway I invented it.
I would love it if readers proposed examples.
My line of the day is from Auden.
"We must love one another or diet."
Now I will write "Ode to the West Wing." -- DL
Do not go mental into that good night.
Posted by: Carla Stevenson | July 14, 2010 at 03:35 PM
Shall I compare thee to a bummer's day.
Posted by: Marissa Despain | July 14, 2010 at 07:17 PM
Shall I compare thee to a summer's bay?
Posted by: Jacob Brooder | July 14, 2010 at 08:19 PM
And indeed there will be time to wonder / "Do I bare?" and "Do I care?"
Posted by: Stacey | July 15, 2010 at 07:34 AM
My mistress's thighs are nothing like the bun.
Posted by: Connie Fell | July 15, 2010 at 08:32 AM
a hose is a hose is a hose
Posted by: April | July 15, 2010 at 08:34 AM
I heard a self go whistling by
a port of artichoke of a house.
Posted by: Cathy McArthur | July 15, 2010 at 10:08 AM
two toads diverged in a yellow wood
Posted by: elias | July 16, 2010 at 09:58 AM
a thing of beauty is a toy forever
Posted by: chris ng | July 16, 2010 at 10:39 PM
Quoth the raven, "Never bore."
Posted by: Sally Ashton | July 18, 2010 at 07:59 AM
The days of swine and roses
Posted by: Jacob D. | July 18, 2010 at 09:33 AM
I saw the best rinds of my generation destroyed by badness
Posted by: Greg Santos | July 18, 2010 at 01:58 PM