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How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change a Poet?

How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change a Poet?

So we're coming up towards the end of the year and what has it given us? Word of the year is, apparently, Youthquake.

I was puzzled at first. Is that a noun: my goodness, how funky you look in that youthquake! Is it a verb: I'm going to go youthquaking around the skateboard park and see if anyone wants to buy my poetry pamphlet. Maybe it's a colour: I love your new youthquake Volvo, or an adjective: your youthquake wellies make me want to jump on the sofa with you and watch back-to-back episodes of Emerdale. Maybe it's a dessert: blakberry youthquake with spun sugar and a chocolate sauce ... are there any jobs for people who can think of something to do with a youthquake?

... I suppose it could be rhymed with fake, or slant rhyme it with vague ... so, because I know you're itching to know, here is what a youthquake actually is:

It was first coined in the 1960s by Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, who used it to describe sudden changes in fashion, music and attitudes.
Oxford Dictionaries said its use had seen a recent resurgence, to describe young people driving political change.
Oxford Dictionaries' Casper Grathwohl said it was "not an obvious choice". But he said Youthquake's use in everyday speech had increased five-fold during 2017.
"In the UK, where it rose to prominence as a descriptor of the impact of the country's young people on its general election, calls it out as a word on the move,"
(from BBC Website on Word of the Year)

The Poetry Massif

Massif
A collective term for a large number of people, bigger than the regular crew or posse.

Majority of people, tends to refer to the working class.
(from Urban Dictionary

If I were in charge of deciding on the group noun for a collection of poets, I'd go with a shard of poets, a verbage of poets or a rhyme of poets. Others have, apparently, deliberated on this very matter already.

The Collective Nouns website states that the correct collective noun for a group of poets is Iamb, Obsucurity or Rhyme. A 2014 Stanza vote sought suggestions, with the following result: The winner was "a metre of poets" ... personally I liked ‘a poverty of poets’ but wouldn't it be nice if there was a day job of poets! ;)

the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected, will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince pies, and solemnizing of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you.
(from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte)

A compounding of Christmas cakes ... mmmmmm, reader, I asked her to marry me!

Light at the End of the Terza Rima

How many Country & Western singers does it take to change a light bulb?

Four. One to change it, one to sing about how heartbroken he is at the loss of the old one, one to sing about how madly in love she is with the new one, and one to go "Yeeeee-Hawh!" and throw his hat in the air.
(from The Voice of Reason)

SO How Many Poets Does it Take to change a lightbulb? Firstly I'm going to use lightbulb without a space because, although lightbulbs are indeed quite light, I might get confused and pop a not very heavy daffodil bulb into the socket, which would disappoint me immensely in the spring. Lightbulbs are, in fact, an indulgence for blind poets. If we buy them it's to show off that we've been paid for enough poems to afford lightbulbs and electricity, and to indicate that we're actually still alive. I've not conducted extensive research into this conundrum, but my gut feeling tells me that it takes one poet to change a lightbulb, plus a dozen more to write sonnets, villanelles, free form jazz poetry, terza rima and haiku about the experience.

So, on that note, check all the bulbs in your Christmas tree lights are blinking obediently and I'll see you next week for Christmas Eve! :)

#Poetry #Connundrums #ChristmasCake @StAnzaPoetry

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