Tuesday, April 5, 2011

N+7 The Lord's Prayer

N+7...replacing nouns with nouns seven down the line in the dictionary...I'll be using dictionary.com.
 
"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil."
 
Now the N+7 version...this should be interesting.
Our father christmases in heavenborn, hallowed be your name calling.
Your kingdom fungi come,
your Will Bagley be done,
on Ear Cecil as it is in heavenborn.
Give us this day blindness our daily breach of duty,
and forgive us our debt issues,
as we also have forgiven our debuggers.
And lead us not into tempura,
but deliver us from Evil Eyne.
....so yeah...that's...something alright. I don't know, maybe it's because I used dictionary.com, but I've got this weird feeling I would hate this regardless. It's like trying to put structure to randomness. And to do it without actual reason. If I wanted to make some chaos and write down words that came from my brain, it would at least be done with the intent of letting the world know that fire-chickens strangulate the populace of a local McDonalds in New Guinea tuna shower train-station. I mean really, that right there says something about something (namely to not ever trust me with a stream of conscious), but this N+7 thing is like (at least to me) deliberately trying to make the world a more structurally stupid place. Is it interesting? Sometimes, if you're lucky. Is it talent...well, only as much as flipping a few pages in a book is talent. Is it original? I don't know, maybe...sue me, I don't like it. That's what I'm trying to say.
That being said, it did make me chuckle a little bit. And hey, that's worth it right? After all, what's the world without a bit of laughter. 
THAT  being said, I'm going to go find something very entertaining to do. Feel the laughs people!

2 comments:

  1. Corey, sounds like you are getting ready to write that paper, "what is poetry?" (and what is not . . .). But at least if you get a few surprises and some hilarity out of the exercise it's a good thing, I think. No lasting work of genius will come from it, but it helps us get closer to something in the original, I think, that our familiarity with it obscures.

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  2. Great choice for this assignment! It is fascinating to see how what effect the N+7 technique has on a more serious "poem." It goes to show that each word is intended for a specific message and just changing them slightly can result in a drastically different result.

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