Thank you FPR for engaging us in a month of fascinating poetry born from your twisted prompts ! The last and final prompt #30 came from Doug Luman.
Write a poem using “phonewords” made from the letters found by translating a phone number which is significant to you. For example, if I were to use 1-800-Flowers’ phone number (356-9377, after the 1-800), the translation would give me a possible letter bank of def,jkl,mno,wxyz,pqrs—any words that use these letters are fair game for my poem. For example, using these letters on this flower text gives me the words which constitute the following poem:
Follow my eyes. See folds of seeds. Does old me know
elder words for joy, or lore from newer woods. See
woe. See Eden. See snowdrop. See poor me. See moon.
Handily, at http://www.appliedpoetics.org there’s a function for accomplishing this constraint. Navigate to “Numerology,” find “Phonewords” and proceed! But, before you do, note that this generator assumes a maximum of seven (7) digits, so there’ll be at least three letters you won’t be able to use.
Here’s what I came up with.
Source : Random text from mithilareview.com
The phone number used was 9426073496
Her home
a bare garden
She
a corner gardener
Brooding
rooms of shadow
Smears of grey
on a drain corded by black
Dipping branches of her body
in the singing of a crow.
Vinita Words 