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Life Acrostic Sonnet Series
This is not the collection of sonnets I wrote between 31st of July and 25th of August. Nor is it the Free Verse connecting thread I wrote some time last year. Instead, I am going to post the acrostic phrases for each one. I wrote them all (except one: the one on eukaryotic cell division) in the Shakespearian mode with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg. The one on cell division's acrostic phrase is the two types of cell division, each of which is 7 letters long, which thus divided the sonnet neatly into two equal halves. I debated whether to rhyme it aabbbaa/ccdddcc or aabbbaaaabbbaa, and decided on the former because it would be slightly easier (It was still a bugger to write that first 7 letter bit) and because Mitosis and Meiosis are distinct and have very different purposes and results, so thought it would help distinguish these differences. At least I got to mention sex in this one! Below is the set of acrostic phrases along with the title of each sonnet. The naming scheme is as follows: L.A.S.S. is an abbreviation of "Life Acrostic Sonnet Series". (Innit nice when acronyms spell out something sweet?) This is followed by the date on which the sonnet was written, which is in turn followed by a number in brackets which gives the order number it was written in. Thus, L.A.S.S. 31-07-2022 (1) was the first sonnet to be written and it was written on the 31st of July. On the 1st of August, I broke my old record of 5 Acrostic Petrarchan Sonnets in one day. On this day, I banged off 10 while doing the laundry. I was kind of disabled for parts of August and couldn't do much of anything except lie down on my back to ease the pain. Since I also buggered up both wrists during this period, I couldn't hold a pen to write with either.
Looking at the acrostic phrases, I realise some of this might seem a little too technical. Ah well, I am a Biologist, sigh … Could have been worse, since I also have an unaccredited minor in Mathematics! Alas, I never got a full degree in Maths because I had to have so many credits of computer science, and taking a 3rd year CompuSci course being my third go at trying to learn computer science and failing miserably each time, (In this case, in a class of 360 students, I was literally bottom of the class.) I gave it up as a bad job. I console myself by observing that no one is good at everything and there will always be things other people can do and do well, that others cannot. I also console myself for being such a complete duffer in computer science by reminding myself that the kinds of nerds who do well at it, tend to be people with inadequate social skills and bad hygiene! (At least, that seems to be the stereotype and who am I to argue with it. I mean Mark Zuckerberg looks like an out-take from the X files for chrissakes!)
L.A.S.S. 31-07-2022 (1) "The Selfish Gene"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (2) "An Evolving Door"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (3) "Fit To Propagate"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (4) "Which Came First"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (5) "The Diploid Ploy"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (6) "Not A Tree Of Life"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (7) "First True Cells"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (8) "Archeobacteria"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (9) "Photosynthesis"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (10) "Chemoautotroph"
L.A.S.S. 01-08-2022 (11) "Eukaryotic Cell"
L.A.S.S. 02-08-2022 (12) "Eubacteria Cell"
L.A.S.S. 02-08-2022 (13) "Protist Problem"
L.A.S.S. 04-08-2022 (14) "Two Slime Moulds"
L.A.S.S. 04-08-2022 (15) "Kingdom Plantae"
L.A.S.S.04-08-2022 (16) "What Is Animalia?" (ends with a question)
L.A.S.S. 05-08-2022 (17) "All Those Algaes"
L.A.S.S. 08-08-2022 (18) "Blue Green Algae"
L.A.S.S. 09-08-2022 (19a) "Energy Transfer"
L.A.S.S. 09-08-2022 (19b) "Energy Transfer"
L.A.S.S. 09-08-2022 (20) "Heterotrophism"
L.A.S.S. 12-08-2022 (21) "Bound Magnesium"
L.A.S.S. 12-08-2022 (22) "Chelated Metals"
L.A.S.S. 13-08-2022 (23) "An Oxygen Dilema" (I hope I spelled "dilema" correctly. I have some vague idea it has 2 m's instead of 1.)
L.A.S.S. 13-08-2022 (24) "Essential Sugar"
L.A.S.S. 14-08-2022 (25) "Nucleotide Base"
L.A.S.S. 14-08-2022 (26) "The Double Helix"
L.A.S.S. 15-08-2022 (27) "The Genetic Code"
L.A.S.S. 16-08-2022 (28) "Enzyme Catalyst"
(Interlude: short free verse poem on Mentha canadensis)
L.A.S.S. 16-08-2022 (29) "Plasma Membrane"
L.A.S.S. 18-08-2022 (30) "Enzyme Pathways"
L.A.S.S. 18-08-2022 (31) "Carbon Fixation"
L.A.S.S. 19-08-2022 (32) "Nitrogen Fixing"
L.A.S.S. 19-08-2022 (33) "Coenocytic Cell"
L.A.S.S. 20-08-2022 (34) "Microbial Biome"
L.A.S.S. 20-08-2022 (35) "Bacteriophages"
L.A.S.S. 21-08-2022 (36) "Gaia Hypothesis"
L.A.S.S. 22-08-2022 (37) "Ruderal Species"
L.A.S.S. 22-08-2022 (38) "A Fungal Kingdom"
L.A.S.S. 22-08-2022 (39) "Phosphodiester"
L.A.S.S. 22-08-2022 (40) "Polymerisation"
L.A.S.S. 24-08-2022 (41) "The Peptide Bond"
L.A.S.S. 24-08-2022 (42) "All About Carbon"
L.A.S.S. 24-08-2022 (43) "Non-Living Virus" (I meant to end Line 3 with a dash, but forgot to do this!)
(The last three come under the sub-heading, "68th Birthday Sonnets")
L.A.S.S. 25-08-2022 (44) "Mitosis/Meiosis" (Rhymed aabbbaa/ccdddcc)
L.A.S.S. 25-08-2022 (45) "The Top Predator" (H. sap)
L.A.S.S. 25-08-2022 (46) "What's Symbiosis" (Line 5 begins' 's) I should have ended it with ? but ended it with ! instead. I had set myself the goal of completing the series on the 25th.
In most cases, I tried to inject both a little humour in the form of irony, as well my own feelings of wonder and awe at this incredible thing we call Life. I mean, what distinguishes living from non-living? Biologists had a set of conditions they put forward as a definition, but, even when I was in first year, I thought it was inadequate, and have since come up with my own. Secondly, what switched on in that first cell to make it come alive? That there is some spark of life becomes apparent when something dies and we see the life disappear through its eyes (as I did when I insisted on holding our cat as it was being put down – a horrible experience which caused an overwhelming sense of guilt in me at the time). So what is it and how did it switch on? It is a mystery and a marvel beyond compare.
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I might post the connecting thread on here, but 47 acrostic sonnets seems like it might be a bit too much and would only try people's patience. I should note that I came up with the idea for this series last year, came up with most of the acrostic phrases in January and February (except for a couple just before my birthday) and then lost heart to bother writing them. I was feeling extremely pessimistic about Life and about my Poetry in particular: why bother writing them if no one, not even my closest friends and relatives will even want to look at them, much less read them. Then I came back to NeoPoet and discovered that there are people who will rad my poems and even comment favourably on them. That was a bit of a lifesaver for me as a Poet.
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Comments
Lavender
Sat, 2022-08-27 23:26
Life Acrostic Sonnet Series
Hello, Lord Barham,
A few things:
*I am impressed with your acronym. L.A.S.S. (It IS sweet!) And very impressed in general, that you seem to be the king of sonnets!
*I hope your wrists are healing well.
*I think your choice to stay with your cat is brave and compassionate, even though it led to a bit of guilt.
*Now, I cannot promise to read all of your sonnets, but I am curious about them. How do we get to them?
Thank you!
Lavender
Lord Barham
Sun, 2022-08-28 00:34
repy to question
Thanks for the vote of confidence! My wrists healed up with Naproxen 500s, as did the utterly debilitating pain on the lower right side of my back that seemed to have no obvious cause (and which led to my wrists getting buggered up, because I could not sit in or on anything, but could only stand or lie down on a firm surface. Spurs or arthritis in my right heel at the time, made standing too long painful (like having a sharp rock in one's shoe), so decided to throw a matt down on the back deck and lie down on it. I can't use my knees to get up from a prone position because of arthritis in them both, so used both hands, which buggered up my wrists causing arthritis flare ups on both. Naproxen got rid of all of this when I finally gave up and decided to take some (I try to avoid NSAIDS: it have a friend who is waiting for a kidney thanks to over-using NSAIDs). Unfortunately, the problem as the problem in my right wrist was easing off, it developed in my right index finger, flaring up and getting gouty, making writing painful, thus causing another delay in finishing the series. This past year has been a bugger, pain and stiffness in one place or other (or in several) since March.
Regarding the 47 sonnets, I'm not sure. I want to place them inside the free Verse connector to see how it reads and they all likely need editing and polishing, since I wrote them fairly quickly. (I'm sure I banged off some of them in less than 20 minutes, so they must be a bit rough round the edges.) If NeoPoet has some sort of thing for publishing summat like that, perhaps I will do it on here. Otherwise, if you really do want to see them, I can always email them to you as an attachment. But let me get 'em to the point where I am as satisfied with them as I can be.
author commentLord Barham
Tue, 2022-09-13 15:29
still at it!
Sonnets have been edited through once a couple of weeks ago, except LASS 01-08-2022 (4) which I edited today. It was supposed to end in a question, and today, I managed to do that. Currently working on a glossary of terms used in Biology to make the sonnets easier to understand for those who might not know, for example, that Cnidaria is a Phylum of Kingdom Animalia whose members have a diffused (as opposed to centralised) nervous system. It includes the true corals (as opposed to coraline algae), sea anemones and jellyfish, among others. I hope to make the glossary useful and easy to use and reference, by ordering it according to category rather than strictly alphabetically. Thus, the organisation of biological organisms (some of which, such as viruses, are not currently accepted as "living" organisms) into divisions, what those divisions are, and so on. "Empire", Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, not to mention un-named "clades" (clade also to be defined). My own name for the ultimate clade was "Imperion", which is Esperanto, which I came up with in 1991 in a First Year Biology class at Kwantlen College when I had decided to go back to school to become a Biologist at the age of 36. Empire was subsequently proposed by some big shot academic at Harvard or Yale or summat like that in 1998 for the same thing. I am essentially Nobody (my fave character in Deadman), so the big guy back East gets all the credit for coming up with this idea! Godamnit! (I get scooped a lot in Biological matters, sigh …)
If people are interested in how all this goes. I will keep posting about progress.
author commentLavender
Tue, 2022-09-13 18:30
Hello!
I could never promise to read all of them, but I am curious to read one or two, if that's possible, from a poet's perspective of the sonnet form and style. It sounds like there is a lot to consider with your unique approach. I wish you the best!
L
Lord Barham
Thu, 2022-09-15 13:24
addendum
Today I correct Lass LASS 24-08-2022 (43) so as to end Line 3 with a dash! It was tricky!
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