I’m participating in Laura Shovan’s February Challenge this year. I must confess that I haven’t been as consistent as usual in my participation. I think right now I’m at a 50% response rate. I’m trying to look at that as half success, rather than as half failure. At any rate, I’m hoping to rectify that moving forward. (Yay for weekends!)
Our first prompt was essentially to deconstruct or mess around with a narrative or its structure. While initially this felt a bit brain-twisty, eventually I found it fascinating. I loved reading all the amazingly creative takes on it, too. I shared one response with the group, but was inspired to write another one as well.
(Photo credit to : markmatucciphoto)
“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
The other version
That Dog
laid still,
played dead.
He wasn’t lazy
not at all
And that Fox
wasn’t quite
as quick as
he claimed.
Though he was brown.
Then.
That Fox did jump
or try to jump
over that still
seemingly lazy Dog.
But that wily Dog
stood up
with a Woof shake Woof
catching that Fox
in a brief mid-air
limbtangle.
Then that Dog
untangled himself,
and shrugged off Fox
and trotted away
with a lazy grin.
That Fox dusted off
his chagrin,
blushing red
from tip to tail,
and limped away…
not quite as quick
as before.
©Molly Hogan
This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Carol Varsalona at her blog, Beyond Literacy Link.
Nix the comfort zone 
Haha. Unexpected, Molly. Well done.
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Thanks, Kat! It was a lot of fun to write.
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This poem needs to be read aloud. With attitude. So. Much. Fun.
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I love how you played with this Molly – especially the limbtangle! Fun!
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Isn’t it fun to smoosh words together and make new ones!? lol
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Absolutely – especially when you are good at it, such as yourself! 🙂
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So the lazy dog outwitted the quick brown fox – Interesting twist, Molly!
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I thought this was such a challenging prompt and it was interesting to see what narratives came to mind. This one surprised me!
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Awesome, Molly, love the ‘limbtangle’ & the re-make. Now we really know why foxes are red. This would be such fun to illustrate! Yah for weekends!
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“Not quite as quick as before!” This is so clever. I love when poetry inspires more poetry. I believe that it was Billy Collins who complained about this problem? not problem.
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Oh, wow! How much fun to create a story out of this a-z phrase. Well done!
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It was fun! Glad you liked it 🙂
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I think this quick brown fox needs to meet Alan’s quirky people.
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This is such fun! I love that woof shake woof and the fox blushing red from tip to tail.
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Thanks, Kay! My poetry has trended dark or at least somber lately, so this was a welcome change!
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what a very cool prompt (upending existing narratives)! I love what you did. I confess: “The quick brown fox…” evokes my year in typing class. I’m sure that was the sentence we had to repeatedly type to practice/improve our speed! – lol
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What fun! And what a cool prompt, as Patricia said. Another one to try soon.
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So many prompts! So little time!
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How fun! I like the grin and chagrin. 🙂 Well played.
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