ABCDarian!

Wait, what is that word?
ABCDarian -say it out loud and the clues fall into place; it's a piece structured by having the first letter of a line follow the sequence of the alphabet, an acrostic in alpha order, if you will. So, the first word in each line of a poem or in the sentence of a story begins with letters in alphabetic order: A, B,C, D, etc.  See the rich, trope-filled poem below by Cathy Park Hong.

We had fun with this in Jumpstart a few meetings ago. (Probably only two weeks, but feels like half-a-lifetime since then). It does take some fussing with, perfect for filling up some time.  You can use short lines in a poem -- or use longer sentences in a prose piece, but either way, part of the fun of the writing and the reading of it is seeing how the alphabet dictates the path.  Give a whirl! And feel free to post your result in the comments. 


ABCDarian Western by Cathy Park Hong

Paris Review, Issue no. 191 (Winter 2009) - 

Ate stew, shot a man,

Bandy body spraddled, so full of lead 

Cabron can’t even walk uphill.

Derringer spit out of bullets

Empty as a gutted steer

Found a soiled dove

Got me some cash roll for a night.

Hacienda next dawn,

Indian scalps round my neck.

Jacal shack full of hunched men

Kicked that hut down,

Limped them with shots, 

Morning to scalp them, 

Noontime, sang. 

Offal yarned in my satchel saddle 

Prairie oyster in the other,

Quit the flats, into town

Raised on prunes and proverbs

Scorched a church,

Threw down a priest hiding

Under mesquite shrub and blatting woolies,

Vaquero packs me with iron,

Wastes me easy as if
 
X marked my vest plain as

Yucca country.

Zanjero digs a ditch.