#acrostic

[mikefrawley]

Gratitude

Gliding high upon the wings of love Riding the wind as softly as a dove At peace with all the great and small Taking aback by the beauty of it all Into life's mystery we walk the miles Today we rest and an angel smiles Unloading all days of future and past Dwelling in each moment fading fast Eternity greets us and the die is cast

[chasingbluebirds]

ace week acrostic

here's to the queer ones who find attraction irrelevant to their experience, pursuing not people but their own paths through a society that says, "you need a partner to be happy in life"

a group whose love is no less consequential, deep, profound, even as they call us less than human

where the black, grey, white, and purple invoke emblems of community at October's end, ever have we been, ever shall we still be, and know this: we are here and we are proud

[softinvasions]

[ and ] • Nov. 2023

only you resist      every ending reeling with grief     undone in perpetual longing   reconstructing how I looked when    you emboldened by that  deathless unreachable light    imagined singing and turned carrying on;             endless.

[kiennwrites]

Ghosts in the Narrative

what's stopping authors from adding hidden messages and codes into their novel?

that's right. ciphers.

we're talking ergodic literature babey. house of leaves. S. pale fire.

i like to call this device ghosts in the narrative.

and the way i write these ghosts is by sneaking acrostics into dialogue between characters. it's like... literary possession.

How do I do this?

you hide a message using an acrostic- which is basically just a null cipher. if you take the first letter of every word in a specified sequence, you get a hidden message.

Here's an example from "The Vane Sisters" by Vladimir Nabokov (1951):

I could isolate, consciously, little. Everything seemed blurred, yellow-clouded, yielding nothing tangible. Her inept acrostics, maudlin evasions, theopathies - every recollection formed ripples of mysterious meaning. Everything seemed yellowly blurred, illusive, lost.

- "The Vane Sisters" Vladimir Nabokov (1951)

which, by taking the first letter of each word, reads:

Icicles by Cynthia. Meter from me Sybil.

The prose on its own reads nicely, but is innocuous to the unknowing reader. Upon noticing the hidden message, the narrative takes a twist- the ghosts of the sisters have been speaking to the narrator this whole time!

The cipher can be worked on many levels- the first letter of each page, paragraph, sentence, word. the complexity is up to you, whether you start at the word, sentence, or line level.

for my works, i usually like to string out my acrostics at the paragraph level. For example, within each line of dialogue between characters, separated by breaks. as a rule of thumb, the less fine it is, the easier to work your hidden message in.

Give it a try!

Just imagine:

first you lay out your core plot, the de facto happenings of your story that can't be denied- concrete stuff.

out of nowhere, or maybe even gradually as a tease, your mc starts making remarks or comments that could have double meanings. like they might be talking to someone else. listening, speaking, to a ghost- A GHOST- this whole damn time.

of course, placing some clues for an acute reader might clue them in and give them extreme catharsis during the reveal, if that's what you want- or you can punch them in the face with it.

with a bit of literary grit and wordsmithing, you can add a nice layer to your narrative. might even be something you employ to change the reality of your story entirely- all in the hands of the sneaky author devil.

ergodic literature babey.

Favorite tool in my writer toolbox: Ghosts in the Narrative

make your writing ergodic with ciphers!

just like i did with this post.

[beebopboom]

Acrostic ✨Clues ✨

So a neat little thing Good Omens did for the promo for s2 was create some character playlist.

Very quickly though it was discovered that each and every one of them contained a hidden clue word. By taking the first letter of the first word of the song a word related to the character would emerge. For the two examples below the words were “Ineffable” and “Tempting”.

Now this technique is called Acrostic,

Acrostic - a composition usually in verse in which sets of letters (such as the initial or final letters of the lines) taken in order form a word or phrase or a regular sequence of letters of the alphabet

it’s a technique mostly seen in poems to contain hidden words, often the authors name.

but I wouldn’t be bringing this back up if it wasn’t for nothing and that’s because we see this technique in the show as well.

When Jim is really embodying his role as Assistant Bookseller he takes it upon himself to reorganize the books by the first letter of the first word of the first sentence - sounds familiar.

Except he’s doing alphabetically not to contain a hidden word you say? 

Well hold on to that real quick while I point out another clue Jimbriel says,

“There will come a tempest, and darkness, and great storms. And the dead will leave their graves and walk the earth once more. And there will be great lamentations."

Well now that I brought that quote back to your attention we are just going to focus on one particular word, Lamentations.

because what if I told you that the first four poems in the Book of Lamentations are written in an acrostic style.

Not just any style either but where each poetic verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. 

Now the Book of Lamentations is separated into five poems from different pov’s about the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. by the Babylonians.

The organization and rigid structure to the first four poems was really meant to contrast from the grief and disorder the people were going through. Structure that the last poem loses. Hm Interesting.

(we are not going to be looking into what this book is about I am just pointing out structure similarities here)

Expect this not the only way this structure can be used.

Acrostic structure’s are also often used as a mnemonic device. This is a learning technique that helps with memory retrieval or retention by associating things with something easier to remember, like say trigger words.

So then is it really a surprise that Jim, our Amnesiac Archangel, keeps using this structure subconsciously?

[nerdlingmerchling]

[adverbian]

Plausible Deniability

A Good Omens poem (read on AO3)

Ineffable (adj.) 1. Incapable of being expressed in words: indescribable, unspeakable. 2. Not to be uttered: taboo.

I lie to you with every word I say. No straight and narrow path I walk with you — Each word will twist and tangle, fret and fray.

False is my virtue — but my faith is true. False must I speak — but still, I testify. And false you swear for me, and I for you —

Bound to defend, and so we must deny. Lie with me, love. Accept my perjured vow: Each word unsaid is yours, and so am I.

(Written for a poetry game in the @goodomensafterdark Writers Guild. Prompt: Acrostic poem.)

(Reblogs & AO3 comments always appreciated! ❤️)

(Header image adapted from "241/366 - Negativer Raum / Negative Space" by Boris Thaser, licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

[thesilicontribesman]

'Rotas Square' Early Religious Acrostic, 2nd Century CE Roman Plaster, Corinium Museum, Cirencester

[snissel613]

In piyyutim there are two kinds of acrostics:

Type 1: Standard alphabetical acrostic followed by the author’s full name, followed by “chazak”

Type 2: If you look at first letter of the first word of the first line, then the second letter of the second word of the second line, it spells out “Shai,” no one with that name is known from that time/place

[stirlinqs]

‘twas practicing my acrostic poetry — here is an acrostic poem dedicated to charlie dalton 🐈‍⬛

[definegodliness]

Summer's splendour

Below the great unending Maya blue, One picture perfect puffy lamb drifts lazily Over flowing fields paling to parchment, Toward nothing more than another day Absolved from priorities and expectations; Yesterday flowed, and drifted by, the same, Sojourning within Summer's splendour.

--- 26-8-2024, M.A. Tempels ©

[thepersonalwords]

S:uch is Heaven on Earth, in all landA:s the sun brightens to the moon N:ails the Creation in a palm of a hand, D:ancing IT makes the desert bloom.

Ana Claudia Antunes, ACross Tic

[tickety-boooo]

Good Omens Poetry: Aug-Kissed 8

Prompt 8 for @aug-kissed: Using Tongue~ I did an acrostic for this one! :P

Teasing one another with a wordless language Open mouths, messy with spit, but unbothered Notes of grape, aged finely and imbibed eagerly Grins and giggles interject our intimate expression Un baiser amoureux, something so natural Even a serpent must explore the world with its tongue

[priestperverter]

[airplane-in-a-bottle]

Dreaming

If it was

Eternal

[nerdlingmerchling]