#acrostics

[is-the-thing-actually-jewish]

Hey, I've noticed a theme within some Jewish prayer and stuff where alphabetical order crops up in multiple, and I'm wondering if alphabetical order has some kind of Jewish significance? And if so, why? I find it a neat feature of prayer when it's alphabetical, but I'd like to know why it's there.

Rating: Acrostics are Jewish

A substantial amount of Jewish liturgy does indeed follow alphabetical order! There are two main reasons for this: the practical and the theological.

Practical: Acrostic structure aids in memorization in pre-printing press society. Many of these prayers were originally composed as part of an oral tradition, and even after we got used to writing things down, producing books was quite expensive. When you can't count on the whole congregation having the words in front of them, it really helps to remember what comes next when there's a clear order to it.

Theologically: Using the whole alphabet symbolizes a sense of completion or scope when struggling to describe the Ultimately Indescribable (i.e., God.) We know that there simply aren't ever going to enough words to praise God, so we symbolically include all the words by at least including something for every letter from aleph to tav.

[munchingonpaper]

Poems

P eeking

O n

E veryone's

M ental

S tates

[jaydove-writes]

I'm bored

Ask me questions about my OCs and tell me about yours.

Here are some Starbourne traits that every Starbourne character has.

Force: Passion, Desire, Joy, Hope, Trust, Clarity, or Love. These determine personality traits and non-elemental magical abilities.

Element: Light, Water, Air, Earth, Fire, or Shadow. These determine what kinds of magic the character can use or protect themselves from. Also can be coupled with Forces for personality types. (Yes that means there are 42 personality types as opposed to the MBTI's 16)

Age: Pretty self explanatory, but one thing I should mention is that adulthood starts at 17 instead of 18.

Tenets: Things the character strongly believes in. (Like pacifism, prayer, chastity, or something similar)

Homeworld: The planet they were born on. The Starbourne equivalent to Earth is Terra Nova. (Literally New Earth) Other planets include Feria, Stellaria, Luderia, Draconia, and you can also make up your own.

Entitlements: What your characters believe they deserve (whether they actually deserve these things is irrelevant)

Relationships: Who they have bonds with, be they romantic, platonic, familial, or strictly professional

Yes I made an acrostic, I love those things.

[penhive]

Journal dated Oct 14th 2024

Quotes

How to put thoughts into action especially life affirming thoughts.

Beauty is a mirror appreciating art.

Passion bubbles as joy.

Taste the life of sweetness

Good words are a comfort for the soul.

Celebrate the poetry of the body.

The muses are fond of me.

The bed is an amorous concoction of poetry.

I am of a contrite spirit.

Be the thing of thought and the queen of action.

Still Life Prose

I heard the gate close with a clang.

Ants are moving like pedestrian crossings on the floor.

A witch is moving across the wind in happy colors, gay motion, sweet poetry, dancing beatitudes, melodious harmony, ecstatic sound of colors, a monument of hues, a concoction of aesthetic symbolism, a pastry of flight, a song of the rainbow, a mellifluous wow, a sunshine of sapphire.

Idiom

Santa’s Bag

Santa’s bag as an idiom means getting money from unexpected quarters.

I look forward to getting a Santa’s bag.

Altar an Acrostic

A

Life’s

Thought to be blessed and worship

And to be a

Reverence

[pangur-and-grim]

I'm the opposite of a free-verse person. I love finding formats so complex that their instructions look like summoning circles. it is FUN!! I am PLAYING!!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Acrostic

Acrostic poem - a type of poem where the first letter of each line (or each paragraph) forms a hidden message or word.

A fun way to craft an ode to your beloved or a sneaky form of dissent—public resignations by disgruntled officials are a particularly popular place to deploy one—acrostic poetry can be very simple and spare, or take a more understated form in full verse.

The word “acrostic” comes from the French acrostiche, descended from the Ancient Greek phrase meaning “highest, or topmost verse.” Acrostics (like their cousin, the acronym) can also be highly useful mnemonic devices.

How to Write an Acrostic Poem

Unlike other forms of poetry, there are no rules when it comes to rhyme or meter for acrostics, so writing one can be a relaxing kind of word puzzle. You may find that you develop a naturally consistent rhythm or line length as you make your way through.

To write your own acrostic, break apart a single word, so that the individual letters become the initial letters of their own respective lines (or, if you like, the last letters of each line).

Let the word you chose serve as the theme of the poem; get inspired by nature, like in haiku, or use the name of your best friend to extol upon their virtues.

You can also craft an acrostic by listing out the letters of the alphabet in order, a variation called an abecedarius. (An abecedarian sounds easy enough, but the real trick comes when you reach x.)

Examples of Acrostic Poems

Acrostics were incredibly popular in medieval literature, where the hidden words were tucked in as tributes to a wealthy patron or prayers to a saint. They even appeared in the original Hebrew of The Old Testament, popping up in psalms and proverbs.

Classical literary examples of acrostics include this unnamed ode to an Elizabeth from Edgar Allan Poe, written around 1829 and only discovered after his death:

Elizabeth it is in vain you say "Love not"—thou sayest it in so sweet a way: In vain those words from thee or L.E.L. Zantippe's talents had enforced so well: Ah! if that language from thy heart arise, Breath it less gently forth—and veil thine eyes. Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried To cure his love—was cured of all beside— His follie—pride—and passion—for he died.

Lewis Carroll often wrote acrostics for the neighboring Liddell girls, Lorina, Alice, and Edith, like this one from Christmas of 1861:

Little maidens, when you look On this little story-book, Reading with attentive eye Its enticing history, Never think that hours of play Are your only HOLIDAY.

And that in a HOUSE of joy Lessons serve but to annoy: If in any HOUSE you find Children of a gentle mind, Each the others pleasing ever.

Each the others vexing never- Daily work and pastime daily In their order taking gaily- Then be very sure that they Have a life of HOLIDAY.

And in his famous book, Through the Looking-Glass, Carrol’s ending chapter "A Boat, Beneath A Sunny Sky" is also an acrostic, featuring the full name of his main character’s namesake: Alice Pleasance Liddell.

A boat, beneath a sunny sky Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July - Children three that nestle near, Eager eye and willing ear, Pleased a simple tale to hear - Long has paled that sunny sky: Echoes fade and memories die: Autumn frosts have slain July. Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes. Children yet, the tale to hear, Eager eye and willing ear, Lovingly shall nestle near. In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die: Ever drifting down the stream - Lingering in the golden gleam - Life, what is it but a dream?

Source ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[personasratch]

more boys :D

[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

[beet-feet]

A sad acrostic poem I wrote from Crowley to Aziraphale

We Could Have Been Us

Words have lost all meaning

Every minute without you is a century

Cruel words of forgiveness still echo in my ears

Ocean blue eyes filled with tears plague my dreams

Under your wing, I fell harder than the rain

Loving you is what I was made for

Death would be a kindness

Hell has no torture like the agony you've caused

Alpha Centauri is lonely without you

Vavooming under a canopy was a fool's dream

Extraordinary amounts of alcohol won't numb the pain

Being with you was the definition of home

Existing without you is my own personal Hell

Every star I created pales next to you

Nothing I did was enough to make you stay

Unforgivable fiends like me don't get happy endings

Sleeping another hundred years will have to do 

[anonymousdandelion]

Oh, yes, the liturgy is full of acrostics! Both the alphabetical type (like Ashrei) and the type where the author "signs" their work by incorporating their name via acrostic.

It has occurred to me that Jewish acronyms and abbreviations seem to fall into four main categories:

shorthand for things related to Torah study (Tanakh, Rambam, etc.)

mnemonics to help with memorizing orders of things (d’tzach adash b’achav, YakNeHaZ... I'm sure there are non-Pesach-related examples too, they've just slipped my mind at the moment 😂)

friendly reminders that Hashem is present in everything (B"H, IYH, etc.)

expressions of mourning (BDE, Z"L, etc.)

...Upon reflection, this feels very in-character for our people.

[badcircusact]

"I ain't goin' anywhere, Sweet-Tooth"

Cricket and Clip ---> @venomous-qwille

Inspired by The Silent Voice by Gerald Moira

[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

[penhive]

Acrostic for Palestine

People oppressed

After a

Land

Evacuated as evil

Settlements a

Thing of

Immanence

Need for peace, a military

Epidemic

[kittenwivfangs]

K king for a day - pierce the veil

I I bet on losing dogs - mitski

T Thank you for the venom - my chemical romance

T Toxicity - system of a down

E Echoplex - Nine inch nails

N National Anthem - Lana del rey

W wake me up when September ends - Green day

I I could die for you - red hot chilli peppers

V vampire empire - big thief

F Friday I'm in love - the cure

A April to death - Flower Face

N New slang - the shins

G girl anachronism - the dresden dolls

S Sarcasm - get scared

i was tagged by @prophetsbody to ‘assign a song to every letter of your username!’ ↓

b bookends theme - simon & garfunkel (duhhh)

o once i was - tim buckley

o oh how your love is strong - bert jansch

o over everything - kurt vile & courtney barnett

k karl blau - the microphones

e everything is embarrassing- sky ferreira

n no fun - the stooges

d don’t go back to paris - remy bond

s sixteen - marshall libby

i tag eeerrrrmmmm nobody. or everybody. whoever wants to do it can do it and whoever doesn’t want to doesn’t have to do it. Make Your Choice💌🙂‍↕️

[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.