Cheating today because it’s not a thread, nor is it from someone whose work has been unknown to me.
So sue me.
It’s a NaPo series by Scavella, which she’s calling The Ceremonial Building of a Waga. Talk about archetypal and resonant. Talk about cool litany and very very cool ritual. It’s like cave paintings. It’s petroglyph poetry, that’s what it is. Go read it.
Woohoo, Scavella!
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Woohoo indeed. Thanks for this, Nic — this is a set of poems about which I’m certainly not sure. But if it works, it’s something worth developing — not just with the Waga, but with all sorts of rituals that fascinated me in my study and teaching of anthropology.
What a rich field of material for poetry you have there! You could have a lot of fun both with individual ritual on its own terms as well as with contrasting rituals with the same purpose in different cultures. Look forward to seeing how this one ends up — it’s very hypnotic even in early draft form.