Poetry Challenge #251-Roll of the Dice
Know who coined the idiom “The die is cast”?
If you answered Shakespeare, thinking it one of the many idioms and phrases William Shakespeare coined for his plays, think again. It was Julius Caesar, and no not in the Shakespeare play either. The real Julius Caesar.
Technically, according to my go-to, Writing Explained.org, Roman historian, Suetonius, said, what Caesar said was Alea iacta est, the Latin phrase meaning “die is cast.” The year was 49 B.C and Caesar had just entered Italy with his army, thus starting a civil war.
Since then, the saying “the die is cast,” has come to mean that the dice—literal six-sided gaming cubes—had been thrown and whatever numbers had come up were the numbers that would be played. For Caesar it meant that it was too late to stop the war from beginning. He had already disobeyed orders, and he must win the war if he wanted to keep his life. On that cheery note, let’s toss some dice!
Poetry Challenge #251
Roll The Dice!
Topics for poems are all around us, but sometimes we don’t know how to start.
This is a simple exercise you can use as many times as necessary to create a structure for a poem.
Roll a pair of dice. The lower number indicates how many words should be on each line. The higher number indicates how many lines in the poem.
(If you don’t have dice, you can use the A-6 cards in a deck of cards. Or use a number generator on the computer. Or make slips of paper with the numbers 1-6 on them and draw numbers from a hat…)
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Warm up the dice with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s song “Roll the Dice”! It’s a winner!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Fin Pal asks Norman "Tell Me a Finny Goldfish Joke!"
Today, instead of Norman answering your questions, our fishy friend has some questions for you! Why? Because it’s International Joke Day! (July 1st). To celebrate here are six of Norman’s finniest goldfish jokes.
Why only six jokes? Because seven ate nine and then all the rest ran away. . . get it? ate nine. . .glug-glug-glug
(Scroll down, there are more where that came from!)
Q: How did the computer catch the goldfish?
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
A: With the internet!
Q: What did one goldfish say to the other?
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
A: Keep your mouth shut and you'll never get caught!
Q: What's the difference between a piano and a goldfish?
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
A: You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish!
Q: What kind of guitar do goldfish play?
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
A: Bass
Q: What do whales order when they’re hungry for fast food?
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
A: Goldfish and ships!
Q: What did the goldfish shark say after eating a clownfish?
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
A: It tastes a little big funny!
If you think thought these goldfish jokes were finny and you’d like to read more, check out the Ask Norman letters. Norman will share a goldfish joke with each response—no clown-fishing around! And . . .
