Poet Wars: Episode 3: The Phantom Metricist

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a Padawan Poet, after training by the river and doing battle in the deep end, clambered ashore and found himself in a dreamlike world of paper, pen, and word processors. White mists swirled about him like pages in a book. In its chaotic midst, the Padawan by chance encountered the ghost of the great Jedi Steele. He eagerly studied the Master Metricist’s zen philosophy of meter and learned by heart this iron rule: “when in a row three light syllables we speak, the middle one a little to promote we tend.” Pages suddenly stopped turning and the Padawan’s vision cleared. Gone were the arcane feet of the monstrous past. Bright was the psychological night. His pen became a laser of rhythmic thought and verses danced with the strange creatures of his imagination. A few poems in small journals he published. Other Padawans he then instructed. And a reading by the river he did give. His old counselors called him Poet, and although he wanted to thrive in their midst and participate in their Council, he knew only a Jedi Versifier he could ever be there. Something was still lacking in his training. He found himself sinking in a well of irrational anxiety, but in one fateful moment, while using the force of the web, he found himself lifted and traveling on a weblogship in the middle of the blogosphere, an inconceivable world of countless Padawans and Jedi. He smiled and typed it all down. His world was then surrounded in exquisite violet light. But, as too often is the case in every world no matter how virtual they may be, too soon he found himself in the midst of verbal hostilities called The Incredible Blog Crusade.

(to be continued)