This Lipogram, it seems to me,
is just a drill, not poetry.
So try to leave a letter out
and find what substitution is about.
So write upon a page with glee.
Then alter anything you must.
Just like a puzzle's mystery,
the stanza's pattern will adjust.
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Author Notes
See how the letter S is dropping off the word cares in my image. That is from my Who Cares Clock picture.
This is a Lipogram.
A Lipogram is an exercise that intentionally omits a letter (consonant or vowel) out of the verse written. Here, I intentionally tried to write a poem without the designated letter - C. I wanted to make sure it was a very common letter. The more stanzas, the more difficult it becomes. Leaving a vowel out is the most difficult. The letter to be dropped, should be designated before your begin writing the poem. What makes a poem, is the application of poetic techniques, such as: rhyme, meter, alliteration, poetic imagery, and so on.
It is a drill the any poet can use to hone their skills, as you have to look to substitute words containing the designated letter with another one, as a poet must often do in order to meet a format, rhyme, or meter,
When I started to write this one, the second line was written:
is exercise, not poetry.
Since "exercise" contained a C, I replaced it with "just a drill":
is just a drill, not poetry.
It seems there are three ways to accomplish a Lipogram. First, you can begin writing, making adjustments line-by-line as you go. Secondly, one can just write away, then go back afterwards and make substitutions. Finally, one can write a poem with deciding in advance and accidentally determine, after the fact, it is missing a certain letter. That is cheating. In my example, I found out later that it also omits the letters Q, V, and X.
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