Long chapters, short poems
Narrant and I are back here to talk poetry. There was a line in Vive’s podcast where Narrant said that fiction was not a thing on Poo-ponic, but history and poetry books were popular. Narrant reminds me that Vive left that comment on the cutting room floor. I suppose Vive needed to keep the podcast interview time down to 9 minutes. Kind of odd timing; you’d think it would be 10 minutes. Narrant informs me that this translates into precisely five hexutes, so I guess that makes sense. Anyway, poetry is big on Poo-ponic, so that’s why these blogs are focussing on verses. With that, in this blog, we’ll continue discussing the remaining poems in Antuna’s Story. Oh, BTW, Narrant tells me that the chapters are long in Antuna’s Story and The Rise and Fall of Antocracy because he did want to write too many poems. Also, the goal was to have the number of chapters work out to multiples of six. So, there were six chapters in Antuna’s Story (just as Antuna has six legs) and twelve in The Rise and Fall of Antocracy.
Once again, I’ll present a poem (this time for chapter 3), followed by the analysis. So here goes for chapter 3:
What comes from grudges, rumors, deceit, and lies?
Fueled by anger, love, hate, and guile.
That which robs our selfless tries and transplants fight in place of smile.
This discussion will be short, not only because the poem is short but also because it focuses on a single theme. Dinomite’s character arc inspired this poem and his struggle growing up with the conflict between his new and old roles. His youthful approach mirrored Antuna’s and his friendship with Antuna’s gang—a push for cooperation among disparate insect families. Yet, as he matured, his adult responsibilities forced him in a different direction. And Dinomite’s shift was a caricature of the colony’s transference from altruistic idealism to aggressive realism or the devolution from selfless tries to fight. So Genant and Bitemite’s grudges fuelled Beebie and Beegan’s rumors, and Antuna and the bee sisters’ deceit and lies which may have been guile motivated by love, but inadvertently triggered Dinomite’s anger and hate despite saving his life. And as Dinomite’s friendship waned, so did their colony’s attempts to work together. This latter point foreshadows more what happens in chapter 4 than 3, which may explain the point made in the next paragraph.
A poem split into two
It may be more apparent here than in the book, but the poem that started chapter 3 was short because it was not finished and continued into chapter 4. So, let’s read the verse that precedes chapter 4 and continue the discussion.
Does not amity emit one’s style?
With rays of tenderness, humor, or beguile.
That may be eclipsed when faced with trial.
When shining love dims by defile,
and darkness prevails with much revile.
Notice how the guile and smile rhyming in the earlier poem continues with style, beguile, trial, defile, and revile. I told Narrant this was too much, but he reminded me how much insects like rhymes. You might think we split the poem to reduce repetition of rhyme for those adverse to verse, lessen the assonance in the cadence, or the repetition of the recitation. No, Narrant likes it like that! It was only because Dinomite’s curvature in his character arc continued throughout chapter 4 that the poem continued that theme (both literally and lingually). And if the theme continued, why not the annoyance, er, I mean assonance? Doesn’t that word seem like a conjunction of asinine and annoyance? Our heroes’ friendship or amity expressed the positive characteristic of tenderness and humor and perhaps some charming playfulness or beguile that belied their normal instinctive tendency to mistrust each other. But when the friends matured, they were forced to face the music, when their trial defiled their puppy or, should I say, pupal love. For those looking for illumination, search no further than the inspiring rays Narrant threw into the mix and an eclipse that turned shining into darkness.
Speaking of mixes
Just when you thought repetition was getting tired, Narrant decided to double down. I thought the poem for chapter 5 was a recipe for disaster, and Narrant agreed and said he meant it to be. Read the poem, and I’ll explain.
A recipe for a souffle of advanced aggression:
- a grain of seasoned obsession
- a pinch of fresh egression
- with a sprig of ripened oppression
- egged on by a tumbler full of progression
- stirred with forceful transgression
The insects’ obsession with rhyming is a metaphor for their inability to resist their native instincts. Need I say more? Well, maybe Narrant threw in some wordplay using the terms seasoned, fresh, and ripened to mean old, new, and renewed to keep with the foodie theme. And egged on and stirred meant urged and motivated for the same reason. Are you starting to see how I, er Narrant, thinks? Isn’t it great how I can deflect all my corniness on Narrant? I guess we can throw that into the souffle, too. It reminds me of how my editor said that I didn’t have to worry if my prose seemed a little stiff or amateurish since that’s what readers would expect from an ANT that had never written a novel before. But I should get back to the poem and its relevance to the chapter. The poem meant to foreshadow that things were about to get nasty. With all those lopsided words, you know the souffle and their peace-loving colony were both going to fall.
Honor and ‘ogenies’
Finally, we discuss the poem from the last chapter of Antuna’s story, chapter 6:
What are honor, courage, and the meaning of insect life?
Ne’er lose one’s morals, resist instinctive hatred,
and oppose unjust quarrels, from hatch till we are dead.
Secure one’s progeny by upholding ontogeny
while wrestling the branches of our phylogeny.
My inspiration for this poem was the entire book and Antuna’s desires in the last chapter. However, honor, courage, and the meaning of life for these insects had changed almost as much as their scenery. On Earth, instincts were primary, and courage reflected aggression towards all other species and other colonies within the same species. The insects practiced altruism, but only to promote their species. Ants would die for other ants and bees for other bees, but not for other species or colonies within their species. Antuna and her friends changed everything; she discouraged aggression and promoted altruism towards other species. She encouraged all species on the new planet to resist instinctive hatred and oppose unjust quarrels. They were in a new world, after all.
In the last chapter, Antuna initiated a new custom, changing insect practices for hexennia. Progeny was no longer the sole domain of queens; she showed that any female could be a mother. Antuna demonstrated that nuclear families could uphold ontogeny rather than massive extended colonies ruled by queens. By hatching her eggs outside the colony nest, she started a trend that first her offspring and all others came to adopt. Yet her goal of interspecies cooperation would always be a struggle. The fight between altruism and aggression would define how species would treat other species that often came from the same phylogenetic family tree.
I asked Narrant whether he thought the words progeny, ontogeny, and phylogeny might be too advanced for young adult readers. He retorted that he heard many youths read Shakespeare’s dramas during high school, and reading such big words couldn’t be any more difficult than Olde English. Then he reminded me that kids these days can look up any words they don’t understand on the internet. He has a point or two there. Like my father used to say, look it up in the Funk and Wagnalls. Wow, I am aging myself there! Kids, you better look that up too. So that ends our discussion of poems for Antuna’s Story. Stay tuned for continued analysis of the poems in The Rise and Fall of Antocracy. That’s where they get really wacky!
Terry Birdgenaw 
Leave a comment