Otis has officially jumped the pond! The following otises were produced during a creative writing workshop at the West Yorkshire playhouse in Leeds that was facilitated by the poet Winston Plowes. If you’re wondering why they all have a similar thematic resonance, it’s because Mr. Plowes innovated the rules a bit and had all his Otisi work from the image below and the following seed words. This is a perfectly wonderful way to approach the otis, especially for newcomers to the prompt, though we wouldn’t exactly condone it for more experienced practitioners.
1.
Down amongst the ocean’s bulrushes
we all walk. Gingerly
dodging the water furniture
safe inside our fancy suits
all is calm,
blue.
I head the queue of
this fearless clique of humanity.
Just 24 feet, 12 people.
I feel in an otherworldly state
of utter powerlessness
yet full of hope.
- Geoff
2.
Going down is the easy bit.
Now try to walk.
The suit, seen from outside’s insectoid;
once inside you don’t care
what you look like, all of you
trapped in here, Ol’ blue eyes,
Is this SF mag’s cover art,
and in this precise moment my feet,
which I have so far ignored,
begin to itch; chance of relief –
None – No hope! No hope!
- Mike Palfrey
3.
It is eerie down on the sea bed
Not a place for a Sunday afternoon walk
The darkness has a strange green/blue hue
Reflected from inside the suit
And all one can do
Is hope that the blue
Dominates the green as the walker’s head
Rotates within this massive helmet
Far from the feet that
I fear will slide
Off the edge of a deep trench
Into the depths of forlorn hope.
- Harry Venet
4.
Down down down at the bottom of the sea
– a long way to go for a walk –
The suit is a monster
and I’m inside,
all I can see
is the blue-green light.
I can’t turn my head,
this worries me.
Feet won’t move.
I want to get out
of here.
I hope I do.
- Gail
5.
Down among the dead men
I walk.
Looking for the chest
whose inside is crammed with gold.
All about me is the heavy water
A liquid blue.
My head feels about to burst
This is the last flailing
of my feet
I cannot stay. Going now means I can return full
of
hope.
- Joanna
6.
Down, under God’s umbrella
I walk again, the first steps of my lifetime.
The pressure
inside
is all I have to hold.
Through a blue voile
with a head for numbers
and this quest.
1,000 feet beneath,
you and I merge
the filterings of
hope together.
- Winston Plowes
Please send your own experiences and experiments with Otis to otis@otisnebula.com. We’d love to feature them in our next issue.
