Neanderthal Vision

[ChristopherSea]

Pursuing mammoth
across Bering ice sheet
in Pleistocene dream

[Erthona]

across the Bering ice sheet

-or-

across vast Bering ice sheets

Dale

[Todd]

Or don't worry about 5-7-5 and drop vast.

[ChristopherSea]

across the Bering ice sheet

-or-

across vast Bering ice sheets

Dale

Agreed, either sounds better, thanks Dale!/Chris

---

Or don't worry about 5-7-5 and drop vast.

Alright Todd, 'vast' does sound like filler. Much obliged/Chris

[heslopian]

I like the lack of a qualifying word before "Bering", personally, as it feels more in line with the deliberately artless nature of haiku. The image you present is almost panoramic, yet nicely intimate in its details. Thank you for the read.

[ChristopherSea]

I like the lack of a qualifying word before "Bering", personally, as it feels more in line with the deliberately artless nature of haiku. The image you present is almost panoramic, yet nicely intimate in its details. Thank you for the read.

Thanks Jack, it's done./Chris

[bena]

I think they are trying to breed some found dna of a mammoth with an african elephant. What will they call it? Elemoth? Mammophant? <- like that better.

This is a wonderful vision. i can see it in my mind, just lovely
bena

[ChristopherSea]

Ha ha... Wouldn't that be cool?! There is a 'Mammoth Gene Project', therefore they are sequencing it's genome. Thanks so much my girlfriend-in-pen!

[Malu]

Pursuing mammoth
across Bering ice sheet
in Pleistocene dream

When I first read "Bering" I immediately thought of the bering strait, obviously, and that's safe to say that is what you were implying. But feel free to correct me on that, because I know how assumptions work. So if that is the case, the bering strait being a component to the timeframe of this poem is appropriate but seems a little generic to me. As does the mammoth, of all animals from the that time period, everyone knows of the mammoth and saber tooth tiger. However, I will say that I still enjoyed this poem because of the context and the fact that this material was already interesting to me. Thanks for the good read.

[ChristopherSea]

There's nothing generic about it, that's how they migrated over. You could write one with another species and a different route.

[Malu]

There's nothing generic about it, that's how they migrated over. You could write one with another species and a different route.

I know that, and so do a lot of people, it's probably one of the most well known and recognized things about that time period, that is why it seems generic to me. That's like telling the story of the titanic, everyone knows it sank, so instead of just restating what everyone knows, say something different, possibly something abstract that still evokes connotation of the subject matter. The titanic was sunk, nothing new here, "the unsinkable had just lost it's greatest battle to the cruelest of mistresses" I don't know, that just came off the top of my head, but something along that idea. So for pursuing mammoths, we all know they were hunted, maybe don't say the animal, give a clue to it and make the reader think for a second about what you mean. "Tracking down our 7 ton buffet". As for the Bering Strait, rather than saying Bering, use some device such as personification and describe that ice bridge. Take us to that land mass, make us feel how cold it was, and how the wind chiseled at our faces. This story has been told numerous times in numerous ways, the last line saying how it was your dream/vision is the only different part. And anyone could write one about another species and different route, perhaps a less well known species and unfamiliar route, to give new insight to something, or at least a different view on this, rather than retelling the most common one, unless that was your goal. But this is your interpretation, so do with it what you please.

[billy]

it's a three line poem.

i like the idea of the dream somehow being used to connect us to our first ancestors.

[ChristopherSea]

it's a three line poem.

i like the idea of the dream somehow being used to connect us to our first ancestors.

Thanks Billy!

[bena]

That's the way natives have always reached out to ancestors. Although, the peyote probably did most of the work.

[ChristopherSea]

That's the way natives have always reached out to ancestors. Although, the peyote probably did most of the work.

Don't forget psiliocybin mushrooms, datura and a hundred other psychotropic plants! It beats sweating, starving, hanging on hooks through your back or spears through your pectorials to reach those other planes.