Stiatimcatis - a needlessly complicated form of constraint-based poetry

The word “stiatimcatis” (STY-uh-tim-KAH-tis) is an acronym that stands for “Seed Text Into Acrostic, Then Into Morse Code, And Then Into Syllables,” and that is the method of constraint that dictates the construction of the poem. I begin by choosing a short seed text, a.k.a. a source text (which may end up doubling as the poem’s title). I write down the letters of the seed text as an acrostic, one letter per line. Often, spaces between words in the source text become extra line breaks—what will ultimately become stanza breaks in the poem. Then I take each of those individual letters and replace them with their Morse Code equivalent: “a” becomes “dot-dash;” “b” becomes “dash-dot-dot-dot;” “c” becomes “dash-dot-dash-dot;” and so on. Then I replace each “dot” with the number “1” and each “dash” with the number “2.” Where the letter “a” had become “dot-dash” now becomes “1-2.” “B”—or “dash-dot-dot-dot”—becomes “2-1-1-1.” Finally, each “1” is replaced by a one-syllable word, and each “2” is replaced by a two-syllable word. Here, I allow whatever one- or two-syllable words will work best, so at this point the form escapes from being entirely conceptual. Those are the specific restrictions in the poem’s construction. Once that is finished, and when I am satisfied with my final word choices, the poem is complete. In principle, the poem, as it is composed, relates somehow to the source text and looks and feels like a poem that does not obviously have such specific constraints, notwithstanding what some readers may assume are odd choices for line breaks, and the fact that the poem is devoid of words of three or more syllables.

Regarding the form, a stiatimcatis poem, to me, works like a secret communication or cipher; a reader must engage specifically with every word’s syllable count, and must actively work to receive a potentially hidden meaning in the poem. This work isn’t necessary, of course; I want a passive reader to find value in the poem regardless of this extra layer. But the notion of communicating to a reader in a way that circumvents censorship, for example, makes the form suitable to poems of protest, or poems that mock easily offended readers, or are devious in some other way.

Read some of my examples of the form: On the New Shore, published at Across the Margin; American Insurrectionists on Instagram; and Fuck You, Donald Trump on Twitter.