Exulansis
by Lesley Scoble
the lone albatross
soaring o’er southern oceans
understands freedom
as we dream yet cannot speak
in our tethered unknowing
—Lesley Scoble, August 2025
Exulansis Symphony
*Since publishing, I’ve changed the words in the tanka, which now means the final couplet differs in the symphony.
I. overture
II. adagio
III. diomedea exulans
IV. Finale
I wrote my poem Exulansis in response to Violet’s W3 Poetry Prompt #172. Violet Lentz is our Poet of the Week and she gave us a fascinating challenge. “To choose a word from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and make it the title of your poem. Your poem should either use the word directly or capture the essence of its meaning. Include a direct link to the word’s page so readers can explore its definition and origin. Write in any poetic form you wish.”
I chose the word Exulansis.
Exulansis
The word Exulansis was coined by American author and wordsmith John Koenig as part of his project The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which aims to give names to complex emotions that don’t yet have words.
n.the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or mere foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your story, until it feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.
Latin exulans, exile, wanderer, derived from the Latin name of the Wandering Albatross, diomedea exulans, who spend most of their life in flight, rarely landing, going hours without even flapping their wings. The albatross is a symbol of good luck, a curse, and a burden, and sometimes all three at once. Pronounced “ek-suh-lan-sis.”
THANK YOU
Enormous thanks to Violet Lentz who presented us with this wonderful prompt.
Undying gratitude to David Bogomolny for his poetry platform.
And my heartfelt thanks to you, the reader, for taking the time to pop by and read and/or listen to my poem.
To find out more about David’s W3 Poetry Prompts, follow the link below.
LesleyScoble.com 
Leave a comment