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  • Similes Poetry Prompt

    A great big Thank You to Juan Morales for another awesome poetry prompt:

    Fun with Similes

    We all know metaphor and simile and sometimes take them for granted, but it does not change their obvious importance. Kim Addonizio writes “Metaphor speaks of one thing in terms of others, creating a kind of energy field, what I think of as “the shimmer….Simile does the same thing, only a bit more obviously: to say that a grain of sand is like a world would make the comparison explicit.” I can’t speak for most poets, but I usually go for the easy simile and uncover a comparison too close to the poem’s established world. Good simile and metaphor embrace the departing nature of the simile more so readers can access the grain of sand and the world simultaneously. Here’s a poem from Major Jackson’s book Holding Company that does an amazing job with simile.

    How You Love by Major Jackson

    Like the injured laid down at the scene of an accident
    before cars collide, like cloud striations over
    Fairyland Loop, like a kid’s carnival balloon
    diminishing and lost to the great blue,
    like bright jewels scattered in some secret cave, like two
    scissor blades breaking apart, like after-party guacamole
    with drips of salsa, like diamonds of light rotating over
    an empty dance floor, like priests at night staring
    in store windows at half-nude mannequins,
    like dark earwax , like unscented candles, like Janus.

    Jackson uses eleven similes in a ten-line poem with so many surprises and turns in his rendering the act of love. Even if the use of “like”softens the comparison, it works so well. The line breaks, and length of the lines, and listing also help reinforce the unpredictability too.

    For today’s exercise, I want you to work with the comparison explicit. Write a poem with a seemingly simplistic title and use as many similes as possible to help establish an emotional connection. Another approach to this exercise is to start with as many random similes as possible and then select a title as the unifier.

    Feel free to participate in the poetic conversation here at ZingaraPoet by adding your poetic response to this prompt in the comments section below. Go ahead, don’t be shy – make the conversation interesting!

  • Small Circles by Colleen Maynard

    The fog has shellacked
    over the warmth felt this morning.
    Mist turns to rain.
    Along the vinyl canopies
    a strip of raised drops form,
    solid as brass-studs
    on the seams of fancy
    upholstered chairs.

    I might sew
    the torn seams of my coat.
    I will not go swimming.
    I may take a small nap,
    and work on either
    my life or my art.

    When there is nothing else to do,
    I lock the door to pace.
    I recall Jesse,
    the way he’d walk small circles
    in the center of his studio,
    head down,
    glaring at the wood
    as though it might
    loosen the floorboards
    and release some
    slight sigh.

    —

    Colleen Maynard is a writer and visual artist. She holds a degree from the Kansas City Art Institute and has publications in Monkeybicycle, The Same magazine, and Ceramics: Art and Perception.”

  • Interview with Texas Poet Laureate, Larry Thomas

    Larry Head ShotI learned about Larry Thomas by way of “200 New Mexico Poems” when I accepted and subsequently posted his poem, An Aged Navajo Artisan” (#57, April 17, 2012). When I discovered that he is a former poet laureate of Texas, of course I had to interview him. I am impressed with Larry’s hard work and dedication as a poet and find his approach to writing poetry sound. We also share a few favorite prose writers.
    Please enjoy this conversation with Larry immediately following his poem, Tide Pool Touch Tank. You will also find Larry’s professional bio directly after the  interview.
    ***
    Tide Pool Touch Tank
    for Frank

    The dank air
    of the Maine State Aquarium
    is pungent with brine
    and the nostril-flaring
    smell of fresh fish.

    Little children huddle
    around a tank
    like primitives in a ritual.
    Their heads swim
    with flashbacks

    of moonless, blue-black skies,
    of luminous bodies
    sparkling through the slats
    of their cribs
    beside the windows,

    ever beyond the reach
    of their fat, groping fingers.
    Wide-eyed, entranced
    by the miracle beneath them,
    they take deep breaths,

    ease their hands into the black-
    green holiness of seawater,
    and, with the fingers of gods
    trembling in the heavens,
    stroke the spiny skin of stars.

    (from The Lobsterman’s Dream; first published in The Texas Review)

    ***

    Tell me about your experience as Texas Poet Laureate. What sort of outreach projects did you initiate or further during your term?

    My one-year term as the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate began in April 2008 and ended in April 2009.  As soon as my appointment was announced, in April 2007 (my appointment occurred one year prior to the commencement of my one-year term), I received a flood of requests for interviews and invitations to speak/read my poetry to schools, community colleges, universities, and civic organizations such as the Rotary Club, historical societies, poetry societies, and numerous other groups.  I did my best to honor each invitation I received, from throughout the large state of Texas, and only on a couple of occasions had to decline an invitation due to a scheduling conflict, etc.  I never required a speaker’s fee for a presentation; only reimbursement for travel expenses and lodging at a modest motel.  Many schools, especially public institutions, don’t have ample funds available for this sort of activity, so I wanted to make it as financially reasonable for them as possible.  I was privileged to receive a $2,000.00 grant from the Ron Stone Foundation for the Enhancement and Study of Texas History (based in Houston), and I used the entire grant for travel/lodging expenses to venues which didn’t have funds available for such activities.

    As to outreach projects, I particularly enjoyed my visits to public schools and college/university creative writing classes.  Many public schools, most unfortunately, have dropped poetry from their basic curriculum, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to the students about the importance of poetry in their lives and share with them examples of my own work.

    Another outreach project, which I initiated, was to set aside time from my busy schedule to work one-on-one with young poets of promise.  I met with them primarily in coffee shops (such as Starbucks), critiqued their work, and answered any questions they had about my own creative process.  I charged no fee for my services, and feel that these young poets benefitted greatly from the time I spent with them and were encouraged to keep reading and writing.  My opinion of their work and the time I spent with them seemed to significantly enhance their confidence as young poets of seriousness.

    —

    Does poetry need community?

    I feel very strongly that poetry needs community.  Poets spend countless hours crafting and revising their poems for hopeful publication in a distinguished journal or a collection, and do so to share their work with a “community” of appreciative readers.  Otherwise, they would just stash their work in diaries for their eyes alone!

    Secondly, although I personally have never been one to join writers’ groups or participate in workshops, I am very much in the minority as a poet in this regard.  Virtually all of the serious poets with whom I am acquainted aggressively seek out and participate in quality workshops, and are members of writers’ groups which meet regularly.  This gives them a chance to present their work to and receive honest feedback from others whose work they respect, and to have their work seriously critiqued for necessary revision.  They feel that their participation in such a group is critical to their own artistic development.

    —

    Tell me a little bit about your writing process. Feel free to discuss your writing space, the time of day you write or any rituals you have which help you with your process?

    I write in a small study on a rustic Mexican table which I regard as my desk.  My desk sits beneath a window overlooking the Davis Mountains of the Great Chihuahuan Desert.  For years, I composed first drafts on the back side of used computer paper secured in a clipboard, and I always wrote with a cartridge fountain pen.  During the past couple of years, however, I have composed on my laptop.  I generally write in the mornings, and I almost always write to the music of Beethoven which I play at a rather loud although not uncomfortable volume.When I begin my writing process, I often have no conscious idea of what I will write about that morning.  I often start with an image around which I feel I can construct a first draft, and I pay little attention to syntax, line or stanza integrity, or any other sense of “crafting” the poem.  I think that “play with language” is a critical part of the writing process, and that I should “let the words flow” before I begin the strenuous and critical revision process.  After the “play” has ended, I start shaping the amorphous mass of words I have before me, and begin what will be an extensive revision process.  I first start shaping the words into poetic lines and then see if the lines cohere in some manner into stanzas.  Most of my first drafts undergo twenty-five to thirty revisions during my initial writing session before I am reasonably comfortable with them.  I then return to the finished draft for several days, fine-tuning it, until I get the poem where I think it should be.  My “gut” lets me know when it is time to move on to another composition.
    —
    How do you approach the large task of putting together and arranging a manuscript? 

    Before I even think about putting together a manuscript, I make sure that I have a very large body of published or “publishable” poems of thematic unity, well over one hundred, from which I can select fifty or so for the first draft of the manuscript.  I then approach the shaping of the manuscript in much the same manner I shape an individual poem, placing careful emphasis on theme, tone, consistency of syntax, etc.  I believe that a manuscript should be as seamless as possible, and that each poem in the manuscript should effectively serve the collection as a whole.

    —
    What non-writing activities do you practice that inspire creativity and fuel your writing?

    Non-writing activities which I feel inspire my creativity are art museum/art gallery attendance, music listening (especially classical), and serious reading.  I spend a lot of time reading the collections of numerous contemporary poets of noteworthy achievement, and short story collections by distinguished fiction writers.  I believe that the short story is the “poetry of prose,” in compression, use of imagery, heightened use of language, etc., and I find a number of literary techniques in well-written short stories which are certainly transferable to the composition of poetry.  Among the contemporary short story masters whom I have found helpful to my development as a poet are Raymond Carver, Breece “DJ” Pancake, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tobias Wolff.

    —

    When people ask you what you write about or what your poetry is about, how do you respond?

    The subjects of my poems are quite multifarious. I have published complete collections of poetry about the Texas Gulf Coast (The Lighthouse Keeper), the backwoods denizens of deep East Texas (The Woodlanders), the flora, fauna and denizens of far West Texas where I was born and reared (Amazing Grace, Where Skulls Speak Wind, and Stark Beauty), outlaw bikers (The Fraternity of Oblivion), paintings and the properties of color (The Skin of Light), the bird or avian world (A Murder of Crows), wolves (Wolves), and quicksilver (mercury) miners (The Red, Candle-lit Darkness).  When people ask me what my poetry is about, I often reply that it is heavily inspired by the natural world, but also by anything which captures my interest at any given time.  A poem, at least to me, is first the artistic use of language, and secondly a means of transporting the reader to the heart of the mystery, beauty and terror of existence.

    —

    What projects are you working on or planning now?

    I just completed a chapbook of poems set on the coast of Maine (The Lobsterman’s Dream), forthcoming from El Grito del Lobo Press in a handset letterpress edition with original woodcut illustrations, tentatively scheduled for publication in late spring/early summer 2013.  I also have a book-length collection, Uncle Ernest, forthcoming from the Virtual Artists Collective (Chicago).

    ***

    Professional Bio:

    Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate, has published nineteen collections of poetry, his most recent book-length collection of which is A Murder of Crows (Virtual Artists Collective, Chicago, 2011.  He has two additional books of poetry forthcoming: The Lobsterman’s Dream (El Grito del Lobo Press, Fulton, MO) and Uncle Ernest (Virtual Artists Collective, Chicago).  Among the publications in which his poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming are 200 New Mexico Poems, The Texas Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Sugar House Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and Southwestern American Literature.  His New and Selected Poems (TCU Press 2008) was long-listed for the National Book Award.

    Web site: www.LarryDThomas.com

  • Old Drafts Prompt

    Riffle through your old poems and pull from them a poem that has yet to find a home. Perhaps it isn’t quite finished or perhaps it is different thematically from your other work. Experiment with this poem in one, or all, of the following ways:

    Write a “part two” to the poem.

    Arbitrarily rearrange the words, lines and stanzas on the field of the page based on some principle that you invent. For example, perhaps words beginning with a particular letter are flush with the left margin while words beginning with a different letter are always indented so many spaces from the left margin. Maybe nouns contain extra spaces or are centered. Use your imagination.

    Cut your poem up and rearrange its words. Paste the new onto a colorful piece of paper.

    Most of all, enjoy the process. And feel free to post your results in the comments area below.

  • Valentine by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

    Valentine

    It’s all a matter of seeing what is right here:
    the face of the beloved, the eyes closed,
    graying lashes on the cheekbone. The eyes
    open, blue washed into green, changing
    in light and time. It is all necessary as
    time or how remembering changes
    the face, looking to see what comes
    turns the head. It is all a matter of thinking,
    What are you thinking? When did it start,
    how can it end when the weight, the lightness
    of this seeing makes the familiar new,
    the unknown an old friend? It is all right
    on the cusp of the horizon: deepening
    blue folding back into orange behind the tree
    behind you. It is all a matter of seeing
    in the delicate and wild space between us
    that isn’t really space at all, how whatever
    we know can be erased and remade with the other.
    How our time is not a force rushed through us,
    but a kind of valentine we can open right now,
    in the eyes of the other.

    —

    Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the Poet Laureate of Kansas, and the author or editor of 16 books, including a novel, The Divorce Girl (Ice Cube Books); a non-fiction book, Needle in the Bone: How a Holocaust Survivor and Polish Resistance Fighter Beat the Odds and Found Each Other (Potomac Books); The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community & Coming Home to the Body (Ice Cube Books); the anthologies An Endless Skyway: Poetry from the State Poets Laureate (co-editor, Ice Cube Books) and Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems (editor, Woodley Press); and four poetry collections. Founder of Transformative Language Arts – a master’s program in social and personal transformation through the written, spoken and sung word – at Goddard College where she teaches, Mirriam-Goldberg also leads writing workshops widely, and with singer Kelley Hunt, writing and singing retreats. www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com

  • Intereview with Poet/Editor, Leah Sewell

    Leah SewellI am finding it very difficult to write an adequate introduction for today’s interview guest, Leah Sewell, whom I know from my undergraduate years at Washburn University. Since our years in the English program at W.U., where our paths crossed frequently in writing circles and workshops, Leah has found inventive ways to resuscitate, and in some cases create, an arts and literary culture in Topeka. The many worthwhile projects she has begun or contributed to are crucial to a small city like Topeka and qualifies her for grand accolades, though I know that Leah’s efforts come from a place of conviction, her love of  the creative process, and her dedication to her home town; not from a desire to be recognized. I’ve always known Leah to be exceptionally talented and the writer of great poetry and am thrilled whenever I hear about her accomplishments, whether they be a recent publication or the continued success of her lovely family. Topeka is fortunate to count Leah among it citizens, and I feel equally fortunate to count her among my friends.

    Please enjoy Lea’s interview immediately following her poem, “Marionette.”

    ***

    Marionette

    I dreamed I returned from the bar to find you
    holding chopsticks & fresh-rolled sushi, only
    they were really crochet hooks that dipped sharp heads
    in apology at my ovaries round as dumplings.

    I flapped like a stuck moth against the wall.
    All my accoutrements — hairpins, false eyelashes, earrings —
    sloughed off my body like dust. I unfurled my proboscis
    to speak but the voice was a pastel feather. Out in blue night,

    our friends saw shadows on shades.
    Your limbs chopped like a marionette. They applauded
    because you are a scientist who slips pills
    into their drinks. I can’t remember why the wall

    gulped open like a bruised esophagus to swallow —
    maybe I tickled it apart when I shuddered. Your arm
    clamped on my waist woke me next morning. On your breath,
    evidence—sawdust. I rose & unrolled my plaster tongue.

    (forthcoming in Stone Highway Review)

    ***

    Tell me about your involvement in publishing in Kansas?

    When I was a junior at Washburn University, a good friend and fellow English major Ande Davis convinced me to join the university’s newspaper staff. I eventually became an editor and had to learn to design the entertainment section and a monthly entertainment magazine. After I left Washburn, I still wanted to be involved in magazine publication, and I searched out Kerrice Mapes, who was a few issues into publishing this little glossy arts and entertainment magazine called seveneightfive. I went from being a staff writer to a copy editor to managing editor and ultimately the editor-in-chief. During my time there, I learned a lot about Topeka and came to love it and have strong feelings toward it and wanted to help improve it in many ways. I became involved in organizing poetry and art events and doing volunteer work in several organizations. I also wanted to make sure that local writing and writers were given due space in seveneightfive’s pages. Today, the poetry spread is still going strong under the editorship of Topeka poet Dennis Etzel Jr. who publishes work by local authors, interviews and reviews. Nearly seven years later, seveneightfive continues to have a huge presence in the city, a massive following of readers, and does great work with community arts activism. When my family grew with the arrival of my daughter, Sylvia, and my son, Oliver, I gradually became aware that the city could benefit from a family A&E magazine that emphasizes art, reading and community involvement for parents and children. With Kerrice’s enthusiasm and support, we created XYZ Magazine, and I shifted my focus to editing XYZ while Kerrice stayed over at seveneightfive. When I started grad school, I handed the reigns of the EIC position over to Janice Watkins, fellow Washburn English grad (English majors make great editors!) and I’m currently still involved as the art director. All of this experience in publishing led me to designing books, which I get to do now on a freelance basis, producing titles in poetry and prose for Kansas presses like Woodley, Coal City and Mammoth. I’ve also begun an assistant editorship with Coconut Poetry Press based in Atlanta, Georgia, founded by publisher Bruce Covey. My first book design project with Coconut is the book, of the mismatched teacups, of the single-serving spoon by Chicago poet Jenny Boully, which is set to be released this month.

    You are also involved with the Topeka Writer’s Workshop. Tell me more about this organization and your role in it.

    About four years ago, I realized that I lacked a generative atmosphere, a scene like the one I’d found at college where other writers were sharing their work, talking about poetry, and offering insights to my own work. I saw that the Lawrence Arts Center had a writers workshop, and every Tuesday, I’d hand my colicky newborn son over to my husband, go out into the freezing night and drive down the highway to Lawrence, where I found a group of writers who were welcoming and helpful, but they also seemed like an already cohesive community. I didn’t feel like I could fully enter that community because of the physical distance. I knew a handful of writers in Topeka, and decided to round them up for a Topeka writers workshop. By July of 2009, and with help getting the word out through seveneightfive, I had a group of nearly twenty people, both friends and strangers, who met bi-weekly in the sweltering back room of a furniture warehouse and gallery in Topeka where bats swooped in the rafters and the writing dialogue thrived and bloomed. The numbers eventually dwindled, and rightly so (I think of those first days and wonder how we were able to get everyone’s work looked over), and today the 10-12 regular members of the Topeka Writers Workshop participate in more of a collective model. We each bring a little money to the group for copy costs, reading promotions and the like. We’re an eclectic group, composed of a stay-at-home dad, a painter, a federal judge, a pastor, a couple who live and breathe poetry when they’re not slogging through their day jobs, an adjunct English professor, a graphic artist, a PhD candidate in English, a railroader, mothers and fathers and musicians, and myself, the facilitator. The diversity of the group is perhaps its best characteristic. No one snubs anyone else; all forms, styles and “levels” of writing are welcome. We’re also great friends who support each other but aren’t afraid to offer the occasional gutting critique. Ultimately, our goal is to help each other move forward with our writing and to give unpublished work its first chance to be read and appreciated. We also hold readings twice a year and have put out print materials in the past and plan to do more. We often discuss ways we can engage in community activism, and if I can get everyone in alliance with me, I’m hoping to begin to do just that in 2013 by bringing writing into areas of the community that could benefit from this incredibly gratifying form of expression.

    Outside of editing and the Topeka Writer’s Workshop, what writing projects are you engaged in – writing projects for you, I mean?

    I’m currently participating in my second semester of the low-residency MFA program at the University of Nebraska, which will culminate in a full-length poetry manuscript, so I’m amassing reams of poems at the rate of up to thirty per semester. I have a chapbook-length manuscript that is sort of languishing and gathering dust while I’m creating all this new work, and in my spare time I’ll go in and do some revisions on that to further its path to eventual publication. My minor as an undergrad was women’s studies, and I’m very interested in exploring themes of feminism and women’s issues in my work. I love to write in persona, and I’m also incredibly interested in the back-stories of women made famous by their boldness; the women of blues and jazz, women notorious as heartbreakers, criminals, or blatantly lustful women. I can feel the stirrings of a uniting theme among my poems in this way, and my eventual full-length collection will most definitely contain a few of the voices of these “wild women,” as my poetry mentor Teri Grimm calls them.

    What techniques have you found to help you juggle work life, family life, and writing?

    I have this awful tendency to say “yes” to everything. My daughter often tells people that her mom has five jobs (not the least of which is being a mother to her and her brother). But I’ve learned over the past year to begin occasionally saying “no.” I’ve scaled back my involvement in volunteering with community organizations, which hurts me to do, but I have to tell myself that there will be time for that after – after my kids are both in school full time, after I complete grad school, etc. I’ve turned down book design projects when I feel my plate is already full. I really have to prioritize, and the two most important things for me are, of course, my family and my writing. If I’m needed in any way beyond that, I have to ask myself if it benefits one or the other – my family or my writing. It also helps that I’m married to a poet, Matt Porubsky. Matt understands when I need poem-time and will scoop the kids up to let me be alone to focus. It’s possible to write when a baby sleeps nearby or lies on the carpet gumming a rattle. But it’s utterly impossible—at least for me—to write with a 4- and 6-year-old nearby. He understands this and is almost always willing to lend a hand. Another thing that I’ve found helpful is to always keep a pad of paper handy, and no matter what I’m doing, if an idea or a line or a string of words pops into my head, to write it down. My poetry mentor from my first semester of grad school, the amazing author Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, urged me to write at least an hour a day. When I bemoaned the difficulty of finding a solid hour in a day to write, she said, “Then write in 15-minute increments.” While I still struggle to achieve this on some days, for the most part, I can say that I find myself writing, whether it’s journaling or free writing or trying to compose an agonizing villanelle, for close to an hour a day. It’s a pretty attainable goal.

    How do you cultivate creativity?

    I’m blessed to be immersed in creative endeavors—I get to work on things like magazine and book design, creating recipes in my part-time job as a vegan chef, and even building block towers or coloring with my kids. There really isn’t too much in my life beyond the mundane everyday stuff that doesn’t involve a creative mindset. So this allows me to remain open, to receive ideas and slip into imaginative threads of thought. I never censor my thoughts or push poem-think into the back of my mind for later, when I can utilize the ideas on the page. I’m an incessant daydreamer, and I’m content with that. When the time comes to write, all that daydreaming will be put to good use.

    —
    Leah Sewell is the art director of XYZ Magazine (Topeka, KS), assistant editor at Coconut Poetry Press (Atlanta, GA), founder and facilitator of the Topeka Writers Workshop and a part-time vegan chef and mother to two youngsters. Her poetry has appeared in [PANK] Magazine, Rufous City Review, Weave Magazine, Flint Hills Review, Midwestern Gothic, Mochila and other journals, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. She is a freelance graphic designer whose work has created over a dozen poetry and prose books and countless magazine editions. She won the 2010 Women Making Headlines Award in the media category from the Topeka Chapter of the Association of Women in Communications and has been a recipient of the PenWomen Award for Letters. She is a graduate of Washburn University in English with a minor in Women’s Studies and is currently a candidate for a Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Nebraska.

  • Poe Acrostic Prompt

    For today’s prompt, write an acrostic poem (that doesn’t suck) based on your lover’s first name. Here is one written by Edgar Allan Poe to use as inspiration.

    An Acrostic
    by Edgar Allan Poe

    Elizabeth it is in vain you say
    “Love not” — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
    In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
    Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
    Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
    Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
    Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
    To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
    His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.

  • The Baltimore Catechism – Unrequited Love by Roy Beckemeyer

    The granite girl stands to recite.

    Catechism quotes limn the inside
    of her eyelids.

    Her fingernails
    spike her hands to her thighs.

    She prays for Rorschach stigmata
    to stain her virginal palms.

    Her insatiable need
    is for the sainthood of white doves.

    Her face aches
    for the crescent moon purity
    of wimple and coif.

    “The desire for God is written
    in the human heart,” she intones,
    thinking all the while
    I am a good Catholic girl,
    I am God’s innocent girl,
    I am the girl of the incised granite heart.

    —

    Roy Beckemeyer of Wichita, Kansas has most recently had poems accepted by the periodicals America, The Lyric, and The Journal of Civic Leadership and the anthology To The Stars Through Difficulties.

  • Object History Prompt

    Thanks to Jenn Givahn for today’s poetry prompt:

    Pick an object–a can opener, a doorknob, a football–and imagine its history. Where was it made? How did it get there? Who has it belonged to? What adventures did it experience? Write a poem that tells the history of the object. You might even try it in first person, from the object’s perspective.

    (adapted from “The Observation Deck” by Naomi Epel… a cool prompt book that incorporates drawing cards).

  • January haiku by Frank Higgins

    past the gorging gulls,
    a few more baby turtles
    hurry to the sea
    —

    Frank Higgins has had productions of his plays across the country.   He is the author of two books of poetry, and two books of haiku.  He lives in Kansas City, Mo.

  • Modern Ode Prompt

    Thanks to Erin Adair-Hodges for today’s poetry prompt inspiration:

    Today’s prompt is to write an ode. Not a classical or even English ode, which follow particular formats, but rather, just write a poem in praise of something. Except, since we’re post-post-post, not really. Write an ode to something not usually praised or for which you have, at best, mixed feelings. Here is a great example, Kevin Young’s “Ode to the Midwest.”

    This exercise is inspired by my trip to the dentist today. There were kitten posters on the ceiling.

  • January Photographs by Mary Dudley

    January looms large-
    a huge floe on the sea
    of the early year.
    Thick, translucent ice
    under which the crocus sleep.

    January mornings dawn
    as a pink blush in a crystalline sky.
    The sun warms as hours pass
    but noon still glares, brilliantly cold.

    January’s dusk descends early
    and its sun burns orange and red
    setting behind the bare-branched tangle
    of the back-yard trees.

    January’s cold thickens
    as the world darkens:
    It seeps under the door frame,
    pushes us into the circle of
    the warmest room,
    hangs over the haven of our bed
    like a cold fog
    that morning won’t burn off.

    January looms large—
    a month to reckon with.

    —

    Mary Dudley has written poems since childhood. She studied poetry before moving to NM in 1968, and changing her professional focus to family and child development. She’s published two chapbooks and her work has been included in the Rag, the NM Center for Peace & Justice Newsletter and calendar, la Llorona, Sin Fronteras, and 200 New Mexic Poems.

  • Questions Prompt

    Thanks to Rebecca Aronson for today’s awesome prompt:

    Today’s prompt: a question poem.

    For this poem, write only questions. Let each question lead your mind to the next question–these can be as loosely or closely associative as you feel like. The questions need not be answerable, but they should feel to you like real questions. I suggest at least ten questions on the list.

    (once you have a list of at least ten questions, you might find that the list is a kind of poem itself, or you might decide to choose one or more of the questions, or their possible answers to write from.)

    Have fun!

  • The Problem with the Perfect Space

    The characteristics of a perfect creative space are as varied and subjective as are the myriad individuals who utilize them. What makes an ideal space for one may be abhorrent for another. One writer may prefer the solitude of a quiet room with a closed door while another prefers the white noise and human bustle typical of the neighborhood café. One painter may prefer En plein air while another longs for the consistency of the indoor studio. Too, such preferences alter in response to related personal needs and emotional states.  Perhaps yesterday the objective was to get out of the house and away from the dirty dishes, making the coffee shop, where the dishes are someone else’s concern, more conducive to working. Tomorrow the concern may be reducing caffeine intake and limiting sugary snacks, making the library a more attractive choice. Artists intuit this about themselves and constantly adjust to get their creative work done.

    Artists also know that physicality of space is important to the creative process. The painter/sculptor must be able to make a mess; the musician must make noise without raising the ire of neighbors; the photographer must have space to store and use specialty equipment; and the writer must have something hard on which to write or a place to set the computer upon which she types. In developing one’s place of creativity, it may be useful to know that quiet is generally considered more conducive to creating than noise, that large spaces dissipate energy and small spaces channel it, that distractions can prove homicidal to focus. But more importantly is intention to create.

    One of the ways artists undermine their intentions to create is to focus on acquiring a perfect creative space – even waiting to create until everything about a space is perfect. Manuscripts are postponed until the perfect house on the perfect lane with the perfect view are purchased, occupied and decorated. Musical arrangements delayed until the ideal music studio secured. Great paintings left imaginary until just the right cooperative opens up. Then, once the perfect space is acquired, the artist becomes paralyzed by that very perfection. The writer is so stunned by the view beyond the windows of their dream writing space they never write a word. The painter becomes afraid to make a mess in their newly built studio with its hardwood floors. The sculptor becomes distracted by loft-mates and other artists in the cooperative she joined. The perfect space, then, is just another way perfectionism can thwart an artist’s efforts.

    The intention to create, then, is at least as important as one’s creative space.  Is it really the thought of those dirty dishes that interferes with creating, or is it fear of facing the blank page, empty canvas or block of stone? Is it fear of success? Or is the thought of those dirty dishes a distraction meant to delay the creative process and temporarily keep the ego comfortable? Will the perfect creative space really make you better at creating, or will the act of creating make you better at creating?

    Take into consideration other professions in which lack of distractions is crucial to success. You would not want your dentist to be distracted by a stunning view while performing your root canal. Give the same level of focus to your creative work by providing your creative process with as much consideration as a surgeon gives the patient beneath his scalpel.

  • Song for Aishan by Wayne Lee

    Red candles, red roses around you now—
    scatter of petals across the floor, on your coat
    like paw prints against the snow, curl
    of birch bark, bed of fox fur under your head.

    Aishan, Kirgi for Moon Heart, grandson
    of the wind and moon—we sing your crossing
    on a renegade gust.

    Shanadii—shaman granddaughter of Geronimo—
    named you stonecarrier of her Earth circle,
    gifted the stone in a medicine pouch,
    placed it on your chest as you lay in repose.

    Today in this circle of stone, this cycle of wind
    and moon, we sing Ohila—Apache crossing song—
    sing it to the six directions.

    You crouched at the edge, waited for your two-legged
    to let you go, so you could cross
    from her arms, a Bodhisattva in wolf body—
    carried on the wind, gray legs twitching as in dreamtime.

    ***

    Wayne Lee (wayneleepoet.com) is an educator/journalist living in Santa Fe, NM. Lee’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Press, The New Guard, Sliver of Stone, Slipstream, and other publications.