The Zingara Project

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  • The Perfect Creative Space

    The characteristics of the perfect creative space are as varied and subjective as the myriad individuals who utilize such spaces. What makes an ideal space for one may be abhorrent to another. One writer, for example, 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. Time and mood, too, play roles in an artist’s preferences.  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 another’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 in order 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 a surface upon which to write or to place the computer upon which she types. In considering creative space, it is certainly useful to know that quiet is generally more conducive to creating than noise, that large spaces dissipate energy while small spaces concentrate it, and that distractions can prove homicidal to focus. But most important for creating is having the intention to create.

    One of the ways artists undermine their intention to create is to focus on acquiring the 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 or other artists member of the cooperative she has joined. The perfect space, then, is just another way perfectionism can thwart an artist’s efforts.

    The intention to create, then, is every bit as important as the physicality of the space.  The artist must ask – Is it really the thought of those dirty dishes that interferes with creating, or are those dirty dishes a convenient way to avoid facing the blank page, empty canvas or block of stone? Will the perfect creative space really improve the creative process, or will the act of creating improve the creative process?

    Take into consideration other professions in which focus is crucial to success. The surgeon, the dentist, even the chef. None work in luxurious open spaces or demand astonishing views. They do not entertain distracting thoughts of inadequacy or images of failure while practicing their craft. They do not worry about the dishes.

    Artists can take a note from the pages of the professional practice book and learn to focus just as intently to give the creative process as much consideration as a surgeon gives the patient beneath his scalpel.

    Set an intention to create today and get to it.

  • Celebrate Your Independence Prompt

    Today America celebrates its declared independence from Britain. For today’s prompt, write about achieving your own independence. Perhaps this means independence from parents through emancipation or reaching the age of majority, or perhaps gaining independence from a spouse through divorce. Independence can also be a a state of mind, so perhaps your independence has to do with thinking, and making choices independently.

    To serve as inspiration for your poem, here is A.A. Milne’s poem of the same name:

    Independence

    I never did, I never did,
    I never did like “Now take care, dear!”
    I never did, I never did,
    I never did want “Hold-my-hand”;
    I never did, I never did,
    I never did think much of “Not up there, dear!”
    It’s no good saying it.
    They don’t understand.

  • Poet Interview: Esther Lee

    This week’s featured poet is a “friend of a friend,” whom I look forward to knowing better. Becoming familiar with her poetic aesthetic these past couple of weeks has been a joy and I am eager to promote her work among my readers. While it’s never possible to truly sum up a poet’s work, Lee’s poems are admirably pithy, wry, and honest – concerned with the things in life and history that are difficult to contemplate. Waste no time acquiring her book “Spit” –  I personally recommend it.

    Here is a sample poem and interview with Esther Lee followed by an author bio and information about the book, “Spit.”

    —

    Dear ____________est,

    I sleep between fits of awake. When luck outruns the
    running out, call me, the horrible habit. It’s not our
    fault, I scream. At four years old, wearing my mother’s
    clogs, my sister balances a tray, on it a cup of lemonade.
    She steps like a small elephant clamoring over burning
    tires. Glass carpeting the floor connotes the fallen
    church, welts my throat for forgiveness. What matters
    matters me the least. My sister’s pawing hands hand our
    bed-ridden father his antidote and next thing I know
    we’re smiling vulgarly. These the days when I mistook
    daffodils for tulips and tulips for one-armed men in
    gardens, their missing arms the evidence of my betrayal.

    Yours,

    __________est

    —

    1. Tell me a little about your relationship with poetry and how it developed.

    I studied visual art as an undergrad, starting with 2-D work (painting, pastels, etc.) but eventually became more interested in installations, performance, and video (albeit, crudely done). I seemed to be attracted to ‘dangerous’ materials like resin, insulation, dead fish, dead bees. The ephemeral and the stinky, the toxic. I’m guessing this may be in part because of my upbringing. My parents once managed a small fish market in Maryland so the smell of crabs and fish surrounded me–in my father’s van, in my parents’ clothes. I learned to have a sick and tender response to those smells but also I was interested in how those ephemeral materials could change a space or performance with their sensory insistence. Those visual art pieces often incorporated language–either overtly with text in a video, or with an audio clip from the media, painted text on the canvas, etc. A mentor at that time encouraged me to seriously pursue writing and film. I’d shelved that advice until after I’d graduated and traveled to Korea. There, I was learning Korean but simultaneously felt this unreasonable fear of losing English, as if I could not have both. I began to dream in Korean and in a desperate attempt to hold onto my English, I started writing.

    2. Often poets and writers are involved in a number of creative projects beyond writing. Tell me about some other ways you express your creativity.

    Along with visual art, I guess another avenue was definitely music. I’d met this blues singer, Charles Atkins, who let me bother him on a regular basis. He helped me to shape my voice for singing, teaching me songs, always encouraging. He helped me to feel more confident on stage, to letting go while singing. Because of him, I started to sing in various music bands. And that love of music and appreciating how it shares qualities with poetry is still there.

    3. In what ways do you contribute to and become involved with the poetic, or creative, community?

    Kundiman, the retreat for Asian American writers, has been one of the most valuable experiences I’ve had as a writer. The other folks there–fellows, faculty, staff–are completely supportive during and after the retreat. I’ve never been part of such a chosen family of writers who genuinely lift each other up again and again. A true community like this thrives by cultivating this kind of generous energy and I hope that I contribute back to these communities that have so enriched my life. A priority for me has been to contribute back to marginalized communities. Sometimes that’s taken the form of managing literary magazines that promote writers from more marginalized communities, such as inmates, writers of color, LBTQ artists. As a teacher of creative writing, I hope that I can help my students recognize the value of diversity in all its forms (aesthetic, philosophical, authorial, etc.) and notice connections in the most unlikely places.

    4. How do you balance the many demands of life with the demands of writing poetry?

    I probably don’t. I’m writing regularly for a minute, then prepping for teaching, sulking about not exercising or whatever, but somehow the writing happens. It doesn’t necessarily happen in the most ideal way, which for me would be getting up and having tea, then writing all day with intermittent breaks of playing banjo and reading. Right now, that’s not my reality, but I am still interested in at least half of what I’ve started, so that’s a good sign.

    5. What are projects are you working on now?

    The main project I’m working on is a novel based on my mother’s childhood during the Korean War and her adulthood as an immigrant in Florida amid times of racial tension and anti-Asian sentiments. The novel explores the intergenerational nature of trauma—my mother’s early loss of her own mother and coping in war-torn Korea as a girl—and how one person’s experience invariably affects the lives of loved ones, in this case, my father, sister, and myself. It’ll incorporate elements of non-fiction, poetry, maps, and photographs too.

    —

    Esther Lee currently lives in Salt Lake City, Utah and is pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Utah (Literature/Creative Writing Program). She received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Indiana University and served as Editor-in-Chief for Indiana Review. She has been awarded the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize and 2009 Utah Writer’s Contest Award; twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, as well as nominated for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship.

    Her first poetry collection, Spit, was published this year and was selected for the Elixir Press Poetry Prize, and her chapbook, The Blank Missives, was published by Trafficker Press in 2007. Her poems and articles have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Verse Daily, Salt Hill, Good Foot, Swink, Cream City Review, New Orleans Review, Hyphen, Columbia Poetry Review, Born Magazine, and elsewhere.

    Kevin Young calls Spit, Lee’s debut full-length book of poetry, “filled with bravado and brilliance” which makes “profound use of hollering across the ‘rusted hollows.’”

    Purchase a copy  at Small Press Distributors

    Visit Esther’s new website at: http://estherleewriter.com/news.html

  • Writing Exercise: Map

    Draw a map of a familiar location that you either physically survey or remember vividly.  Bear in mind that in addition to highlighting relationships among concrete elements of space, your map can diagram emotional relationships and connections among remembered events and other themes. Mark the places where important events occurred or where interesting, memorable objects are located. Allow reverie and nostalgia to guide your train of thought.

    When finished making your map, reflect upon what it has been revealed to you and choose a moment, location or object to write about.  Use the resulting image as the basis for a story, poem or essay. Feel free to share it in the comments section below.

    And most of all, have fun.

  • Solstice Prompt

    Jemez

    This past Wednesday, June 21st, was the longest day of 2011. Not literally, of course, for June 21st did not contain any more than the usual twenty-four hours allotted to that segment of time referred to as “day.” And yet, because more of those hours occurred while the sun was “up” than any other day of the year, we in the western hemisphere label it the “longest day.” Australianson the other hand, recognize it as the shortest.

    For today’s prompt, consider what conditions warrant the superlative label of “longest” and juxtapose it with the concept that shortest exists simultaneously with longest. For example, sometimes time drags and brief minutes seem to go on for days as seconds stretch into hours. Recall a moment in your life which seemed to last forever – perhaps due to agony, impatience or bliss. Maybe your memory is of the longest car ride, longest parental lecture, longest wait, longest kiss…or the longest 10 seconds of your life. Maybe it is of the longest poem.

    Let the image act as inspiration to craft a poem and share it in the comments section below.

    Most of all, have fun!

  • Poking Your Psyche with a Stick: Fun with Writing Exercises!

    Today’s guest blog is written by good friend and amazing poet who goes by the moniker “Oh Hells Nah.” We I met in Albuquerque sometime between 2007 and 2009  through a network of mutual friends (a.k.a – our boyfriends).

    I love this writer’s wry sense of humor and honest appraisal of the writer’s life – she likes to keep it “real.”  She offers a frank discussion of the writing process as well as several great writing exercises, including some of the dadaist absurd variety (and my personal favorite).

    At this very moment I am spraining my arm from patting myself on the back for being smart enough to ask Oh Hells Nah to write something for ZingaraPoet. Watch for future writings from this featured writer and be sure to visit her blog at ohhellsnah.com. In the meantime, enjoy!

    ——

    My writing process is messy and somewhat nonsensical. I believe ideas grow in my subconscious like moss (or a fungus, depending on what), and that I must excavate them with a metaphorical scoop. Sometimes I see an image and then feel it nestle in the folds of my memory. They hatch eggs in my brain! I know that I may not know how to respond to it at that moment, but eventually, perhaps many years later, it will manifest itself in a poem. I’ll be peeing or washing my hands or something equally mundane and then suddenly remember. I will run to my journal before it disappears, hopefully without my pants around my ankles.

    I’ve felt this way since I was a little girl. There were times the sight of something like a green sunset or a glittering puddle would leave me speechless. I think I always had a keen eye for beauty in surprising places and forms. That ineffable feeling is what made me want to write—the determination to make it effable. Needless to say, I didn’t have many friends, so time to write was plentiful. (Also plentiful were bad haircuts and ill-fitting clothes.)

    I wish I still had that kind of time. It’s hard to make myself write after I get home from work exhausted and disgruntled. Sometimes I’m convinced that a lobotomy was performed on me at work when I wasn’t looking. Maybe some sort of corporate gnome stealthily climbed in through my nose and then hacked away at my brain. However, I believe that a major part of being a writer is writing even when you’d rather slow dance with a possum, when you think you have nothing at all to say, when all you wanna do is watch a that nasty show about Brett Michaels.

    I admit I have a chip on my shoulder when people I meet tell me they are writers. Many of them say that they write  sometimes when they’re sad or angry or some shit. There is so much I want to say at these moments, i.e. I bet your poems are full of adverbs and crying fairies, but instead, I just keep my mouth shut and smile politely. I suspect this makes me an asshole.

    I don’t have a specific writing schedule, but I write, in some form or other, nearly every day. I’ve been writing a lot of prose lately. It’s enjoyable, and in some ways, so much easier for me than poetry. When writing nonfiction, my goal is always to address some sort of timely issue and find a way to make it funny. Poetry, however, requires a different sort of concentration. And poetry is what truly makes my heart flutter.

    A major component in writing poetry for me is exploring my subconsciousness and challenging myself to use language unlike my own. I’ve compiled a list of writing exercises that help me exhume the mess in my brain or force me to use words that I rarely use.

    Dada

    I have taught this one numerous times. It learned it from my zany poetry professor in Madrid. It’s weird, but I promise it works. (If it doesn’t, you can find me and give me a severe noogie.) I have adapted it slightly.

    1. Before you go to bed, write the word “fish” on a sheet of paper and leave it nearby.

    2. Upon waking, write down whatever comes to mind on that sheet.

    3. Later in the day, close your eyes and count to 30. When you open your eyes think of the word “needle.”

    4. Write down whatever this word evokes. Do not let reason or rationality limit you. Be as absurd as your subconscious allows.

    5. Immediately after, write three lines in iambic pentameter.

    6. Then write: “This poem is about” then the first 7 words that come you.

    7. Write a word that that references the first word, “needle” then take a word from #4.

    8. Join these two words in a long line. The reference to “needle” should be the first word and the word from #4 should be the last.

    9. Immediately write 6 lines. Lines 1,3,5 should start with the same word. Lines 2,4,6 should end with the same word.

    10. Try to use all this hooha in a poem in some form or other.

    100 Things Worth Living For

    I got this one from an undergrad professor whose guts I ended up hating. I don’t want to name names, but his very famous book has a bird in the title. Man, he was douche… But  anyway, this exercise worked very well. I came up with all sorts of precise images. You will get very specific and surprise yourself, trust me. All you do is write a list of 100 things worth living for. It may seem easy, but it gets difficult after a while. One of my last ones was Pup-Peroni and I don’t even own a dog.

    The Ole Translation Exercise

    I’m sure most of you know this one. All you do is take a poem in a different language and translate it to English based only on the way the words look and sound. Don’t try to make sense. Your brain will come up with something strange and compelling. I, for example, came up with “octopus carrot orgy ” in one of them. Jealous? I recommend that you use a language that is really unfamiliar to you. I am fluent in both English and Spanish so I find many of the romance languages too familiar. I often use Gaelic, Welsh, or Irish poem. Those languages look funky!

    Language Stealing

    I know this is wrong, but I call this one poem raping. (Please don’t send me angry emails.) The point of this one is to force you to use another’s language when your diction becomes predictable. I got this one from Kim Addonizio’s The Poet\’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. From what I remember, you take a poem you admire and then make three lists—adjectives, nouns, and verbs. In each list, circle five words that stand out. Try to use these words in a poem.

    Speech Acts

    This one I got from my former professor Dana Levin who I believe got it from Helen Vendler. I wrote a lyric poem that I was quite pleased with (and was later published) as a result of this exercise. The point of this exercise is to try to use several speech acts that you don’t typically use.

    Here is a short list of speech acts. For some examples, click here.

    apology

    complaint

    compliment

    response

    refusal

    boast

    request

    lament

    Those are just a few exercises that help me get some creative juices flowing. I hope your writing is fruitful and unsettling. I hope you unearth some nuggets of weirdness.

    Love and Squalor,

    Oh Hells Nah

    —-

    www.ohhellsnah.com is like hot dogs for your brain! I am a small Mexican American woman who likes to bitch, eat good food, and write poems. I cover some of the following topics: writing, hot dogs, feminism, weird fashion, Buddhism, misanthropy, humanism, culture, Chicago, Muppets, race, travel, time travel, manners, and gnomes.

  • Highlights of the 2011 West 18th Street Fashion Show, Kansas City

    Every year the Crossroads District orchestrates the West 18th Street fashion show pairing local and national designers with area models for the express purpose of showing off new designs. This year’s themes was “Summer in Paris” and featured designs ranging from upscale professional to positively wild and zany. The outdoor show is free, though those wishing to sit close to the runway may opt to pay the $35 or $100 ticket price for the privilege.  Whether a proprietor of a local dress shop or a casual observer, the fashion show provides a great opportunity to dress up and marvel at the creative visions of  up-and-coming or long-established clothing designers. Here are a few of the highlights:

    The show began with a Flamenco dance…

    introducing the first collection;

    Whimsical children’s fashions:

    Up next – short, hot and sassy;

    El Toreador!

    A lovely juxtaposition of metal and fabric in this collection:

    This next collection looks as if inspired by Nilsson’s animated movie, “The Point”

    Next, fun with knitting!

    Men’s fashions:

    These next designs metamorphose…

    My personal favorites:

    For a really great slide show of all the designs featured in this year’s fashion show (taken by a professional photographer and not some poor schmuck in the crowd) as well as a list of this year’s designers, go to westeighteenthstreet.com

    Next year’s show is scheduled for June 9th.

  • Creative Writing Coaching

    What is Creativity Coaching?

    Many people understand “Life Coaching” as a relationship wherein a trained individual helps another achieve certain desirable life goals and dreams. Creativity Coaching provides the same kind of support but with a concentrated focus on the creative personality and involves individuals who identify themselves as creative persons. A creative person can be described as any individual who is serious about their art, regardless of proficiency or amount of time dedicated in pursuit of honing that art, and regardless of the degree of financial support garnered from their art. In simplest terms, the creativity coach supports the artist through all aspects of the creative process, including, but not limited to, overcoming obstacles, mulling over the meaning of creating, planning projects, maintaining dreams while accepting reality, managing time, and completing stated goals.

    Photo by Tony Flaco

    Creativity Coaching differs from therapy or other similarly helpful professions in that coaching is more concerned with supporting the client’s state of being than with analysis of the client’s condition. Objectives generally emphasize discovering what creative pathways the client wishes to explore and supporting such exploration through experienced guidance and compassionate interest. When a client is confronted with an obstacle involving confusing or traumatic past life experiences, the creativity coach is on hand to assist in navigating murky waters and untangling that which has become tangled in the psyche, ultimately allowing the individual to return to the important work of living and creating. Even though the focus of creativity coaching is on creativity, coaching of any kind is holistic in nature and considers every aspect of a client’s well-being.

    It is very common for coaching relationships to develop through telephone and email communication, or even through a Skype connection. Phone sessions typically occur every week and last between 30 and 45 minutes, depending on the situation, the client, and the coach’s parameters. Typically, coach and client stay in touch through regular email communication between telephone calls. Because coaching does not depend on a meeting location, it is possible to coach, or be coached, anywhere that email and phone connections are available.

    Creativity Coaching often yields a high return for clients. Still, it is a relationship and so requires a commitment from both parties. As such, certain characteristics and attitudes are particularly useful to possess when embarking on a journey with a creativity coach. These include: willingness to release resistance, willingness to honestly self- reflect and willingness to truly work towards stated goals.

    As a Creativity Coach, I offer a 20 minute free introductory session for interested individuals and am taking new clients. My clients range from novice writers discovering their voice to accomplished musicians putting together a next CD to visual artists arranging their next gallery showing. Whatever your creative endeavor, I am here to help you on your journey.

    My email is writeone.lisa@gmail.com – write “Creativity Coaching” in the subject line.

  • Interview with Poet Juan Morales

    Today’s featured poet, Juan Morales, resides in Pueblo, Colorado where he is acting Director of Creative Writing at Colorado State University-Pueblo, a small public university. I know Juan as a conscientious and hardworking poet as well as a supportive friend. Here, Juan discusses the nuances of putting together a manuscript for publication as well as how to balance work with writing poetry. First, this poem from Juan:

    GARCILASO RECALLING A CHILDHOOD MEMORY, 1599

    I used to play in Sacsayhuaman,
    a neglected fortress that stretched
    above everyone into tidy tiers.  I felt

    my smallness walking the overgrown trail,
    gliding hands along smooth limestone, interlocking
    perfection, which once walled out

    enemies and elements.  Every day I watched men haul
    stones to town, quartering the angry spirits, leaving only
    enough rock to defeat its height until a day

    when wind rushed past like a broken army’s
    murmur.  I heard Sacsayhuaman call me
    beyond its crenulated walls, to the doorway

    into its long plunging arteries, passages under Cuzco,
    where light waned and chambers carried
    my voice deep into the labyrinth.  I stepped inside,

    to meet its haunted past, tumbling over
    like the hunger of rockslides, the heat
    of banked fires searing inside my innocent mind.

    (Previously published in Pilgrimage Magazine)

    1. Tell me about the publication of your first book of poetry.

    The first book of poems, Friday and the Year That Followed, originally started as my MFA thesis at the University of New Mexico, and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work on refining it while I was in graduate school.  I submitted the manuscript to several contests and was a finalist a few times.  A short time after I defended my thesis and moved back to Colorado, I got a phone call from Tony Gorsline, Editor of Bedbug Press, who informed me I was the winner of the 2005 Rhea and Seymour Gorsline Poetry Competition.  Over the next year, I worked closely with Tony on editing, revising, and shaping the book as Bedbug was a smaller press.  He was very supportive and willing to give me a lot of input on the finished product, which helped me learn a lot about the publishing process.  The book was published in 2006.  Sadly, the press recently closed when Tony Gorsline passed away and with no one else to take up his cause. As previously mentioned, Bedbug was a small press and delivered beautiful books.  Tony Gorsline’s passing is a real loss to the poetry community.  He gave a lot and showed a lot of love for the written word.  Since the publication of the book, I have spent a lot of time doing readings at large and small venues and whenever they present themselves in the vicinity of Colorado and occasionally in other states.  The process of publishing and promoting have been an ongoing process that takes a lot of work and discipline, but I feel very lucky to get my book out there in the world.

    2. What anxieties arise around putting together a manuscript and how to you negotiate them?

    Assembling a manuscript can be an exciting experience, but it’s also pretty challenging and humbling.  After putting together the first book and my continued efforts on the second manuscript, I find one of the challenges is keeping the work fresh after spending so much time with the poems.  You live with the work so long that there’s a risk of getting lost in the revision process and overlooking the good work in there.  Sometimes when I read older poems at readings, I surprise myself with how much I like the poem.  With Friday, I had the experience of workshop and the publishing experience to figure out the right order, and I try to take those lessons into this new manuscript.  The original organization had an elaborate theme that wove the poems together with some specific epigraphs, but my readers became very confused about who was involved in the poems, where the poems were taking place due to all the jumps in time and place.  Ultimately, I simplified the manuscript with the organizing principle of geography: part one in Ecuador, part two following my father’s military career, and part three entering the supernatural.  The grounded approached helped the complexities emerge with the moments and snapshots in the poems.

    Now with the new manuscript, a book of encounters between the Incan empire and Spanish conquest, the anxiety for me comes with finding a way for the specific era of history matters to the contemporary reader while showing more of this world to the readers.   Stylistically, I want to make sure the book is concise but that it’s also in the right order, but the current manuscript also demands a sort of chronology to it as well.  I am working to navigate long sequence poems with concise choices inside them to give the reader enough time to pause and reflect on how these sections of poems become weaved into the larger tapestry.   By nature, I am very narrative with my work, so I hope to touch the lyrical more as I go on.  I guess the other anxiety is whether or not the intended organization will reach the readers or not, but I think all poets wrestle with this.

    3. How do you balance the duties entailed with your position as Director of Creative Writing at your college and writing poetry?

    I am finishing up my fourth year as the Director of Creative Writing at Colorado State University-Pueblo, which is a small public university.  My role as Director requires me to teach in multiple genres, advise creative writing major and minor students, act as faculty sponsor for Tempered Steel, CSU-Pueblo’s student literary magazine, and also curate the Southern Colorado (SoCo) Reading Series.  When I first started the position, I was overwhelmed with all the roles I had to play and the administrative side of the job, but it slowly came together.  Over the years, I have come to learn that my writing time has to be balanced with my role as a teacher.  Both are worthy pursuits and they overlap well.  One way I navigate my writing is keeping notebooks everywhere and writing whenever time permits.  I also make sure my courses overlap with my areas of interest and I also start every class I teach with 7-10 minutes of writing to help students get in the routine of writing and to keep me on track.  I used to think writers should always be writing, but I know now that we can go through times when we don’t write and emerge unscathed.

    4. Do goal setting and planning play a role in your creative process?

    As far as goals and planning go, they vary depending on deadlines and other things going on in my life.  I am always amazed when I see poets produce books and manuscripts so quickly, some of them being every other year or so.  As far as my process goes, I don’t like to rush it; instead, I want the product to be as polished as possible.  I’m a young writer so I still have a lot to learn.  My writing process starts with handwritten versions, then typed, and then sometimes I go back and write them by hand again to see how I can compress them further and remove instances of reporting.  I like to think that the poems can tell you when they are done, but I keep chipping away at them while also giving myself distance from them to return to them fresh.

    5. What creative endeavors, poetic or otherwise, are in your future?

    As I mentioned, the second manuscript is on track to be finished soon, so I hope to have that ready to submit to publishers in the near future.  I also find myself writing poems and flash fiction/prose poem pieces that do not fit the new manuscript.  The first two books have had specific focuses, so it’s exciting to write some poems with no plans or expectations, to see them grow organically into a project I can’t identify yet.  I also hope to start working on a larger fiction project that has been in my head for awhile.  That’s the fun thing about teaching so many genres at my university because the students and the different genres can be quite inspirational.  Hopefully, more work will find its way into the world very soon.

    Juan J. Morales is currently the Director of Creative Writing and Assistant Professor at Colorado State

    University-Pueblo. He is curator of the Southern Colorado Reading Series as wells as the student literary magazine, Tempered Steel.

    Read “My Eco Crimes” and “How My Father Learned English”, both by Juan Morales.

    “Friday and the Year That Followed” (ISBN 9780977197354) is available for purchase at Amazon

    Other books by Juan Morles include The Siren World—Poetry collection published by Lithic Press, 2015, and  The Ransom and Example of Atahualpa,” a limited edition poetry chapbook published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press, 2014.

     

     

  • Cut Up Prompt

    Pick up a daily newspaper from your local newsstand or newspaper machine – or your neighbor’s recycling bin. Leaf through its pages and randomly select and cut out interesting words and phrases as you encounter them. Don’t worry about making connections during this stage.

    After you have collected a respectable number of cut-outs – enough to build a poem – arrange and paste them onto a piece of paper; you get to pick the controlling pattern.

    Take a digital photo of your new poem and post it on your facebook status or other preferred social network.

  • Summer Image Prompt

    Photo by Anthony Flaco
    Photo by Anthony Flaco

    Summer. The season when daylight and warm temperatures prevail and vacation plans come to fruition. Unless of course you are a gardener – in which case you have probably been examining seed catalogs since February and plotting flower beds and furrows on graph paper since January.

    For this first week of June, which marks the seasonal beginning of the summer season if not the astronomical, write a summer inspired poem. That is, write a poem based on whatever summer images inspire you, whether its swimming pools and car trips, camping by the lake or in the foothills, or canning tomatoes in a steamy kitchen.

    Or perhaps you are a person who prefers winter months over summer and who finds summer not so much an inspiration as something to survive. Feel free to use your discontent as fodder for your poem.

    Below is a summer inspired poem  to spark a creative flame (or a bit of malcontent) to help get you started:

    Vespers
    by Louise Glück

    In your extended absence, you permit me
    use of earth, anticipating
    some return on investment. I must report
    failure in my assignment, principally
    regarding the tomato plants.
    I think I should not be encouraged to grow
    tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
    the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
    so often here, while other regions get
    twelve weeks of summer. All this
    belongs to you: on the other hand,
    I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
    like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
    broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
    multiplying in the rows. I doubt
    you have a heart, in our understanding of
    that term. You who do not discriminate
    between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
    immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
    how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
    the red leaves of the maple falling
    even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
    for these vines.

    Share your poem in the comments section below.

  • Writing Exercise: Memorize

    Poetry is meant to be spoken, and it is meant heard. So this week, memorize a favorite poem – preferably one of your own. Make memorizing fun by trying any of the following approaches:

    • Sing your poem out loud in the shower.
    • Write it a hundred times in a notebook.
    • Post copies of it on the refrigerator, on the bathroom mirror, or on your car’s dashboard.
    • Perform it in front of a mirror or in front your stuffed animals or portraits of your family and friends.
    • Record yourself reciting the poem and listen (or watch) your performance – repeatedly.
    • Prepare as if you were going to perform in front of a live audience of hundreds. Someday, you might.

    Feel free to share the poem you choose to memorize in the comments section below.

  • Children’s Day Prompt

    Children’s Day was observed by South Koreans earlier this week, so for this week’s poetry prompt, consider the following poem by Eugene Field:

    Little Boy Blue

    The little toy dog is covered with dust,
                But sturdy and stanch he stands;
    And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
                And his musket moulds in his hands,
    Time was when the little toy dog was new
                And the soldier was passing fair,
    And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
                Kissed them and put them there.

    “Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
                “And don’t you make any noise!”
    So toddling off to his trundle-bed
                He dreamt of the pretty toys.
    And as he was dreaming, an angel song
                Awakened our Little Boy Blue, —
    Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
                But the little toy friends are true.

     Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
                Each in the same old place,
    Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
                The smile of a little face.

     And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
                In the dust of that little chair,
    What has become of our Little Boy Blue
                Since he kissed them and put them there.

    Use Field’s “Little Boy Blue” to inspire a poem suitable for a child, perhaps one you know personally (as Field did).

  • My Stepmother, Having Returned to This Earth, Becomes Hannya, by Tara McDaniel

    Culling through the Winter/Spring 2010 volume of the Crab Orchard Review, published twice yearly by the Department of English, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, I found this darkly whimsical play on Japanese imagery and knew I had found this week’s poetry pick.

    According to the Contributors’ Notes at the time publication, the author of this poem – Tara McDaniel –  is a student at the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her previous work has been featured in Cimarron Review, Marginalia: The Journal of Innovative Literature and Gloom Cupboard.

    My Stepmother, Having Returned
    to This Earth, Becomes Hannya

    When my stepmother unzips her body bags and snaps
    The rubber tag from her toes, I know
    She’ll creep into the kitchen and slake her immortal
    Thirst with 6 bottles of beer. She’ll sucker at the glass
    Greedily to get at its yeasty fizz, remembering – quite
    Exactly – where they keys to my gate are. Down
    Into the basement she’ll trundle, her tail
    Growing long beneath her pile of dressings,
    Making a hollow sound
    Where her serpent-belly slaps at the stone. A likely darkness:
    Black cabinet, squeaky doors, stale air, and Hannya
    On a bed of velvet. A little key behind one eye.
    Her claw will lift this wooden mask
    To her face: slavering jaw, hard-boiled egg eyes
    Cheekbones shaped like mallets,
    Crescent horns rising from the wild hair
    Weeping over her forehead and shoulders
    Like spilled Japanese ink. She’ll put the key
    Deep inside her throat, for safekeeping. Tomorrow,
    When the sun rises again over my back garden,
    She’ll wait out the morning till I’ve returned dozing
    To cough up the key, graze her claw over my door.

    Note: Hannya is a mythological Japanese character, a vengeful and jealous female demon. She is represented in traditional Noh theater by a horned mask.

    For more information regarding Crab Orchard Review, including submission guideline, contests, and awards, follow this link: Crab Orchard Review

  • Interview with Poet Lisa Chavez

    This month’s featured poet hails from the East Mountains of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Described by fellow poets as supportive and possessing a particular intuition for sequencing poems in a collection, Lisa weighs in on such topics as the creative process, the role of the MFA and the genesis of her poetry. Here then, following a poem from her most recent collection, is this month’s poet interview:

    In an Angry Season

    They’ve gone to witness the river’s mad
    descent into spring. The heave and thunder
    as the ice shakes itself from the shore,
    the way the frozen slabs–pachyderm grey
    and similarly sized–shear one into
    another as the Yukon shudders awake.
    From a hawk’s height the pipeline bridge
    mocks the river’s riot and churn. Perched
    there, they watch–then his pale hand
    turns her tawny face to his and
    they kiss, roar of loosed ice echoing.
    They are both just nineteen.

    And now they sit, hands clutching brown
    bottles, in a one-room cabin turned
    tavern. A wooden counter, scabbed over
    with men’s names. A naugahyde couch,
    slouching by the door. One man at the bar,
    face flat in a puddle of beer.
    His phlegmy snores. The room choked
    with smoke. The one they call Dirty Dave
    is telling a story: “We picked up this squaw
    hitching her way into town. Weren’t no room
    in the cab, so she crawled in back. I went after her.
    I said, whatever you hear, boys,
    don’t stop this truck.” Laughter.  He grins,
    gap-toothed and mean. Leers at the girl.
    “I like it when they fight.”  She shivers.
    Twists at a strand of her black hair.
    Her boyfriend draws her closer.
    Six men–they’ve been drinking
    all winter. One girl. One nervous
    boyfriend. A mining camp a hundred miles
    or more from town. And Dave stares
    at the girl. “What do you think of that?”

    And she thinks: There is so much evil
    in this world. And she thinks of her hand,
    squeezing the bottle till it breaks, scraping
    this man’s face to bone with the shards.
    And she thinks of the river, how in some
    angry seasons it could not be contained–
    bridges snapped like thread, whole villages
    devoured by the Yukon’s flood and fury.
    And she hears the river shift and growl.

    1. Tell me a little about your inspirations. In other words, what, or who, inspires you to write and create poetry? 

    My inspiration has changed over the years. I used to write more out of a sense injustice: I believed, and still do believe, that poetry can be a vehicle for change.  I haven’t given that up, but I’ve also written a lot about issues that were really personally compelling: on issues of race, gender and class, for example, and now I find it easier to address some of those big topics in creative nonfiction rather than in poetry. One thing that has not changed, however, is my love of story and character: poems often begin because I become fascinated by a character and his or her story. I see the poem as a way to live another life, however briefly, and to really get inside someone else’s head.

    When I’m looking for inspiration, photographs are a great trigger – photographs of people are great for creating characters. Several of the poems in my second book come from photographs. Reading poetry is also great inspiration.

    2. Often poets and writers are involved in a number of creative projects beyond writing. Tell me about some of the other ways you express your creativity. 

    For years, writing was pretty much all I did, and when the writing wasn’t going well, I felt creatively stuck. I think I had that kind of perfectionism that some artists have: I know I’m not nearly so skilled in other art forms, so I tend not to try them.  But in the past few years, writing had gotten much too serious and it just wasn’t fun anymore, so I decided to try some other creative projects, with absolutely no expectations.  And it was really fun!  I’m not a good visual artist by any means, but I enjoy a number of crafts, from paper crafts and altered books, to fabric art. I still can’t draw or sew very well, but I make do, and have fun.  I particularly like anything that involves collage and found art:  making new things out of old stuff.  In some ways it reminds me of writing: rearranging things until they make a pleasing pattern, the same way I may move words around on a page.

    3. What has been the role of poetry in your development as a creative person?

    You might say poetry has been the extended metaphor for my creative life. It is not all of it, but it has been a long-lasting mode of expression.  I started writing stories at 4, when my grandmother taught me how to write, and I never stopped. I thought I’d be a fiction writer, because mostly it was fiction I read and was nourished by, but even though I am very much a narrative poet, fiction is by far my weakest genre.  I never even tried to write poetry until I was an undergraduate, but once I discovered it, I felt like I’d found my form, and kept going with it.

    Still, not everything works in poetry. Sometimes I want to “tell” rather than just “show” and I’ve been writing creative nonfiction almost as long as I’ve been writing poetry.  The two genres go well together, I think, and when I want a larger palette, creative nonfiction is a good option.

    But writing is just one aspect of my creativity. I don’t hear people talking about this a lot, but for me one hazard of being a writer and academic is how professionalized writing becomes, and how tied to the job it is, and for me, this has stolen some of the magic of writing.  It seemed like work, not fun.  I’ve considered switching to genre fiction to get some of the playfulness back (I could literally write about magic then, if I’m writing fantasy!) and I do have some fantasy and sci-fi projects in the works.  I also regained some pleasure in writing about dogs on my blog—it’s so far removed from my work that I can feel free to just follow my interests.  But much of the rest of my creative life is something that is not professional in any way:  it’s the various projects I work on at home–dying cloth, making collage paintings or artist’s books, gardening, or whatever.

    4. What is your view on education in the creative process. Is an MFA an important credential for artists and writers to attain?  

    I think an MFA can be very useful, but it is certainly not the only route for artists.  What it does best is give artists and writers a time to fully devote themselves to their art in a way they will likely not be able to do again.  The best part of the MFA is the time immersed in writing, in taking classes, in writing, in critiquing writing, in teaching writing.  It’s a great gift, and a great way to hone craft.  That said, it certainly won’t guarantee people an academic job, nor will it even guarantee publication.  It’s an apprenticeship, and what comes after is up to the individual writer or artist.

    5. What are your current creative dreams and goals?  

    My current interests may not initially seem related to art, but I think they are. I’m really interested in holistic healing and a more holistic lifestyle in general; in fact, I’m planning on taking classes in things like aromatherapy, herbalism, etc.   From what I’ve discovered so far, holistic healers are incredibly creative people, working in a way I’d never considered, as their creativity is focused on health, both spiritual and physical.  They are also very intuitive in a way that really resonates with me as an artist, as so much of art begins in intuition. This kind of study will open up a new way of looking at the world that is rooted in the physical and energetic, rather than in just the intellect. I don’t know where this will take me as a creative person, but I do know that it has already energized my life, and I know that for me, health must be based in the physical, spiritual AND creative life, and I’m looking forward to what comes next creatively.

    —

    Lisa D. Chavez has published two books of poetry: Destruction Bay and In an Angry Season, and has been included in such anthologies as Floricanto Si! A Collection of Latina Poetry, The Floating Borderlands: 25 Years of U.S. Hispanic Literature, and American Poetry: The Next Generation. Her creative nonfiction has been published in Fourth Genre, The Clackamas Literary Review and other places, and has also been included in several creative nonfiction text books. Her most recent essays appear in An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working Class Roots and The Other Latin: Writing Against a Singular Identity, forthcoming from the University of Arizona Press.