Showing posts with label Poetry Blog Hop | Writing Poetry | Poetry challenge | Blog Poetry | Poets | Poetry Prompts | 31 days of poetry | Poetry tips | OctPoWriMo | OctPoWriMo 2013 | 31 Poems in 31 Days. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry Blog Hop | Writing Poetry | Poetry challenge | Blog Poetry | Poets | Poetry Prompts | 31 days of poetry | Poetry tips | OctPoWriMo | OctPoWriMo 2013 | 31 Poems in 31 Days. Show all posts
I am so happy that so many of you stuck with us and wrote poetry everyday during OctPoWriMo. It has been a pleasure working with and receiving so much help from Julie Jordan Scott, Linda Roy, Janet Parfitt, Amy McGrath, and Nimue.
Some things have to end for new things to begin
Today is the last Poetry Prompt for OctPoWriMo 2013, for those of you that wrote a poem everyday I congratulate you! Some of you have expressed sadness that this is coming to an end and the team and I decided to create Poets on the Page to continue to inspire and motivate you all year long. I hope you decide to join us.
Poetry Prompt:
What in your life is coming to an end making way for something new? How do you handle endings, are they easy or hard? Samhain/Halloween is a time where the veil between worlds is thin and a good time to say goodbye to those that have passed in the last year, who do you need to say goodbye to? What closure do you need? Free write answering one or more of these questions.
I get in a mood and I love to play with rhyme. Pull out those rhyming dictionaries or pull up the RhymeZone and let's have some fun.
Something magically inspiring.
For this poetry prompt I chose several different rhyming formats from Shadow Poetry with each subsequent poetry type increasing in difficulty. You can choose to do one, two, or all three. Or you can choose to do none of them and decide to do something else entirely.
This poetry prompt isn't what you may think it is. Yes I would like for you to write a love letter but not from you to someone else and not from someone else to you. What I would like for you to do is write a love letter between two inanimate objects.
You may be thinking, "Is she nuts?" or you may be thinking, "Oh yeah, I can do this." Well whatever you are thinking, I discovered this from one of my favorite poetry performers, Sarah Kay.
Listen to her perform A Love Letter - Tooth Brush to the Bicycle Tire. I think it is pretty awesome but I think just about anything Sarah Kay performs is awesome!
Poetry Prompt:
Take a look around your house and find two unlikely objects that you can play around with on the page and create a love letter from one to the other. I hope you find much amusement playing with your words.
Or...
You could decide to play with this poetry form, Rictameter at Shadow Poetry. I love the poetry form Cinquain and this is very similar to it. You can open the dictionary, choose a word, and begin or you may have a word that you already want to use.
Now for an added challenge...
You probably have been playing with poetry most of the last 19 days, if not all, (and some of you for a long time before that) it is time for something daring. Something that could possibly take you out of your comfort zone. Take your favorite poem that you have written so far and film yourself performing it. This is something that I challenged the participants to do last year as well. Here are two of my videos that I created, We Are One and Oh to Be a Raven from last years OctPoWriMo.
Will you take up this challenge and create a video of one or two of your poems?
Let's have a little fun. When I was participating in A to Z Poetry last April, I decided to go through the online dictionary and write down all the words that jumped out at me for each letter. I then would go through those words when it came time to write a poem starting with that letter. When it came time to write a T word, I had all of these words but I couldn't seem to pick one and came up with the below poem instead.
T has tangled me up.
So many words to choose from.
tantalizing toppers
transcending tears
tropical tastes on the tongue
tragic
tumbling
turning
tornadoes
transparent tomfoolery
trapped and tortured
tangible thoughts
terrific tea
time traveling to Tanzania
tantric temptations
touched and terrified
truthfully tired
Poetry Prompt:
Pick a letter in the alphabet and go through and choose all the words that stand out that start with that letter. Don't think about a poem when choosing them just write down all of the words that you are drawn to. Afterward decide if you want a specific form or if you want to write them in free verse form and put the words together, adding any words necessary (but as little as possible) and create a poem.
Word Prompt:
Random
Want to add to the fun try this Poetry Form from Shadow Poetry: Shape Poetry.
Remember all of these are suggestions and how you choose to write your poetry is up to you. Most of all I hope you have fun.
This is a blast from the past, one of my favorite poetry prompts from Julie. I love how she uses sound in this poetry prompt and I often forget about using sound in my poetry but it is something I love to do. I hope you have fun with it too!
Now here is Julie Jordan Scott talking about sound and writing poetry.
Merriam Webster defines resonance like this: the intensification and enriching of a musical tone by supplementary vibration: a quality of evoking response.
Now add cadence to your writing voice and the result will be even deeper.
What is cadence?
It is the measure or beat of a rhythmical flow. It is the snapping of fingers in time, the metronome back and forth or backandforth or baaaaaccccckkkkkk and fooorrrrthhhhhhh.
Resonance and cadence are heard in the silence of your reader's mind. It is your words blending with their consciousness that will create magic.
We craft our words and we hear ourselves better, we "get" ourselves better, we allow the richness and wonder of the process to bubble over and through us.
We may be like World Music, we may be like jazz. We may be like country or rhythm and blues. We may sound like Lindsey Lohan or Boy George or Aretha Franklin.
Lindsey Lohan is not Lindsey Buckingham.
Boy George is not George Strait.
Aretha Franklin is not Frank Sinatra.
Listen to the rhythm and sound of the poem below. Read it aloud to "hear" it better.
Do you hear tires against slightly moist pavement?
The Music of Traffic
The music of traffic: the cars passing by swish whoosh moosh schwaaaaa schwaaaaaa
Barely aware of the heavenly scent of the garden surrounding her Home to one of Rodin's Prodigal.
He is here from long ago, bronze listening. Poised, considering, summoning life Swish whoosh moosh Schwaaaaa Schwaaaaaa -
Bordering Wilshire Boulevard the cars played their tire-instruments The peaceful stillness the muffled emissions Swish whoosh moosh schwaaaaa schwaaaaaa
Standing, honoring, breathing she closes her eyes to feel soft movement of the cars and the calling of the garden, the confidence of Rodin's sculpture.
Each and all surrounded by
The music of traffic cars passing by, not hearing not smelling, not taken in - swish whoosh moosh schwaaaaa schwaaaaaa
===== Did you hear the cars driving by in those words?
Take a moment (or five) to close your eyes and listen.
In the silence of your narration, what do you hear? Have a notebook and pencil or pen ready to write after you listen, silently, and quietly enjoy what gifts the sounds around you offer.
When you open your eyes, write what you heard and then write any connections you made from what you heard. How might these sounds be described? How do those sounds connect with your life and with your future reader’s lives?
Sentence Starter "When I listen to the _____, it tells me..."
Word Prompt: Take one of your near silent sounds and use it as your starter.
Finally, a video which will help you remember.... a lot of fun. I think I want to learn this song and sing it when I work with... well, for all ages, actually... it is a lot of fun.
I first heard of Taylor Mali when I attended a rally for public school educators in Washington, DC. Mali is a well-known slam poet and a very vocal advocate of teaching and teachers. His poem "What Teachers Make" has been a rally cry for myself and many others. His words inspired me and I was curious to find out more about him.
I suppose I'm a bit of a late-comer to the poetry slam movement, but as I linked from one video of his to another and then another, I began to feel the words in ways I had not before. I dug deeper and found other slam poets that moved me, challenged me, and inspired me to push my own writing in new ways. Here is one of my favorites of the performances I found:
Writing Prompt: Begin with the words "Love is like..." and brainstorm all the things that come to mind. Use this list as a jumping off point for a poem that compares love to a single object as in the video. Or use many of your ideas to string together a "Laundry List of Love". Most important, HAVE FUN!
I have been thinking about this poetry prompt all week, what theme I should take, what direction to go in and here it is almost time for it to post and I'm having performance anxiety. Just thought I would share that with you. It doesn't matter who you are or what it is that you do, something in your life makes you nervous, has you sweating and with butterflies in your belly.
Poetry Prompt:
Tell me what gives you butterflies. Write for ten minutes writing down anything and everything that makes
you nervous. Choose one and write for ten more minutes describing all of the different feelings that happen in your body at the thought of doing that one thing. You can take it one step further and put it into a form of your choosing if you like.
Word Prompt: Butterflies
If you want to challenge yourself try this poetry type from Shadow Poetry: Joseph's Star. This is an invented form that I am particularly fond of. During A to Z last April I was going through the different types on Shadow Poetry doing A to Z Poetry. For J day I chose this type and wrote a poem titled Grandpa Joe. One thing I did differently than they describe in how to do this form is I chose the same word to end each stanza. You can do it either way, theirs or mine.
Joe
My Grandpa
Surely bigot yes
But loved me truly indeed
Loved me in spite of my choices
Loved me to be me
Yes he did
Love
***
Camp
Fishing fun
Taught me to bait hook
To sit back and enjoy the peace
Reel it in, not too hard or fast
Clean and Gut a trout
Adventure
Love
***
Show
Friday Night
What movie to see
Drive-in cars and trucks
Popcorn candy child delights
Wide eyed, big screen came to life
Scents and sounds around
Sleepy time
Love
***
Couch
Lounging there
Hard days work complete
Time for attention freely shared
Let me shave his whisker scruff
Until he dozed off to dream
Patience a virtue
He showed me
Love
Remember what you decide to do with your poetry is entirely up to you. These are only suggestions to give you inspiration and a jumping off point. I look forward to reading what you come up with.
It is here! Day one of the OctPoWriMo adventure is finally here! Are your pens ready, fingers resting on your keyboards, and all of your poetry tools on hand? Awesome!
“The chief beauty about time
is that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,
It has been with great anticipation that we, Julie, Amy, Linda, Janet, Nimue and I, have been waiting for this day to arrive. I know I am looking forward to meeting this challenge and writing poetry every day during this journey.
Daily Writing Prompts
We, the OctPoWriMo team, will be providing poetry prompts daily from now until October 31st. Remember that the prompts are only suggestions, whatever inspires you is right and perfect and we look forward to reading your poems.
Needing more inspiration... whether you joined us last year or not you you can also check out our prompts from last October. You never know where your inspiration will hit.
This year at the bottom of every new prompt there will be a link up for your poetry. We ask that you visit, at minimum, your neighbors before and after you (if you are at the end go back to the beginning) and share your support and encouragement for the other poets.
You Can Win
I decided to have a giveaway this year, not a contest, that will be running for the whole month of October here and on my personal blog. You can find out everything that is in the Playful Poetry Pack here. Make sure you enter to win in the Rafflecopter below.
Be kind to yourself and most of all have lots and lots of fun during this poetry challenge and as I said last year, "The thing about rules here at OctPoWriMo is that they are meant to be bent or even broken. We are here to stir your imagination not box it in. So let your imagination FLY!" Now head over to the first prompt, Poetry Prompt Day One - Rhyme and Season, written by Linda Roy of elle roy was here and savor the moments as the words flow onto the page. ~Morgan Dragonwillow
Ideas for your poetry can come from anywhere but what about your higher self? That part of you that whispers softly that you may not hear. How can you connect to your higher self and write poetry from that place?
For me it depends on the day.
Sometimes I use dance to connect in and open myself up to be able to hear that small voice inside to allow the words to flow onto the page.
Sometimes I use energy work such as Reiki to connect in.
You may decide to use prayer, meditation, or even yoga.
You can use anything that helps you to connect and open to your higher self to write from that place.
Tuesday is October 1st and this poetry challenge will begin. No matter where you get your inspiration from to write your daily poetry I hope you will come back and share your words with us by linking up and visiting other poets on this incredible journey of writing 31 poems in 31 days.
Come back to link up your poetry on our daily poetry prompts. See you then!
Poetry comes to us bringing life, and focuses on giving us a better understanding of life. Between poetry and other genres of literature there is one sharp distinction. Poetry writing is a friend to all writers. Engrossing and honest, poetry extends universally to all members of society. Poetry exists to communicate significant experience imaginatively and creatively, deepening our knowledge of the senses more poignantly. ~Why Poetry is So Important
This morning I am struggling with how to explain why I believe poetry is so important. Once again Google shows itself to be helpful and I found the above article. It probably does a much better job than I ever could of explaining why poetry is so important to you as an individual and as a community. I hope you decide to check it out.
We have a little over a week until OctPoWriMo begins. I am getting so excited about all the poetry that will be written and shared (though you don't have to share) over the coming month. October has been one of my favorite months for many years. The weather is cooler, the fall colors are spreading across the country side, children are getting ready for Halloween, and the time of family gatherings are just around the corner. All of which are fodder for poetry.
If you have decided to join us to write 31 Poems in 31 Days have you started making a list of the topics/themes that you may want to write about?
Here is a list of possibilities:
Autumn/Fall
Holidays
Changing seasons
Halloween
Family
Horror
Magic
Fantasy
Phobias
Shadow
Darkness
Love
Friendship
Nature
Politics
Food
Gardening
And the list could go on and on. Of course each of the above could have sub-categories and lists of their own.
What are some of the topics/themes on your list, what interests you most, what causes a fire in your belly, and gives passion to your words?
Today I visited a store that smelled like my favorite kind of church: a sanctuary where other people’s books wait to become my books, where I can peruse shelf after self of older books, out of print books, little known books that find their way into my appreciative hands and into my heart.
You may find this assertion unconventional, but I think an integral aspect of my growth as a poet has come from attending used book sales, scanning thrift store book shelves and reading old text books, long ago thrown away to be replaced by a newer edition.
Just last Thursday I visited my local library, not to check out a book, but to peruse the Friends of the Library shelves, the place where they sell books for a meager dime a piece.
Guess what I found?
One of the very books you read about here earlier in the week: Suzanne Vega’s collected writings in The Passionate Eye.
I also bought some other poetry collections there: Circles on the Water, by Marge Piercy and Sunday Houses, an Iowa Poetry Prize collection by Elizabeth Hughey, a poet I had never heard of before but at ten cents I figured what did I have to lose?
Today I declined to buy a collection of Elizabeth Bishop poetry for $30, but I did pick up Sandra McPherson’s Elegies for the Hot Season.The only reason I have ever heard of Sandra McPherson is because I read her poetry in anthology I bought at another used book sale several years before.
All my poetry education comes at the feet of such purchases. I buy poetry textbooks. I buy letters written by poets and memoirs written by poet’s children. I rarely buy first hand. I often find gems by chance.
You have probably guessed by now I am a big fan of reading poetry on a regular basis, both aloud and silently, poetry of all types.
You may be thinking, “My town is too small for used book sales.”
A couple questions: do you have yard sales in your town? Estate sales, thrift stores, schools? I can guarantee you will find poetry in these places. Best of all, you may even write poetry in these places or about these places.
Reading this you may think I’m not being very profound today, but I dare you to venture out into your library sales, your goodwill stores or a garage sale sometimes before October begins.
Buy a book or two. Begin reading.
Come to know which work you enjoy most and what other poets do you connect with the most.
Then repeat the cycle often.
Over time you will see I am in fact being very profound today.
Used book sales have a joy all their own, a joy I hope and pray you discover soon.
Again and again I hear writers say, "I can't write poetry." or "Poetry just isn't for me." and I can't help but think that they are blocking a creative tool that could actually enhance their writing. Possibly blow the doors right off the hinges.
Crossing over to the other side.
I talked to writers on the Story Dam chat on Twitter last Thursday night and I decided I wanted to share with you what I shared with them. Of course I have expanded on it further.
Writers stick with me, you just may discover something you can use.
As a writer even if you don't believe in writer's block things can get stale and you can feel like the words just aren't streaming as they were before.
That is when I believe changing it up to break down the walls to writing & poetry can come in handy.
.
I have discovered that whether I am writing a novel, memoir, or poem it all comes down to getting the words onto the page. Whatever it takes to fill the blank page and for me it takes changing it up. Yes, okay I get bored. For me if I do the same things day in and day out I get bored to tears and want to do something else. That is why having a strict schedule doesn't work for me. I rebel against them over and over.
Changing it up can be anything. For some it can be changing the scenery of where you write - to what you
Light filled flowers.
write with. For others like me I have to change what I am writing all together. That's where poetry comes in.
I have been dabbling in poetry since April of 2012 (yes I wrote poetry before then but few and far between; mostly in high school). I didn't want to be a poet. I wanted to be a writer. I want to write magical mysteries and memoir but I kept getting stuck. I know that fear has a lot to do with it but writing poetry has given me an avenue to write through the fear in bits and pieces. And though Natalie Goldberg will tell you writing is not suppose to be therapy it has been, and still is, very therapeutic for me. If you doubt me check out my blog and read some of the Angry Poetry I recently wrote.
If you are still reading that means that somewhere inside of you this is making a little sense. You may even have hit the same walls that I have hit quite a few times.
Last October I decided to dive into poetry head first and created OctPoWriMo because, as my Muse knows, I can't do anything halfway. It was within that month that I started really touching on deeper issues around my writing. Yes, poetry was helping me see deeper into my writing. It allowed me to write shorter pieces filled with angst, anger, rebellion, love and light (as anyone that has read my book has discovered).
I was still coming up blocked in my other writing. Oh I was writing but fear was still stopping me, telling me I wasn't good enough, telling me it was a bunch of crap. Of course it was crap, I'm still new at all of this writing stuff.
Playing with magnetic poetry.
Recently I started reading more poetry, reading it out loud, and pushing myself to write poetry on a regular basis. That's when I decided to build up my tool bag for poetry. I figured if I was going to be a poet (no halfway remember) I should have all the tools that I need. That is when I decided to get poetry magnets.
There is a place that I am taking you with all of this so please stick with me.
I have been using poetry magnets for my poems ever since I bought them. I knew I was going to like them but I had no idea how helpful they’d be.
They allowed me to look at words differently & have different words in front of me to choose from; to really play with words.
What does that have to do with writing stories you ask? A poem is a story but in a much shorter form and
often w/rhythm or rhyme, but not always. It can be verse, free form, and many other forms that are out there that you can find on ShadowPoetry.com that are easy (mostly) and samples from this century.
My first poem in years, Beauty Denied, (it was a picture of a floating flower that inspired it) was basically a really short story. The only thing I did was count syllables.
Morning chai and writing.
Flower raised Light in her eyes Smiling face Opening to Love Shot rang true Slow to fall Last breath expressed Beauty denied Blood trail out Floating Flower Eyes looking up Gone the light
Honestly the possibilities are endless but think about this - I have found just the act of writing more poetry the juices are flowing faster for all of my writing.
Yes, I am writing more on my current manuscript and I actually can see myself finishing it within the next few weeks to a month.
Writers, I am giving you a challenge. If you have been having trouble with your own manuscripts, take a break and join us for OctPoWriMo. Who knows maybe you will have a break through like I am having.
If nothing else you can change things up and use it to explore within your stories. Feeling stymied on a character, write a poem for their feelings, their struggle, their pain.
Don’t have poetry magnets, get a magazine & start cutting out words until you have a pile of words to play with. It is amazing what happens when you have words to choose from in front of you. Especially when they aren't words that you use on a regular basis. See what it opens up for you. No I am not telling you to paste them down, this is for playing with the words to inspire your writing to go in different directions.
Heck if you want to, go through the dictionary and write down all the words that pop out at you and then cut them up into individual words.
Don't let past writing issues, poetry issues, stop you from exploring and opening up your writing in new ways. You may not be a poet, but that doesn't mean you can't play with your words.
I wonder what it was like to live in the days when writing poetry was something everyone did on a very regular basis and they were exchanged along with carefully crafted correspondence, read with great anticipation and a wide open heart rather than a cynical sneer.
You’ve seen the Jane Austen movies where the women gather around to hear the poetry and letters read aloud. All the cooing and eyelash fluttering – I admit it, I love it and not so secretly wish I was there with them.
Back then, people practiced writing poetry both on paper and in their heads.
They read oodles of poetry on a daily basis, so the idea of musicality with words was as much a part of their lives as extravagant layers of undergarments.
I’m not so much a fan of wearing a corset everyday – though occasionally it is fun – but I am living the life of reading poetry every day, oftentimes aloud with a British accent if you must know, in order to soak up the music of poetry: especially metrical verse that may seem dated by some of today’s poets and poetry lovers.
I even believe there is a place for metrical verse in today’s literary canon. There is much to be learned from our forepoets who studied the sounds of poetry and rejoiced in the combinations of vowels and consonants, metaphor and engaging storytelling with tiny little secrets tucked away in the third stanza that only one or two might understand.
In fact, listening to hip hop poets may be very helpful to poets in other styles get the feeling for what metrical verse sometimes sounds like.
The other night I took my friend’s nine-year-old son to a comedy improv show and we started to discuss Midsummer Night’s Dream. I realized the young man might not be familiar with Shakespeare so I asked if he knew of the Bard and he said, “Isn’t he a poetry guy or something?”
I loved this response. I said, “Oh, yes. He a poetic playwright.” I hope I piqued the interest of my young friend, just like I hope today I pique your interest. There was a time when I challenged myself to write Villanelle daily and then Rondolet daily and then other forms of metrical verse daily.
Do you know what this did?
It allowed rhyme and rhythm and meter to flow into my veins. Later that season, when I was performing my monologue from Shakespeare’s Winter Tale I fumbled over some lines but was able – please, William Shakespeare, forgive me – to rhyme my way out of the mess I had made and go right back into the verse as written.
See? It is fun to play with metrical verse and it does pay off in unexpected ways!
~ Julie Jordan Scott
Some links/resources for more metrical poetry play:
