We can't like every poem we read, or are shown. Some poetry irritates me. Some poetry seems to have nothing to say to me. But as a writer of poetry I do try and articulate why a poem isn't working for me (in relation to craft choices rather than subject matter) and it's often the case that after taking a poem apart, looking at its language, its form, its dramatic development, and trusting in the sincerity of the author, I actually end up liking it more! But not always : )
But what is truly wonderful is coming across a poem that seems to speak to me before I have even thought about engaging my critical mind. A poem that really does enter the body first, that somehow feels true and honest and essential, even if I don't fully understand it.
The poem below had that effect on me. It might not have the same effect on you, but however you respond, try and use it as a model for a poem of your own. By 'model', I mean try copying some of the syntactical and language choices; try and use the engine of this poem to drive your own.
I had a go myself and you can read my unfinished draft below.
Small Town
You know.
The light on upstairs
before four every morning. The man
asleep every night before eight.
What programs they watch. Who
traded cars, what keeps the town
moving.
The town knows. You
know. You've known for years over
drugstore coffee. Who hurts, who
loves.
Why, today, in the house
two down from the church, people
you know cannot stop weeping.
Philip Booth
from Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950-1999
Penguin Group, 1999
And here's my attempt:
Home
We know.
Sunlight moves
across the face of the house
between 9 and 3. The growl
of the postman’s Vesper.
Tuesday night episodes
of CSI with a break for tea.
Paving slabs wait to be laid.
The Bleu Lavande is cut
50/50 with an oil-based white.
The air is warming by degrees
despite the unexpected snow
this week. The Mairie have said
‘yes’. Twenty five years
have passed since we met.
Tears. Laughter.
These last two years have not
been easy. The jasmine hedge
will start to flower soon.
The days will lengthen. We know
we will grow old together.
Write well. I look forward to reading your poems.
L x
Tuesday, February 2
Monday, January 18
January Poetry Prompt - What will we remember
I find the following poem by Gary Snyder incredibly beautiful. I think that the stasis of it, a frozen past moment captured in the photo, is part of that, as is the rhetorical question in the first line. In haiku writing there's a term 'wabi sabi' which means, as far as I can be sure, a combination of beauty and loss. Memories often have that quality.
Looking at Pictures to Be Put Away
Who was this girl
In her white night gown
Clutching a pair of jeans
On a foggy redwood deck.
She looks up at me tender,
Calm, surprised,
What will we remember
Bodied thick with food and lovers
After twenty years.
Gary Snyder
from The Back Country
© New Directions, 1957
I wrote a poem for my grand-daughter called 'What we remember' parallelling my childhood memories with what I imagined hers might be:
What We Remember
(For Summer)
How Dadcu wore his belt buckled at the back, pulled
so tight around his skinny waist the tops of his trousers
fluted like piecrust; how he swallowed raw eggs, breaking
the yolk in the chamber of his throat; how the fire roared
behind yesterday’s paper stretched across its mouth
and Granny melted cheese in dishes on the grate,
kept an open tin of condensed milk for tea. The lumpy
featherbed, the musty wardrobe, a chocolate coloured fur coat.
And what will she remember? Her granddad throwing her
in the air, the fat china woman on the edge of my bath,
the window at floor level in her bedroom looking down
on red tiled roofs, sheep in long grass, the apple orchard?
Or the day we smeared our faces with burnt cork
and she said You are my best friend. But no,
that is what I’ll remember, and how she asked
Why do you make that funny face when you look in the mirror?
Perhaps these two poems will help inspire a poem of your own about one or several past memories.
Free write in the first instance from the phrase - What will we remember... then, when and if you feel you're ready to start shaping your words into a poem, think about form.
Short lines or long lines?
One block, or couplets, or tercets or quatrains?
Experiment with different shapes and try and identify the form that suits what you're saying, the emotional tone of the poem. And, if you'd like to, when you post your poem, add a few notes about why you've chosen that particular form.
Write well.
Lynne x
Looking at Pictures to Be Put Away
Who was this girl
In her white night gown
Clutching a pair of jeans
On a foggy redwood deck.
She looks up at me tender,
Calm, surprised,
What will we remember
Bodied thick with food and lovers
After twenty years.
Gary Snyder
from The Back Country
© New Directions, 1957
I wrote a poem for my grand-daughter called 'What we remember' parallelling my childhood memories with what I imagined hers might be:
What We Remember
(For Summer)
How Dadcu wore his belt buckled at the back, pulled
so tight around his skinny waist the tops of his trousers
fluted like piecrust; how he swallowed raw eggs, breaking
the yolk in the chamber of his throat; how the fire roared
behind yesterday’s paper stretched across its mouth
and Granny melted cheese in dishes on the grate,
kept an open tin of condensed milk for tea. The lumpy
featherbed, the musty wardrobe, a chocolate coloured fur coat.
And what will she remember? Her granddad throwing her
in the air, the fat china woman on the edge of my bath,
the window at floor level in her bedroom looking down
on red tiled roofs, sheep in long grass, the apple orchard?
Or the day we smeared our faces with burnt cork
and she said You are my best friend. But no,
that is what I’ll remember, and how she asked
Why do you make that funny face when you look in the mirror?
Perhaps these two poems will help inspire a poem of your own about one or several past memories.
Free write in the first instance from the phrase - What will we remember... then, when and if you feel you're ready to start shaping your words into a poem, think about form.
Short lines or long lines?
One block, or couplets, or tercets or quatrains?
Experiment with different shapes and try and identify the form that suits what you're saying, the emotional tone of the poem. And, if you'd like to, when you post your poem, add a few notes about why you've chosen that particular form.
Write well.
Lynne x
Sunday, January 10
Happy New Year
... to everyone who follows this blog, or has just come across it accidentally. I hope you enjoy what AppleHouse will deliver during 2010.
It's too early in the year to apply too much pressure to ourselves, so let's take it easy as far as writing a poem is concerned, and just play with lists (a little like the 2010 Wishlist, but with a different focus). Anything we write feeds into our writing practice... except emails! They just make us feel as if we're writing : )
Write a list of 10 things you have never done. Be playful, bizarre, honest, emotional, intellectual... don't try and control your writing.
Then close the list with something you have done during the course of your life, beginning with the phrase 'But once I...'. Describe this thing in detail, what happened, how you felt.
Here's my own spontaneous attempt. I look forward to reading yours.
I have never travelled across a desert.
I have never been lost.
I have never learned to tango
or how to fly a plane
or how to tell when a man is lying.
I have never left the house and kept on walking for days.
I have never lied about my age.
I have never tried to tightrope walk
or hang upside down from an acrobat’s bar.
I have never slept on sand.
But once, in a dream, I flew,
my feet lifting from the ground the way
a balloon rises in the air
and in those moments before I woke
I was incredible.
Write well.
Lynne
It's too early in the year to apply too much pressure to ourselves, so let's take it easy as far as writing a poem is concerned, and just play with lists (a little like the 2010 Wishlist, but with a different focus). Anything we write feeds into our writing practice... except emails! They just make us feel as if we're writing : )
Write a list of 10 things you have never done. Be playful, bizarre, honest, emotional, intellectual... don't try and control your writing.
Then close the list with something you have done during the course of your life, beginning with the phrase 'But once I...'. Describe this thing in detail, what happened, how you felt.
Here's my own spontaneous attempt. I look forward to reading yours.
I have never travelled across a desert.
I have never been lost.
I have never learned to tango
or how to fly a plane
or how to tell when a man is lying.
I have never left the house and kept on walking for days.
I have never lied about my age.
I have never tried to tightrope walk
or hang upside down from an acrobat’s bar.
I have never slept on sand.
But once, in a dream, I flew,
my feet lifting from the ground the way
a balloon rises in the air
and in those moments before I woke
I was incredible.
Write well.
Lynne
Thursday, December 31
2010 Wishlist
I'm not a fan of New Year Resolutions. They reek of being good and behaving yourself! And no one should have that kind of pressure.
But a wishlist is something else. What would you like to see in 2010? For yourself? I played a wishlist game, quite a few years ago now, during a Christmas Party at the University of Kent... collecting wishes from as many people as possible and then assembling them into a poem. You can read it below.
One of my wishes listed in the poem was 'a house by the sea', and, now I live in one! Maybe writing things down can make them come true : )
So, post your wishlists here. Have a wonderful New Year's Eve and wishing you all the good things you need in 2010.
Lynne x
What We Want
The School of English Christmas Wish-List 2002
We want flats in London, shepherds’ huts,
houses by the sea. We want the smell of pine trees,
lavender and roses on pillows, fresh white sheets.
We want a cure for snoring, more hours to sleep,
more laughing dreams. We want convertibles
and window seats, movie posters and movie passes,
crystals and mirrors, ironwork in unexpected places.
We want unlined hands, half-moons in our nails,
smooth feet. We want good foot-balling knees
and J. Lo’s bum, faces that don’t give us away,
20/20 vision, hair that goes white not grey, bodies
of Greek gods that won’t shrink as we get older.
We want to be piano players, Salsa dancers,
lucky in cards and Lottery winners. We want
our books to write themselves, win contracts,
to say goodbye to QA and PhDs. We want to write
shining essays. And can we have more chairs,
more money, full time jobs? Can we please
abolish Comedy & Tragedy? And have gardens
that look after themselves, magic fireplaces
that light every morning and clean away at night,
clothes that don’t need ironing - purple shoes,
tight red leather skirts. We want cranks
to open our minds wider, devices to translate
what people really mean, to listen harder.
We want our futures to survive their construction,
for our children to get their degrees, to find
themselves, their places in this world,
and return to us safe and in health. We want
to remember them at their best. And for all of us
to be happy cats and birds, to drink good wine
and have the space and time to watch trees
change slowly. And if magic really does exist –
for Spurs to win the title, Liverpool the League,
for Bob Marley to rise and give us babies.
And less fear, yes less of that, no wars,
and more joy, freedom and peace, and peace
of mind, yes, much, much more of that.
But a wishlist is something else. What would you like to see in 2010? For yourself? I played a wishlist game, quite a few years ago now, during a Christmas Party at the University of Kent... collecting wishes from as many people as possible and then assembling them into a poem. You can read it below.
One of my wishes listed in the poem was 'a house by the sea', and, now I live in one! Maybe writing things down can make them come true : )
So, post your wishlists here. Have a wonderful New Year's Eve and wishing you all the good things you need in 2010.
Lynne x
What We Want
The School of English Christmas Wish-List 2002
We want flats in London, shepherds’ huts,
houses by the sea. We want the smell of pine trees,
lavender and roses on pillows, fresh white sheets.
We want a cure for snoring, more hours to sleep,
more laughing dreams. We want convertibles
and window seats, movie posters and movie passes,
crystals and mirrors, ironwork in unexpected places.
We want unlined hands, half-moons in our nails,
smooth feet. We want good foot-balling knees
and J. Lo’s bum, faces that don’t give us away,
20/20 vision, hair that goes white not grey, bodies
of Greek gods that won’t shrink as we get older.
We want to be piano players, Salsa dancers,
lucky in cards and Lottery winners. We want
our books to write themselves, win contracts,
to say goodbye to QA and PhDs. We want to write
shining essays. And can we have more chairs,
more money, full time jobs? Can we please
abolish Comedy & Tragedy? And have gardens
that look after themselves, magic fireplaces
that light every morning and clean away at night,
clothes that don’t need ironing - purple shoes,
tight red leather skirts. We want cranks
to open our minds wider, devices to translate
what people really mean, to listen harder.
We want our futures to survive their construction,
for our children to get their degrees, to find
themselves, their places in this world,
and return to us safe and in health. We want
to remember them at their best. And for all of us
to be happy cats and birds, to drink good wine
and have the space and time to watch trees
change slowly. And if magic really does exist –
for Spurs to win the title, Liverpool the League,
for Bob Marley to rise and give us babies.
And less fear, yes less of that, no wars,
and more joy, freedom and peace, and peace
of mind, yes, much, much more of that.
Saturday, December 19
December Poetry Prompt 1 - Keeping it Anonymous
A Scandal in the Suburbs
We had to have him put away,
For what if he'd grown vicious?
To play faith healer, give away
Stale bread and stinking fishes!
His soapbox preaching set the tongues
Of all the neighbors going.
Odd stuff: how lilies never spin
And birds don't bother sowing.
Why, bums were coming to the door—
His pockets had no bottom—
And then-the foot-wash from that whore!
We signed. They came and got him.
X.J. Kennedy
In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems, 1955–2007
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
XJ Kennedy's poems is a rant, and a defense, and a contemporary spin on the biblical story. I like how no names are mentioned but we are absolutely sure of what we're reading because of certain details: bread, fishes, lilies, footwash...
Can you write a poem about a famous, or infamous person, that does not mention them by name, either in the title or the text, but still make it clear who the poem is about?
To make things a little more challenging, try and keep the poem to a maximum of 12 lines too.
You can either write the poem in the voice of your chosen character, or adopt the voice of an 'observer' as in the case of this poem.
And remember, a poem needs to be 'about' something too. It needs to be the vehicle for an idea, or ideas. 'A Scandal in the Suburbs' is not just about the Jesus story, it makes me think about how easily we judge people, how we find ways to defend our actions. It's about fear of difference. Perhaps of change.
Good luck and write well. And enjoy the holidays.
Lynne
x
We had to have him put away,
For what if he'd grown vicious?
To play faith healer, give away
Stale bread and stinking fishes!
His soapbox preaching set the tongues
Of all the neighbors going.
Odd stuff: how lilies never spin
And birds don't bother sowing.
Why, bums were coming to the door—
His pockets had no bottom—
And then-the foot-wash from that whore!
We signed. They came and got him.
X.J. Kennedy
In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems, 1955–2007
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
XJ Kennedy's poems is a rant, and a defense, and a contemporary spin on the biblical story. I like how no names are mentioned but we are absolutely sure of what we're reading because of certain details: bread, fishes, lilies, footwash...
Can you write a poem about a famous, or infamous person, that does not mention them by name, either in the title or the text, but still make it clear who the poem is about?
To make things a little more challenging, try and keep the poem to a maximum of 12 lines too.
You can either write the poem in the voice of your chosen character, or adopt the voice of an 'observer' as in the case of this poem.
And remember, a poem needs to be 'about' something too. It needs to be the vehicle for an idea, or ideas. 'A Scandal in the Suburbs' is not just about the Jesus story, it makes me think about how easily we judge people, how we find ways to defend our actions. It's about fear of difference. Perhaps of change.
Good luck and write well. And enjoy the holidays.
Lynne
x
Thursday, December 10
December Poetry Prompt 1 - Food
Food is on my mind. Not surprisingly since I seem to have eaten non-stop for the last three weeks! I always end up eating more when I'm doing less - lazing about on the beach and loitering in bookshops must use up far more energy than I realise : )
Although, to be honest, food is never very far from my mind. When I was teaching at the University of Kent, in the UK, one student remarked that I had never managed to last a whole seminar without mentioning food or drink. In the context of the seminar's theme, that is... But it's true that my novel, The Oven House, is full of foodie bits - coffee shops, poached salmon, kettle crisps, home-made soup, pesto sauce, ice-cream...
I also know that food plays an important part in my memories, from my dad's vegetable garden, to the tin of condensed milk my granny kept on the kitchen table to add to her tea, to the frozen peas I tried to outstare every time my mother put them on my plate and said, 'Eat them. They're good for you.'
Brainstorm for food associated with your childhood. Food you liked and food you hated. Food and drink that you weren't allowed to have. Treats. Special occasions. Fears and rewards.
Here's an old poem of mine to start you off.
Bean Picking
for my father
When the jungle of leaves
dropped their scarlet blossoms
we waited for them to grow
at first invisible against the green
but in August we pushed
between the rows with a colander
and your orders to leave the small
and not to miss the big.
The coarse underside of leaves
grazed our bare shoulders, sun
dribbled through the overlaps.
We smelt hot, uncooked beans
and tugged them from their stalks,
some solid bodied, plumping
along their length, others curling
like witches’ fingernails.
In the kitchen you topped, tailed,
and pared the spines away.
Just a plate of these’ll do me you used to say,
with butter and a drop of pepper.
At the end of Summer
you saved twelve maybe twenty
moist red hearts
to harden in brown paper.
Write well.
Lynne
x
Although, to be honest, food is never very far from my mind. When I was teaching at the University of Kent, in the UK, one student remarked that I had never managed to last a whole seminar without mentioning food or drink. In the context of the seminar's theme, that is... But it's true that my novel, The Oven House, is full of foodie bits - coffee shops, poached salmon, kettle crisps, home-made soup, pesto sauce, ice-cream...
I also know that food plays an important part in my memories, from my dad's vegetable garden, to the tin of condensed milk my granny kept on the kitchen table to add to her tea, to the frozen peas I tried to outstare every time my mother put them on my plate and said, 'Eat them. They're good for you.'
Brainstorm for food associated with your childhood. Food you liked and food you hated. Food and drink that you weren't allowed to have. Treats. Special occasions. Fears and rewards.
Here's an old poem of mine to start you off.
Bean Picking
for my father
When the jungle of leaves
dropped their scarlet blossoms
we waited for them to grow
at first invisible against the green
but in August we pushed
between the rows with a colander
and your orders to leave the small
and not to miss the big.
The coarse underside of leaves
grazed our bare shoulders, sun
dribbled through the overlaps.
We smelt hot, uncooked beans
and tugged them from their stalks,
some solid bodied, plumping
along their length, others curling
like witches’ fingernails.
In the kitchen you topped, tailed,
and pared the spines away.
Just a plate of these’ll do me you used to say,
with butter and a drop of pepper.
At the end of Summer
you saved twelve maybe twenty
moist red hearts
to harden in brown paper.
Write well.
Lynne
x
Tuesday, November 17
November Poetry Prompt - The Sacred
I like Stephen Dunn’s poetry a lot, and the following one, The Sacred, is no exception.
The Sacred
After the teacher asked if anyone had
.....a sacred place
and the students fidgeted and shrank
in their chairs, the most serious of them all
.....said it was his car,
being in it alone, his tape deck playing
things he'd chosen, and others knew the truth
.....had been spoken
and began speaking about their rooms,
their hiding places, but the car kept coming up,
.....the car in motion,
music filling it, and sometimes one other person
who understood the bright altar of the dashboard
.....and how far away
a car could take him from the need
to speak, or to answer, the key
.....in having a key
and putting it in, and going.
Stephen Dunn
from Between Angels
© W.W. Norton & Company, 1989
I like it for what it says: how a teacher encourages students to share intimate thoughts, (good teachers are gifts we need to celebrate) and how the familiar (a car) is elevated to the sacred.
And I like it for its form: how the line breaks introduce exquisite hesitancies before we read over to find out what the next line/stanza will reveal; how they put emotional pressure on ordinary language and draw attention to what is being said, and what is being suggested.
It’s a joy to read aloud. Try it, and introduce a slight pause, as if you’re catching your breath, at the end of each line where there’s no punctuation.
The second poetry prompt/challenge for November is to write a poem about a sacred place. But… the place has to be an ordinary place, a place that you wouldn’t normally associate with grandeur… so, no cathedrals, mountain tops, or star-watching in the open air.
The second limitation is that I’d like you to write the poem in the 3rd person – he/she/ they. Now, you might still decide to write about yourself, and if you do you might find that the 3rd person actually gives you a little more freedom to ‘observe’ yourself. Or you might choose someone else’s life and sacred place to write about, and that’s good too: to step outside our own concerns and explore what the world might mean to someone else.
You won’t be hearing from me for three weeks, as I’m taking a holiday, but I’m already looking forward to reading your poems when I get back on 8th December.
Write well.
Lynne
x
The Sacred
After the teacher asked if anyone had
.....a sacred place
and the students fidgeted and shrank
in their chairs, the most serious of them all
.....said it was his car,
being in it alone, his tape deck playing
things he'd chosen, and others knew the truth
.....had been spoken
and began speaking about their rooms,
their hiding places, but the car kept coming up,
.....the car in motion,
music filling it, and sometimes one other person
who understood the bright altar of the dashboard
.....and how far away
a car could take him from the need
to speak, or to answer, the key
.....in having a key
and putting it in, and going.
Stephen Dunn
from Between Angels
© W.W. Norton & Company, 1989
I like it for what it says: how a teacher encourages students to share intimate thoughts, (good teachers are gifts we need to celebrate) and how the familiar (a car) is elevated to the sacred.
And I like it for its form: how the line breaks introduce exquisite hesitancies before we read over to find out what the next line/stanza will reveal; how they put emotional pressure on ordinary language and draw attention to what is being said, and what is being suggested.
It’s a joy to read aloud. Try it, and introduce a slight pause, as if you’re catching your breath, at the end of each line where there’s no punctuation.
The second poetry prompt/challenge for November is to write a poem about a sacred place. But… the place has to be an ordinary place, a place that you wouldn’t normally associate with grandeur… so, no cathedrals, mountain tops, or star-watching in the open air.
The second limitation is that I’d like you to write the poem in the 3rd person – he/she/ they. Now, you might still decide to write about yourself, and if you do you might find that the 3rd person actually gives you a little more freedom to ‘observe’ yourself. Or you might choose someone else’s life and sacred place to write about, and that’s good too: to step outside our own concerns and explore what the world might mean to someone else.
You won’t be hearing from me for three weeks, as I’m taking a holiday, but I’m already looking forward to reading your poems when I get back on 8th December.
Write well.
Lynne
x
Wednesday, November 4
November Poetry Prompt - Fire
Fire. It's the time of year that we light them. In our houses and in our gardens. November 5th, in the UK, is Bonfire Night, and fire becomes an entertainment.
Fire keeps us warm. It comforts. It can even, for some people, ward away danger. But fire destroys too - homes, land, lives. But it also purifies.
We can control fire to a certain degree, perhaps like the way we can only control our own passions and emotions to a certain degree, unless we're particularly self-contained. But does everyone have a breaking point? A point when the 'fire' will escape and engulf someone or something? A point when the 'fire' will clear the way forward, or destroy what is in its path.
Free write around 'Fire'. What are the emotions, images, memories, songs, phrases ... anything at all... that spring spontaneously to mind? Follow the thread of one that feels the strongest.
I look forward to reading your poems, and here's one of mine from my collection, Learning How to Fall:
Spontaneous
It happened at the Turkey Farm.
Witnesses heard a woomph like someone
stepping smartly on a bag of air and when
they got there, found the charred remains
of cloth, some bones. And a man
in Minnesota had done it on his deck at home,
mid-morning, the temperature only 54
but the Budweiser in his glass was warm.
If she could do at will what all these people
did in error, she reckoned on a money-spinner,
all sorts of side-lines – self-help books like
How to Find the Warmth Within. She’d start
small, spend days imagining the glow
of an orange ball inside her chest. The weeks
focusing on the hairs along her arm until
she could feel and smell the heat, hear
a crack like a mosquito on an outside light.
She knew she was on a roll. Soon she’d be
hiring halls to accommodate the crowds.
She’d open with a nest of leaves transformed
to a smouldering pyre on her palm,
and build to her grand finale – the full
combust, walls racketing with applause,
the diminishing calls of Encore!
Lynne Rees
Fire keeps us warm. It comforts. It can even, for some people, ward away danger. But fire destroys too - homes, land, lives. But it also purifies.
We can control fire to a certain degree, perhaps like the way we can only control our own passions and emotions to a certain degree, unless we're particularly self-contained. But does everyone have a breaking point? A point when the 'fire' will escape and engulf someone or something? A point when the 'fire' will clear the way forward, or destroy what is in its path.
Free write around 'Fire'. What are the emotions, images, memories, songs, phrases ... anything at all... that spring spontaneously to mind? Follow the thread of one that feels the strongest.
I look forward to reading your poems, and here's one of mine from my collection, Learning How to Fall:
Spontaneous
It happened at the Turkey Farm.
Witnesses heard a woomph like someone
stepping smartly on a bag of air and when
they got there, found the charred remains
of cloth, some bones. And a man
in Minnesota had done it on his deck at home,
mid-morning, the temperature only 54
but the Budweiser in his glass was warm.
If she could do at will what all these people
did in error, she reckoned on a money-spinner,
all sorts of side-lines – self-help books like
How to Find the Warmth Within. She’d start
small, spend days imagining the glow
of an orange ball inside her chest. The weeks
focusing on the hairs along her arm until
she could feel and smell the heat, hear
a crack like a mosquito on an outside light.
She knew she was on a roll. Soon she’d be
hiring halls to accommodate the crowds.
She’d open with a nest of leaves transformed
to a smouldering pyre on her palm,
and build to her grand finale – the full
combust, walls racketing with applause,
the diminishing calls of Encore!
Lynne Rees
Monday, October 19
Free Writing Ideas
Write about five different things, one for each sense - sight, sound, touch, taste and smell - that you have experienced in the previous 24 hours.
We don’t have to search far for material to write about – it’s constantly around us, we just have to notice it, and remember to make a record of it.
Paint the picture/moment/event in words - really see (re-experience) all the details.
Give yourself 10 to 20 mins for each one. Start writing and make yourself continue until your chosen time is up.
You could do one a day for the next five days. Don't worry about reading back over them. Let them sit in your notebook for a while.
And for a little inspiration, here are some delicious excerpts from Charles Simic's notebook:
Seeing is determined not by the eye but by the clarity of my consciousness. Most of the time the eyes see nothing.
My soul is constituted of thousands of images I cannot erase. Everything I remember vividly from a fly on a wall in Belgrade to some street in San Francisco early one morning. I'm a grainy old, often silent, often flickering film.
Two young birch trees wrestling in the wind. The crow in the snow refereeing.
The day I went to make funeral arrangements for my father-in-law, I caught a glimpse of the mortician's wife nursing the mortician's new daughter. Her breasts were swollen huge with milk.
The restaurant is Greek. The waiter's name is Socrates, so Plato must be in the kitchen, and Aristotle is the fellow studying a racing form at the cash register. Today's special, grilled calamari with fresh parsley, garlic, and olive oil.
From The Poet's Notebook, Excerpts From The Notebooks Of 26 American Poets, WW Norton New York 1995.
Write well.
We don’t have to search far for material to write about – it’s constantly around us, we just have to notice it, and remember to make a record of it.
Paint the picture/moment/event in words - really see (re-experience) all the details.
Give yourself 10 to 20 mins for each one. Start writing and make yourself continue until your chosen time is up.
You could do one a day for the next five days. Don't worry about reading back over them. Let them sit in your notebook for a while.
And for a little inspiration, here are some delicious excerpts from Charles Simic's notebook:
Seeing is determined not by the eye but by the clarity of my consciousness. Most of the time the eyes see nothing.
My soul is constituted of thousands of images I cannot erase. Everything I remember vividly from a fly on a wall in Belgrade to some street in San Francisco early one morning. I'm a grainy old, often silent, often flickering film.
Two young birch trees wrestling in the wind. The crow in the snow refereeing.
The day I went to make funeral arrangements for my father-in-law, I caught a glimpse of the mortician's wife nursing the mortician's new daughter. Her breasts were swollen huge with milk.
The restaurant is Greek. The waiter's name is Socrates, so Plato must be in the kitchen, and Aristotle is the fellow studying a racing form at the cash register. Today's special, grilled calamari with fresh parsley, garlic, and olive oil.
From The Poet's Notebook, Excerpts From The Notebooks Of 26 American Poets, WW Norton New York 1995.
Write well.
Tuesday, October 6
Happy October
Autumn slips in very slowly, and rather late in the year, in the South of France. The two plane trees in the garden are still sprouting and green, although the small oak has decided that it's time to turn. People are still swimming during the day, but the nights are cooler and we tend to move indoors by around 8.30 rather than our usual 11.
I suppose when we think of autumn we tend to think of change: shorter days, trees becoming bare, fires lit for the first time in months. It's a season of things slowing down.
When I lived in the UK I used to look forward to putting on a thick sweater. There's something quite lovely about being encased in thick wool or cotton when it's cold and blustery outside.
The following poem is from a sequence commissioned by Medway Maritime Hospital to accompany a series of artworks you can still see in the Fracture Clinic Waiting Room - 'The Four Seasons' by Tony Crosse.
Autumn
This is the gathering –
fields grubbed bare
leaf, flower, seed
settled to mulch.
Winds rattle
the garden’s ghosts.
We light bonfires
to tempt the sun
but the day’s too full
of doubt. At night
the fox’s scream –
the first cold snap.
The four panels are abstract representations of the seasons and are made entirely from materials used in the Clinic:
Here are some ideas for a poem:
1. Write a haiku with an autumn 'kigo' (season word). There's a two part seminar on writing haiku here.
2. Write about slowness. Research the word first for associated ideas.
3. Find an artwork that you really like and write in response to it. Here's a post that appeared earlier in this blog.
I'm in the UK between 7th and 17th October (and I'm really looking forward to catching up with a few of you) so I'll comment on any poems posted when I get back.
Write well.
Lynne x
I suppose when we think of autumn we tend to think of change: shorter days, trees becoming bare, fires lit for the first time in months. It's a season of things slowing down.
When I lived in the UK I used to look forward to putting on a thick sweater. There's something quite lovely about being encased in thick wool or cotton when it's cold and blustery outside.
The following poem is from a sequence commissioned by Medway Maritime Hospital to accompany a series of artworks you can still see in the Fracture Clinic Waiting Room - 'The Four Seasons' by Tony Crosse.
Autumn
This is the gathering –
fields grubbed bare
leaf, flower, seed
settled to mulch.
Winds rattle
the garden’s ghosts.
We light bonfires
to tempt the sun
but the day’s too full
of doubt. At night
the fox’s scream –
the first cold snap.
The four panels are abstract representations of the seasons and are made entirely from materials used in the Clinic:
Here are some ideas for a poem:
1. Write a haiku with an autumn 'kigo' (season word). There's a two part seminar on writing haiku here.
2. Write about slowness. Research the word first for associated ideas.
3. Find an artwork that you really like and write in response to it. Here's a post that appeared earlier in this blog.
I'm in the UK between 7th and 17th October (and I'm really looking forward to catching up with a few of you) so I'll comment on any poems posted when I get back.
Write well.
Lynne x
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