Who gave you your name?
Do you know what it means?
Do you like it?
If your name was a shape, what shape would it be?
Would you prefer to have a different name? Why?
Have you ever been called by another name, or names?
Do different people have different names for you?
If your name was the title of a novel what kind of novel would it be? What would the main character be like?
Have you ever had any nick-names?
Free write around your name for about 15 minutes, responding to these questions and anything else that enters your mind.
Let the writing sit for a couple of days, without reading back over it, though continue to think and make notes about any other ideas that come to you.
When you're ready, read back over all your notes to see if you have the material for a poem.
You'll see a poem of mine below, written some years ago when I was alone in a small spanish village on a writing retreat.
Write well.
L x
How Are You?
After twelve anonymous days
I walk into the supermercado and someone says
my name and my heart
ignites with something that feels like heat, light.
No matter that rain is pushing its cold smoke
down the mountains,
that I can smell it coming,
the damp evening air sticking to my skin.
What more is there? My place in the world
confirmed, still hearing it in the street –
Lynne! Que tal? Like a blessing. And I am fine.
I am so fine.
Lynne Rees
Showing posts with label free writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free writing. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
February Rain
We've had a pretty wet winter here on the Cote d'Azur. And just when I think it's over (yesterday was delivered into blue skies and sunshine and 15 degrees) it starts again. Fine rain, but so much of it that it's like pushing through a curtain.
During the first ever writing course I went on (Poetry and Rock-Climbing, I kid you not!, at Ty Newydd in North Wales) we were asked to write down all the different words and phrases we knew of to describe rain...
...drizzle, shower, flurry, patter, picking with rain (that's South Wales), deluge, driving rain, squall, monsoon, drenching rain, soaking rain, torrential rain, cloudburst, bucketing down...
I'm sure you could go on. So please do go on. And on.
Read about rain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain
Google for images about rain. I love this one.
And then think about and write in response to the following:
1. What colours and emotions do you associate with rain?
2. What memories emerge when you think about rain?
I've just remembered a trip to Paris a few years ago and it started to rain when we were still 20 minutes from the hotel. Monsoon-like rain that rose in waves from the gutters as the cars passed. You can only get so wet. After that it doesn't matter.
I look forward to reading your rainy poems, celebrations, memories, complaints, elegies. All of them.
Lynne x
Rain
Rain is the sky’s way of forgetting.
Mist drags over your face. You can only see
the gaps between trees, can’t make yourself small enough
to hide from yourself and the windows
keep letting in rain.
Write ‘cunt’
in salt on the kitchen table, imagine him
slipping into the hills’ slatey folds, the earth
closing over.
Rain for days.
The river rocked with stones, the bridge carved
with someone else’s name. You walk the lanes
sit on gates and watch sheep
mist shrouding the peaks
the sky trying to forget.
from Learning How to Fall.
During the first ever writing course I went on (Poetry and Rock-Climbing, I kid you not!, at Ty Newydd in North Wales) we were asked to write down all the different words and phrases we knew of to describe rain...
...drizzle, shower, flurry, patter, picking with rain (that's South Wales), deluge, driving rain, squall, monsoon, drenching rain, soaking rain, torrential rain, cloudburst, bucketing down...
I'm sure you could go on. So please do go on. And on.
Read about rain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain
Google for images about rain. I love this one.
And then think about and write in response to the following:
1. What colours and emotions do you associate with rain?
2. What memories emerge when you think about rain?
I've just remembered a trip to Paris a few years ago and it started to rain when we were still 20 minutes from the hotel. Monsoon-like rain that rose in waves from the gutters as the cars passed. You can only get so wet. After that it doesn't matter.
I look forward to reading your rainy poems, celebrations, memories, complaints, elegies. All of them.
Lynne x
Rain
Rain is the sky’s way of forgetting.
Mist drags over your face. You can only see
the gaps between trees, can’t make yourself small enough
to hide from yourself and the windows
keep letting in rain.
Write ‘cunt’
in salt on the kitchen table, imagine him
slipping into the hills’ slatey folds, the earth
closing over.
Rain for days.
The river rocked with stones, the bridge carved
with someone else’s name. You walk the lanes
sit on gates and watch sheep
mist shrouding the peaks
the sky trying to forget.
from Learning How to Fall.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
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 10, 2009
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
Monday, October 19, 2009
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.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Back briefly...
Did you all have a good summer? The heatwave here reached an almost unbearable level last week but a Mistral for two solid days (that snapped the spokes on the garden parasol!) has blown it away and we're back to a loveliness of blue and warmth and light breeze, a special combination that I've only ever experienced on this coast.
Thanks to everyone who expressed an interest in the subscription only poetry seminars. I'm still working on the fine details and will post all the information here once I've finished.
In the meantime here's something to ponder and perhaps let a poem emerge from your ponderings.
Getting rid of things:
1) Does it have significant sentimental value?
2) Would the memory of the time/place/person it represents be enough?
3) Does it have functional value (i.e. do I use it more than once a month)?
4) Would I be able to get by without it?
These are questions I asked myself before moving in an attempt to de-clutter and avoid packing up a load of rubbish! And they worked... to a certain extent. But here are some more questions:
What's the difference between the things we can get by without and the things that are essential to our well-being? Is functional value more important than beauty? Are we frightened of memories fading? Can we measure and compare the depth of our feelings and emotions towards different people/things?
Feel free to post any responses.
Lynne x
Thanks to everyone who expressed an interest in the subscription only poetry seminars. I'm still working on the fine details and will post all the information here once I've finished.
In the meantime here's something to ponder and perhaps let a poem emerge from your ponderings.
Getting rid of things:
1) Does it have significant sentimental value?
2) Would the memory of the time/place/person it represents be enough?
3) Does it have functional value (i.e. do I use it more than once a month)?
4) Would I be able to get by without it?
These are questions I asked myself before moving in an attempt to de-clutter and avoid packing up a load of rubbish! And they worked... to a certain extent. But here are some more questions:
What's the difference between the things we can get by without and the things that are essential to our well-being? Is functional value more important than beauty? Are we frightened of memories fading? Can we measure and compare the depth of our feelings and emotions towards different people/things?
Feel free to post any responses.
Lynne x
Saturday, April 25, 2009
April Poetry Prompt 2
Dreams and regrets.
Hopes and fears.
Passions.
Write a poem that begins with: One day I will...
Free writing, at length, first might help you unlock some deeper thoughts and ideas.
Write well.
Lynne
x
Hopes and fears.
Passions.
Write a poem that begins with: One day I will...
Free writing, at length, first might help you unlock some deeper thoughts and ideas.
Write well.
Lynne
x
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Life happens...
and throws us all about sometimes. So I'll be a little late making a decision on last month's prize poem. Please bear with me. And in the meantime here are some short prompts for free writing, and possible poems:
Enter Here
Because we were small...
Things I carry
Stop this nonsense...
Something is sick...
Lynne
x
Enter Here
Because we were small...
Things I carry
Stop this nonsense...
Something is sick...
Lynne
x
Friday, February 20, 2009
February Free Write...
... around any, or all, of the following. Use the words or phrases as your starting points, or let them springboard you into a memory, image, or phrase of your own. But whichever you choose, try and write freely:
Keep your pen moving (even if you have to write - I don't know what to write, or What I really want to say is...)
Don't stop to change, edit or correct.
Go with what arises, even if it feels poor, ridiculous, or anxious.
Write for at least 10 minutes, 20 minutes if you have the time.
Don't read back over your writing. Not for a few days.
Perhaps you'll find the seeds of a poem when you do read it. Perhaps not. But you will feel better for having written deeply.
Prompts:
Remember the time when...
Perfect...
These are the lies I have told...
Once upon a time...
Old bones...
When I die I will...
Keys...
Write well.
Lynne x
Keep your pen moving (even if you have to write - I don't know what to write, or What I really want to say is...)
Don't stop to change, edit or correct.
Go with what arises, even if it feels poor, ridiculous, or anxious.
Write for at least 10 minutes, 20 minutes if you have the time.
Don't read back over your writing. Not for a few days.
Perhaps you'll find the seeds of a poem when you do read it. Perhaps not. But you will feel better for having written deeply.
Prompts:
Remember the time when...
Perfect...
These are the lies I have told...
Once upon a time...
Old bones...
When I die I will...
Keys...
Write well.
Lynne x
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Rewarding the Reader
The main post for December is rather more open ended than you've been used to. Take a look at the following:
... a willingness to trust is the one thing the reader may give the writer for free, and it is based on nothing the writer has done but on the reader’s whole relationship with literature. But the dark side of the willingness to trust is suspicion. If the poet does not reward this trust in the first few moments of the poem, he or she is in trouble, because the longer the poet takes to reward it, then the harder it will be to keep it. Stephen Dobyns, from Best Words, Best Order
Readers tend to access poems in stages, however small and fleeting, and, at times, unconscious.
1. They notice the size and shape of the poem without reading the actual words.
2. They estimate the effort required to read it.
3. They consider the title.
4. They read the first few words, the first line.
5. They enter the whole of the poem.
It's probably after 3. that a reader begins to be nudged forward in a willingness to trust the poem and the poet, or grows more suspicious.
So what is it that a reader looks for, or expects from a poem? Here's a list of points I've identified, and how and where they might be located in a poem:
to feel: the presence of emotion
to think: the presence of ideas
to feel anchored: the physical setting
communication: language and image
music: rhythm, rhyme, patterns
tension: the form, the dramatic development, pacing
The degree that a poem is successful is the degree to which some, or all, or these elements are made important to the reader, and if we want to reward a reader, and encourage them to 'stay', then at least one must be made important as soon as possible, either in the shape on the page, or the title, or in the first line or two. Although the balance between rewarding the reader but not answering their questions too easily is sometimes difficult to find. We want to satisfy them, in some way, but also make them want more.
When you post your poems in response, perhaps you could add some brief notes about how you feel you've attempted to reward the reader, the things you consciously considered.
I'm sure you all have poems in process that you can work on but if you need a fresh start then here are some ideas:
Write about the last day of your life.
Write a poem that starts in one place and ends in another - physical, emotional, intellectual.
Write about 'home'.
... a willingness to trust is the one thing the reader may give the writer for free, and it is based on nothing the writer has done but on the reader’s whole relationship with literature. But the dark side of the willingness to trust is suspicion. If the poet does not reward this trust in the first few moments of the poem, he or she is in trouble, because the longer the poet takes to reward it, then the harder it will be to keep it. Stephen Dobyns, from Best Words, Best Order
Readers tend to access poems in stages, however small and fleeting, and, at times, unconscious.
1. They notice the size and shape of the poem without reading the actual words.
2. They estimate the effort required to read it.
3. They consider the title.
4. They read the first few words, the first line.
5. They enter the whole of the poem.
It's probably after 3. that a reader begins to be nudged forward in a willingness to trust the poem and the poet, or grows more suspicious.
So what is it that a reader looks for, or expects from a poem? Here's a list of points I've identified, and how and where they might be located in a poem:
to feel: the presence of emotion
to think: the presence of ideas
to feel anchored: the physical setting
communication: language and image
music: rhythm, rhyme, patterns
tension: the form, the dramatic development, pacing
The degree that a poem is successful is the degree to which some, or all, or these elements are made important to the reader, and if we want to reward a reader, and encourage them to 'stay', then at least one must be made important as soon as possible, either in the shape on the page, or the title, or in the first line or two. Although the balance between rewarding the reader but not answering their questions too easily is sometimes difficult to find. We want to satisfy them, in some way, but also make them want more.
When you post your poems in response, perhaps you could add some brief notes about how you feel you've attempted to reward the reader, the things you consciously considered.
I'm sure you all have poems in process that you can work on but if you need a fresh start then here are some ideas:
Write about the last day of your life.
Write a poem that starts in one place and ends in another - physical, emotional, intellectual.
Write about 'home'.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Just checking in...
...to say I'm reading the November poems and will be posting the Prize Poem soon.
Does anyone else feel surprised that it's December already?! Where did the year go? Or is that just me sounding old? No need to answer that question :-)
To keep you going until the next prompt, try some free writing starting with the following phrases:
This time last year...
This time next year...
And, of course, please post any poems that emerge.
I'll see you soon.
Lynne x
Does anyone else feel surprised that it's December already?! Where did the year go? Or is that just me sounding old? No need to answer that question :-)
To keep you going until the next prompt, try some free writing starting with the following phrases:
This time last year...
This time next year...
And, of course, please post any poems that emerge.
I'll see you soon.
Lynne x
Monday, October 20, 2008
October Poetry Prompt 2 - Islands
I spent last weekend at the Poetry on the Lake Festival at Orta San Giulio in Italy, a place to fall in love with. Here's a shot of the Isla San Giulio in the middle of Lake Orta:
taken from the Piazza Motta:
where you can sit and eat and drink and people watch from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. Just my kind of place!
The island's a very short ferry ride away and the ferry captains take you around the tiny island before landing at the steps leading to the Basilica. There are currently seventy nuns living on the island which made me think how islands are often thought of as places of retreat. On the other hand, islands can also be places of abandonment.
What does the word 'island' mean to you? Brainstorm for associations, ideas and references and see what arises. The challenge is to write a poem that makes some kind of reference to an island, literally or metaphorically.
Good luck.
taken from the Piazza Motta:
where you can sit and eat and drink and people watch from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. Just my kind of place!
The island's a very short ferry ride away and the ferry captains take you around the tiny island before landing at the steps leading to the Basilica. There are currently seventy nuns living on the island which made me think how islands are often thought of as places of retreat. On the other hand, islands can also be places of abandonment.
What does the word 'island' mean to you? Brainstorm for associations, ideas and references and see what arises. The challenge is to write a poem that makes some kind of reference to an island, literally or metaphorically.
Good luck.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Short Prompts
One of the disadvantages of living far from your place of birth is that you don't get to see your family very often. One of the advantages is that when you do get together with them you appreciate them so much. My parents, my sister and her husband, my niece and her husband and their two children have been here in Antibes for a week and so my attention has been focused on them... and not DIY work, but also, unfortunately, not on AppleHouse Poetry Workshop Online. My apologies.
Here are some short prompts that might take you to a place where the words and ideas matter deeply to you.
Because of love...
Inside this box...
I never meant to say...
The sea is cold...
Before I heard you call...
The trees have lost...
Here are some short prompts that might take you to a place where the words and ideas matter deeply to you.
Because of love...
Inside this box...
I never meant to say...
The sea is cold...
Before I heard you call...
The trees have lost...
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
What arrives? What leaves?
I love coming across a poem that hits me with a force, that impresses me with its language and ideas, and that’s exactly how I felt when I read the following:
When We Sold the Tent
When we sold the tent
we threw in the Grand Canyon
with its shawl of pines,
lap full of cones and chipmunks
and crooked seams of river.
We let them have the
parched white moonscapes of Utah,
and Colorado's
magnificat of flowers
sunbursting hill after hill.
Long gentle stretches
of Wyoming, rain outside
some sad Idaho
town where the children, giddy
with strange places, clowned all night.
Eyes like small veiled moons
circling our single light, sleek
shadows with pawprints,
all went with the outfit; and
youth, a river of campfires.
Rhina P. Espaillat
from Playing at Stillness
© Truman State University Press.
Don’t you just love the 2nd line – ‘we threw in the Grand Canyon’? That mix of ordinary, colloquial expression juxtaposed with the enormity of the place? And a ‘shawl of pines’… there’s such comfort there, the comfort of good memories. In fact, I could comment on something in every line. I’ve read the poem about half a dozen times now and each time I feel so ‘lifted’ by it. The third stanza, with its enjambed lines is a delight to read and feel, and then the opening line of the 4th stanza: ‘Eyes like small veiled moons’/ - the beauty of it is breathtaking, while the last line ‘lands’ the poem perfectly. It focuses to a theme, but allows the poem to stay ‘open’ so the reader can wander along their own ‘river of campfires’.
I am so pleased to have discovered this poet and look forward to reading more of her work. You can buy her book at The Book Depository, my favourite online bookseller.
So, the prompt is to write a poem that explores what an object brings into your life when it arrives, or what it takes out of your life when it leaves, when it’s given away, or maybe even lost.
When We Sold the Tent
When we sold the tent
we threw in the Grand Canyon
with its shawl of pines,
lap full of cones and chipmunks
and crooked seams of river.
We let them have the
parched white moonscapes of Utah,
and Colorado's
magnificat of flowers
sunbursting hill after hill.
Long gentle stretches
of Wyoming, rain outside
some sad Idaho
town where the children, giddy
with strange places, clowned all night.
Eyes like small veiled moons
circling our single light, sleek
shadows with pawprints,
all went with the outfit; and
youth, a river of campfires.
Rhina P. Espaillat
from Playing at Stillness
© Truman State University Press.
Don’t you just love the 2nd line – ‘we threw in the Grand Canyon’? That mix of ordinary, colloquial expression juxtaposed with the enormity of the place? And a ‘shawl of pines’… there’s such comfort there, the comfort of good memories. In fact, I could comment on something in every line. I’ve read the poem about half a dozen times now and each time I feel so ‘lifted’ by it. The third stanza, with its enjambed lines is a delight to read and feel, and then the opening line of the 4th stanza: ‘Eyes like small veiled moons’/ - the beauty of it is breathtaking, while the last line ‘lands’ the poem perfectly. It focuses to a theme, but allows the poem to stay ‘open’ so the reader can wander along their own ‘river of campfires’.
I am so pleased to have discovered this poet and look forward to reading more of her work. You can buy her book at The Book Depository, my favourite online bookseller.
So, the prompt is to write a poem that explores what an object brings into your life when it arrives, or what it takes out of your life when it leaves, when it’s given away, or maybe even lost.
Friday, May 09, 2008
May - Ideas for Free-writing
Where has the beginning of May gone? Well fourteen hours of it was spent driving from Calais to Antibes yesterday which is my excuse for not having chosen April's Prize Poem yet. And because I want to give them all an appropriate amount of time, I'm going to read them again this weekend before I choose.
In the meantime here are some free-writing prompts. Don't set out thinking 'this will give me a poem', rather see them as a work-out for stretching your creativity. Be as free as you can, just start writing with the first thing that comes to you in response to these phrases/ideas, and don't edit.
1. No one likes to remember this...
2. Write a list of excuses.
3. You are powerless...
4. What's hidden from me.
5. Write about being lost. Then found.
In the meantime here are some free-writing prompts. Don't set out thinking 'this will give me a poem', rather see them as a work-out for stretching your creativity. Be as free as you can, just start writing with the first thing that comes to you in response to these phrases/ideas, and don't edit.
1. No one likes to remember this...
2. Write a list of excuses.
3. You are powerless...
4. What's hidden from me.
5. Write about being lost. Then found.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Notebook Idea: Why do we write?
Here are three things I’ve thought about:
As a celebration: of the diversity and perversity of the world, of the choices we make, of the people we meet, the things we do.
As a form of prayer: a meditation, or a single-mindedness, a focused activity that is often done during consecrated time, time that has been devoted to the task, time that will not be shared with any other activity.
To inquire and question: Flannery O’Connor said, I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.
Open your notebook and start writing: I write because… Be spontaneous, honest, allow yourselves to be vulnerable, and not worry what other people might think, or what you imagine they might think. Try and be honest with the page. Keep writing, don’t stop to think. If you feel stuck, start again I write because… Write for 20 minutes.
I was introduced to this exercise by Tony Weeks-Pearson, a writer and tutor at Maidstone Adult Education in the early 1990s. It was Tony’s passion for writing – the process, the craft and the work of other writers – that set me off on my own writing path. A truly inspirational man.
As a celebration: of the diversity and perversity of the world, of the choices we make, of the people we meet, the things we do.
As a form of prayer: a meditation, or a single-mindedness, a focused activity that is often done during consecrated time, time that has been devoted to the task, time that will not be shared with any other activity.
To inquire and question: Flannery O’Connor said, I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.
Open your notebook and start writing: I write because… Be spontaneous, honest, allow yourselves to be vulnerable, and not worry what other people might think, or what you imagine they might think. Try and be honest with the page. Keep writing, don’t stop to think. If you feel stuck, start again I write because… Write for 20 minutes.
I was introduced to this exercise by Tony Weeks-Pearson, a writer and tutor at Maidstone Adult Education in the early 1990s. It was Tony’s passion for writing – the process, the craft and the work of other writers – that set me off on my own writing path. A truly inspirational man.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
It's almost the end of the month...
...so thanks very much for the poems you've posted in the previous weeks. I'm about to start printing them all out so I can read them on the page.
As I've already posted 4 prompts this month and the 31st is upon us tomorrow, I won't add another prompt this weekend, but in case you have some time to write this afternoon or tomorrow, try this notebook exercise:
Free write (that is, write without editing and pre-judging what you should or shouldn't say) about the conditions of your life over the years and how you think they may have affected the form and content of your writing. Think about times when you have been more or less productive. What have been, and what still are, your ‘interruptions’? Often our ‘intrusions’ are what gives our writing its substance.
Write for at least 15 or 20 minutes. Don't worry if you find yourself going off at a tangent - follow the energy you discover in your writing. If you feel really stuck then write the following phrase - what I really want to say is... - and carry on writing from there.
There's also still time to post other poems to any of the March prompts. I'll make sure I pick up any late arrivals.
I might be a day late in announcing the Prize Poem. I'm completing on a house in Antibes, South of France, on Monday and the procedure's a little more formal here than in the UK. It's all very exciting though. Apart from the house, which is quite beautiful (expect a lot of poem prompts about houses!) there are palm trees and orange trees in the garden. I can't quite believe it's all happening!
See you in April.
Lynne
As I've already posted 4 prompts this month and the 31st is upon us tomorrow, I won't add another prompt this weekend, but in case you have some time to write this afternoon or tomorrow, try this notebook exercise:
Free write (that is, write without editing and pre-judging what you should or shouldn't say) about the conditions of your life over the years and how you think they may have affected the form and content of your writing. Think about times when you have been more or less productive. What have been, and what still are, your ‘interruptions’? Often our ‘intrusions’ are what gives our writing its substance.
Write for at least 15 or 20 minutes. Don't worry if you find yourself going off at a tangent - follow the energy you discover in your writing. If you feel really stuck then write the following phrase - what I really want to say is... - and carry on writing from there.
There's also still time to post other poems to any of the March prompts. I'll make sure I pick up any late arrivals.
I might be a day late in announcing the Prize Poem. I'm completing on a house in Antibes, South of France, on Monday and the procedure's a little more formal here than in the UK. It's all very exciting though. Apart from the house, which is quite beautiful (expect a lot of poem prompts about houses!) there are palm trees and orange trees in the garden. I can't quite believe it's all happening!
See you in April.
Lynne
Saturday, March 15, 2008
March Poem Prompt 3 - Warnings
Did you know that today is the infamous Ides of March?
Write a poem that's a warning to someone, or some people, about something you believe is dangerous or is going to happen. Free write around the word 'Beware', either in a linear fashion, or by making a 'bubble map' or 'mind map'. The latter can help us break free of ordered or logical thinking and allow the mind to wander more freely or imaginatively.
Your 'warning' can be based in reality or fantasy. It can have public or private significance. It can be serious or light-hearted. List topics that people might need warning about e.g. deep water, words uttered in anger, sugar.
If you're still feeling uninspired after all this free-writing, try one of the following words or phrases as a kick-start:
Never
This is what can happen in the dark
Careful now
Beware of snakes
You will find a poem, something that matters to you, if you keep writing, if you go deep enough.
Write a poem that's a warning to someone, or some people, about something you believe is dangerous or is going to happen. Free write around the word 'Beware', either in a linear fashion, or by making a 'bubble map' or 'mind map'. The latter can help us break free of ordered or logical thinking and allow the mind to wander more freely or imaginatively.
Your 'warning' can be based in reality or fantasy. It can have public or private significance. It can be serious or light-hearted. List topics that people might need warning about e.g. deep water, words uttered in anger, sugar.
If you're still feeling uninspired after all this free-writing, try one of the following words or phrases as a kick-start:
Never
This is what can happen in the dark
Careful now
Beware of snakes
You will find a poem, something that matters to you, if you keep writing, if you go deep enough.
Monday, March 03, 2008
March Poem Prompt 1 – Landscape
Firstly, my apologies for being a day late in announcing the February Prize Poem - check out the post prior to this one to read the winning poem by Leatherdykeuk.
I spent 1st March driving up the length of France, from Antibes on the Mediterranean to Calais on the English Channel watching the landscape change along the way: the snow-peaked Alpes Maritimes, mimosa trees in full bloom, blossoming peach trees, the sun setting behind a swathe of white wind turbines, the dark terrils (slag heaps from old coal mines) of Nord Pas de Calais.
Landscape affects us all. The sea always has a profound effect on me. Mountains too. And when I spend time in the mountains in Wales there’s a part of me that feels ‘connected’ that I don’t think I feel elsewhere.
My first poem prompt of the month is to write a poem that has its roots in some aspect of landscape.
Before you begin, brainstorm around the word ‘landscape’. What can it mean, suggest, and apply to? Landscapes might be physical, emotional and intellectual. They carry moods. They change with time. Let yourself write freely, don’t judge what your mind tosses out.
Look for ‘landscape’ poems in collections and anthologies. Are these poems about more than one aspect of landscape? What ideas do they make you think about? What themes emerge from the details?
Here are a couple more specific ideas that you might like to work with, but feel free to wander off along your own track, or paved road, too.
- Write a poem about yourself, or someone else, which combines the physical landscape of a particular environment with the landscape of the human body.
- Write a poem that explores/juxtaposes two contrasting landscapes: e.g. past and present, natural and industrial, lush and barren, physical and emotional
I look forward to reading your work.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Poem Prompt 2 - Refreshing Cliché
Clichés abound in our spoken language though, generally, in poetry we tend to avoid them, unless, for example, we're using them deliberately in a persona poem to suggest character. The use of cliché, in this case, can serve to strengthen the reader's belief in the speaker. The use of cliché, or over familiar language, elsewhere can suggest that the poet hasn't worked hard enough to find their own way to express an idea and has fallen back on a communal 'shorthand'.
The American poet, Kay Ryan, consciously works with clichés and familiar expressions, often taking one as the title of a poem and freshening it in some way for the reader. She might 'interpret' it, or explore an idea behind it, usually with brevity (lots of her poems are less than 14lines long) and always with precision, lyricism and wit. I highly recommend her book The Niagara River.
In the following poem she explores the phrase 'green behind the ears', the ideas of youth, innocence, and nostalgia. Read this for inspiration and then, working with your own chosen familiar expression, explore the ideas behind it in a poem of not more than 14 lines.
Off the top of my head, the following clichés/phrases come to mind, but brainstorm for your own list too:
one volunteer is better than ten pressed men
don't count your chickens
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
sly as a fox
pretty in pink
dead men don't talk
Green Behind the Ears
I was still slightly
fuzzy in shady spots
and the tenderest lime.
It was lovely, as I
look back, but not
at the time. For it is
hard to be green and
take your turn as flesh.
So much freshness
to unlearn.
Kay Ryan
from The Niagara River
Grove Press New York 2005
Buy it at The Book Depository.
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