poet's room

thoughts on a wintry day

2010-01-11T20:56:00.002-05:00

Well, winter is here for sure and I for one am glad. I enjoy this "folding in time" which is to say there are not a boat load of "to-do" items. It is a pleasure to be able to read and rest and consider the things I want to include in my writing.

In November one of my favorite poet-teachers died: Jack Myers who was my second semester advisors at Vermont College. He was wise and witty and very encouraging. I learned so much from him and continue to hear his voice in my head when I write. Glad for that too. I can count on the fingers of one hand those who have influenced my writing: Mrs. Emery (5th grade teacher), Virginia Parsons (high school English teacher), BH Fairchild (Cal State University), and Jack Myers (Vermont College). Thumbs up to these wonderful mentors.

On a personal note, I am really missing my daughters. I am not unhappy with my decision to move to the east coast, but would really love to sit around my dining room table for a wild game of scrabble, or UNO, or SkipBo. Miss those family game times. Miss my lovely girls. We should plan a girls vacation someday soon. A cruise to the Carribean would do the trick.

Well, enough for now. Write something today and don't care if it's good or not. JUST WRITE.

2010-01-11T20:37:00.000-05:00

I hope all of you will visit my ezine at www.heartsoundspressliterary.com

OK, here's the promised poem for today

2009-06-06T07:33:00.001-04:00

29 Springs

for Bill

So we decided to marry,

put our clothes in the same closet,

eat off the same dishes, sleep

night after night together, care

about each other’s memories

and children. It was hard to do,

after the years we’d both grown dull

scabs over our hearts. After years

thinking our parents were wrong

about marriage, after years of practice

moving one foot at a time into sadness.

But it was spring and sap flowed again

in each of us like some maple

had lifted its eyes, suddenly seeing sun.

So we decided to marry. This morning,

brushing our teeth at the same sink,

we give thanks for our 29 springs.

Poets rejoice

2009-06-06T06:42:00.002-04:00

It is a lovely grey morning on the coast of Maine as I drink my tea and get ready for a day of planting in the garden. Finally the ground is prepped and ready for the rest of my seedlings which have been waiting in the greenhouse. I am always inspired by planting. It seems to me a connection to what I do with words. That is why I love going out to the yard to write or to the greenhouse to write. I have a tall stool there and use the potting bench as a desk. If it rains, so much the better. The sound of it on the glass roof of the g.h. is so thrilling.

On a reading note, here are a few things I have been reading:

1. Usher by BH Fairchild --- just out from Norton, this new work is challenging me in ways I have not been in some time. The poems are meaty and rich, with a sense of time and urgency that leaps over actual time. I have read the poems several times each and am now making notes in the margins (I never used to do this but now can't help myself...more on this activity in a separate post)

2. Rosary of Bones by Jennifer MacPherson --- this is my second deep reading of this one--- it has been out since 07 --- I am at the notes in the margin stage with it now. A lovely collection of poems that simply take my breath away. Some of the poems have their birth in Iowa where we both studied with Michael Dennis Browne. I recognize them and smile to see how fully they have grown and how solid and steady Jennifer's hand is over the work. I am particularly fond of "Without Trees" and read it over and over along with "The Bone Poem" which is simply a fabulous poem. 'nuf said! Just read these poems!

3. Inflorescence by Sarah Hannah ---written before her tragic death. I sigh deeply here to think of all the wonderful voices silenced by suicide or cancer or ... or... or... these poems are both brilliant (in a light-giving way as well as an intellectual way) and steady. I read them and wonder "how did she do that?" which of course is the greatest compliment one can pay a poet.

4. Embryos & Idiots by Larissa Szporluk --- one of my favorite poets discovered by accident years ago in Iowa --- I recommend particularly "The Recluse" and "Twilight Wedge" both poems of surprising edginess and light.

OK that's enough for now.

I'm signing off and will give you a short poem in the next post. It's one I wrote for the Poem A Day challenge during poetry month. THAT was some discipline. I am working now on revisions of the ones I feel want to stay in my life.

I thought I was lost but here I am!!!

2009-06-05T18:06:00.001-04:00

OK, so with every site a new password and a new sign in process, I got temporarily lost. It won't happen again as I have written the darned thing down in a safe place!

Later a new post on the actual topic of poetry, I promise!

My Sestina, "In the Margins"

2009-04-29T11:27:00.000-04:00

In the Margins

You think it helps when the house is quiet,

no one home, or else you’d have to blot

the sounds. Keep music low in the margins

of your attention, don’t have it merry,

or you’ll have to dance to it, and end

what you want to do with your pencil.

Some people don’t even use a pencil,

think that way of writing too quiet.

They tap on computer keys to end

the constant search for rhythm. Can you blot

what’s beating in iambs, the kind of merry

feet the poem dances on in the margins?

As for me, I think in meter, margins

hold notes for revision, and my pencil

makes comments on others’ poems, merry

or sober reflections for those quiet

times. I use my one deaf ear to blot

everything but the rhythm that won’t end.

that keeps my head in it. At poem’s end

you’ll see I’ve been dancing in the margins

all along, dipping, twirling. If I blot

out my heartbeat, what good is a pencil?

No! I’ll pay attention to the quiet

rhythms, let that music make merry.

It’s good to stay in your heartbeat, merry

thrub, ebb and flow, wait for the poem to end.

You can find poems in the spaces, quiet

places where silence speaks. In the margins

of each image, someone has written. Pencil

scratchings, or invisible words blotted.

Hold the paper up to the light, blotted

lemon juice words appear: magic! Marry

image now to verb, create with pencil

what might be fresh, lasting beyond the end

after you’ve slipped into the margins

of your own breath and into the quiet.

Why blot out music alive but quiet?

Why not write in your own margins, merry

to your own end? Dance on with your pencil!

Sestina

2009-04-29T11:22:00.002-04:00

Well folks, yesterday's PAD challenge really beat me up! I had not written a sestina in quite a while, so the idea of doing one in 24 hours was CHALLENGING! (DUH! it IS a challenge after all! lol)However head-stretching it was, I did it and will share it on this blog.

What makes a sestina challenging is finding the right six end words so that the poem makes sense, can be sparkling and not just a "write to the end words" kind of sap. The one I have posted here is in iambic pentameter, not because I wanted to play with meter, but because the subject of the poem seemed to ask for iambics. You'll see. So, go kindly into this good morning of my sestina!

Poem is posted in next post.

gone, but not gone

2009-04-29T08:36:00.002-04:00

Mea culpa, mea culpa! I have been a BAD little blogger! Truth be told, I have been bad at this because I've been a good little writer! I am just finishing the Poem-A-Day challenge from Writer's Digest and have been really cranking them out. Now, as to whether any are good????? Well, shortly I will post a few and see. Meanwhile let me recommend a few good poetry books just out:

1. Usher, by BH Fairchild just arrived at my door yesterday and I am sure it will be good. I have looked at a few poems and it seems he is going in a new direction (for him) and I am intrigued.

2. Rough Cradle by Betsy Sholl is a nice new collection. I prefer her older one, Late Psalm, but the new work is very good.

3. Rooms and Their Airs by Jody Gladding is my top pick this time. She really hits it with this one! I find the poems to be diction-rich and driven by a need to run into the woods and shout and cry and laugh. The poems touch it all.

So enough now. I have a poem to write for the challenge. (and yesterday's sestina to finish as well)

Back from the abyss.. and grumbling

2009-02-11T14:20:00.003-05:00

I've been sick. Sicker than sick. That will teach me for not getting a flu shot this winter or last. I am tired of being tired, sick of feeling sick. I want to go swimming.

I wonder where all the "goop" comes from over and over as one blows, coughs, gags it up. I have bagged all the "bio waste" from the many wastebaskets in the house and sent it to the dump with my obliging husband. I have aired the house until frost started to form on the mirrors. Still I am coughing. Still I am headache-y and feverish at night. I am angry because I had planned to spend the past week writing and submitting. So today I got it together to do a couple submissions: Seacoast Writers Assoc. and Poetry Society of NH. Both are in NH and I'm thinking regional for the moment (no reason but just to do it).

I heard that the post office is planning another stamp hike in the near future. Do they WANT us to stop sending mail and do everything online? They are really getting on my last nerve here. I instructed my hubby to please get some more "forever" stamps before the price goes up AGAIN. I need to somehow out-fox the P.O. After all, a writer with constant stamp purchase issues is not a happy writer after all. I am all for the P.O. only delivering five days a week. But don't raise the prices while considering downsizing services. "It just ain't fair" I say! So, next month is my first social security check. Will the whole damn thing eventually go for stamps?

Spring is in the air. That is the good news. I really have to get my seeds ordered. I am ready to be outside again and digging in the dirt. I want REAL veggies. I am peeved at the quality of the crappy veg that comes to us via the stores. Once you have tasted the good stuff from the garden you are ruined forever from tolerating the stuff from the store. Organic they may call it, but it tastes like plastic to me.

OK, so you need a prompt from me, eh? Want me to stop grumbling and start writing? Here is the compromise:

Write a ten line poem grumbling about something that is seemingly small but has gotten under your skin.

Start with this: Not everyone cares

Use any or all (or none) of these words: slap, heap, candy, earn, turn, wager, margin, lapse, sign, reserve

Ok, stop reading now and get writing!

2009-02-02T14:38:00.002-05:00

Well, it's February already and there is blood in the yard. A hawk has scooped up a pigeon and there is one dead squirrel. It's interesting how the cycle of life keeps spinning, how there is always blood somehow involved. For this week, what about cycles? Is there something cyclic in YOUR life you'd like to "poem-ize?" Here are a couple starters and some juicy words to use:

Starters:

It's a matter of blood

or...

It's more than wash, rinse, spin

Words to consider using:

patch, garish, decay, rag, flint, scoop, whirl, cinder

or....

wring, front, lease, copper, burn, winnow, exhaust, fret

OK, now it's up to you. I will post my tries later.

weekend post

2009-01-30T11:51:00.003-05:00

Hi all, just a quick post before embarking on a weekend of writing and knitting. It seems to me that I am like the last cell in a dying body here, with not too many folks responding or posting. Please get out the word that this is a good place to talk about poetry, a good place to TRY some poems and to express whatever is on your minds having to do with writing as art, as healing, as balm for the weak and weary world.

Here is a prompt for the weekend:

Face, over-wintered by ___________, she sags into

Here is mine (this is a draft, done on the fly, so not so great at this point):

Mae's Rest

Face over-wintered by age, she sags into the chair

Elmer fashioned out of birdseye maple, the year they married. Its cushion

is bare and shiny, the imprint of her permanent now. Here she nursed

four babies, loved them back from fevers and measles. The rockers

squeak like her bones as she settles to rest in the greying afternoon.

Ice clicks along the window, slipping to the ground and shattering,

as she will one day. In the moment before sleep soothes her, she sees faces

and formsall around her: parents, husband, the babe that did not survive

his first winter. It would be so easy to go where they are, to click down the pane

and settle to the ground. A whistle in the distance: tea is ready on the stove.

Poem from this weeks' prompt 01/29/09

2009-01-29T12:56:00.003-05:00

Rue the Day the Story Ends, the Needles Grow Still

In the corner of my kitchen, a rumble

of the floor beneath me. Shudders,

a slight tremor come from the furnace

below, reminding me it's cold outside,

but giving me comfort. I am warm. thick socks

I knit myself wrap my ankles, a shawl

Nana crocheted over fifty years ago

warms my shoulders. It is a parable

that runs in my head like a serial: woolen

goods, hand-made and passed

from grandmother to mother to daughter.

On and on, the yarn twines and binds us.

We wind the wool, slip it through our fingers,

needles flying until soft things bend to our work,

emerge with our stories woven in, our lives stitched.

Thoughts on poetry

2009-01-29T12:05:00.002-05:00

What are your thoughts on the following topic in poetry:

the poet behind the persona

Here's what I have been thinking for awhile now: It seems to me that first person poetry has been frowned upon and labeled as confessional, personal, self-obsessed, self-glorifying, etc. I have certainly read poems that fit these labels. We all have. BUT, there is another side to this and a side I think bears discussing. Why do poets need to hide behind some idea of anonymity? If indeed we write to explore how we see the world, how we experience what the world offers etc., we ought to be able to be a bit overt about it. I am not saying that we need to give ourselves over to ruminating about our individual lives in such a way as the reader will feel he/she is intruding when reading our poems. What I am suggesting is that there are universals, places where our lives touch. We need to share those points of touch in order to feel less alone, more empowered, and to know that the human species is made up of the sum of its parts. I know that poems written with a "this happened, then this happened, and this is how I feel about that" modality miss the mark tremendously, and seem to actually exclude the readers rather than to draw them in. I read these and ask "I should care about this?" HOWEVER, these are not so much poems as they are lineated prose or worse yet, journal entries or things best shared only with family. But something as seemingly intimate as Dorianne Laux's beautiful maternal musings in Girl in the Doorway is far far far from too personal or too confessional. We can BE THERE in the house as the persona experiences the oncoming "loss" of a daughter's growing up. We don;t even need to be parents, or to have daughters. We are THERE. It is the embodiment of the event that connects us all. Yes, the poem's event is very personal. But we are brought in so that our own lives are enriched by the poet allowing us to peek, to consider, to weigh in on the universal subjects of family and loss.

What I think then, is that our task as poets is to write in such a way as to be the poet behind the persona. We can put our lives, our very intimate lives, on the page while making sure that the poem drives itself by way of solid imagery and a sense of inclusion.

On the other side of this coin, I get frustrated when reading some of my poems in a public venue that some listeners ASSUME the persona is me. What good poets do (I think) is to take a view of and a stance on what happens to and for others and comment in an intimate way through their poems. What is this idea that all we write about is what we live personally? The problem then is do we allow ourselves to write widely, making sure we don't assume cultural postures that are false? Or do we stick to what we can touch, see, smell, taste, etc.? I would not presume to attempt to write poems from another culture, for example. BUT, I do think I can write with authority on topics of interest that I have sufficiently researched and come to know deeply. It's a puzzle. What to do here? Do I have to be a victim of robbery to write from the perspective of one who has been robbed? I don't think so. I can "empathize" in my poems and put my heart and mind into the scene, coming up with my own "take" on what that would be like. I can create a "character" (persona) and be in his/her head while recovering from the event. We are all alike enough to have experienced feelings of being overpowered, being violated, feeling helpless. So, I think that we can, VERY CAREFULLY tiptoe into others' lives and make poems. I like the idea that we are all connected. We live the same lives really, flavored and shaded uniquely, but connected.

I 'd appreciate hearing from you on this.

2009-01-29T11:57:00.002-05:00

Well, bloggers, it seems as if I am in here with so much to say that nothing is coming forth. I want to post a new prompt for all of us to try, and to urge you to recommend the blog to other poets. It is easy to blog on this spot by simply signing on. You don't have to create your own site to blog here. But it is helpful if you are responding to a post, better than sending me an email with your try at the prompts. The whole idea of a blog is to SHARE. It is not about me here. It is about all of us sharing what we love. So, get on as a follower, subscribe to the blog (doesn't cost a thing!) and start blogging about poetry. I am going to start a topic today and would love to hear from all of you.

AND... as promised... here is the prompt for this week:

Using some or all of the following words (bend, parable, rue, grasp, tremor, furnace) write a poem in any style with the following starter:

In the corner of the kitchen ....

(NOTE: you can substitute any room or place where there is a corner)

knitting, and a prompt

2009-01-23T02:21:00.003-05:00

Right now I am wearing (for the first time) the fingerless mittens I knitted. What a difference they make in working on the computer without my hands getting cold. I can type and be dextrous without a chill! Wonder of wonders!

So, thinking of hands, here is a new prompt:

It is a flurry of hands that she recalls

Try this as either a beginning line or an ending phrase of a poem. Go wherever the phrase takes you!

The Artist Has Laid Down

2009-01-18T14:31:00.005-05:00

The Artist Has Laid Down His Brush and is Done

for Betsy Wyeth (after "The Conch Shell")

The same curtains blowing at the window, the same

wallpaper, but peeling a bit now, faded and water-stained.

The conch shell, empty as his chair, blows the same sea across

the cove of your ear as you lift it to your head like before.

Bring home the gulls to your roof with a long low whistle

from the conch, bring neighbors with casseroles, bring

the dog from his lapping the melt of ice in the dooryard.

Bring your same fingers to draw the curtains aside.

Step through each room, their creaking floors like old bones

careful and slow. Watch the leaves of his sketchbook ruffle

in the breath of the open window as if he's thumbing

them, deciding which drawing or sketch wants paint today.

The same scenes are never to be the same without his careful eye.

The conch will go silent, the chair unmoved and dusty.

Somehow a shaft of sudden sun slanting the floor won't be

the same kind of light as he saw. Even the dog will not snore the same.

People will call and ask of you now that the artist has laid down

his brush and is done. You won't answer because you are not the same

as you were just yesterday. They will ask for some small memory

of your time with him and you will say the wallpaper holds all his secrets.

A loss to the world of art; Andrew Wyeth dies at age 91

2009-01-18T14:21:00.004-05:00

I am feeling the sad loss of artist Andrew Wyeth, who passed away on my birthday at the age of 91. His paintings have inspired many of my recent poems (the past three years of poems). I visited the Farnsworth Art Museum today and was thrilled to see so many of his earlier works which are lush with color and depth of meaning for me as poet. I was particularly captivated by "Conch Shell," which he painted in 1944 I think. I had my trusty notebook with me (of course) and penned the draft a poem imagining the painting to be emblematic of the emptiness his death visits on his family and all of us who admire and are influenced by his work. Perhaps this week we might write something about loss or write some ekphrastic poem, that is a poem inspired by a piece of art that we encounter.

Weekly prompt 01/15/09

2009-01-15T11:59:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking about temperatures as outside gets colder and colder by the hour, and consider that is might be a good time to visit our thoughts on this. So, how about the following:

Using the words below (all of some), write a poem about cold without it being about weather.

bitter, magic, left, solid, machine, logo, pewter, floor, odor, mouth

Now go ahead.. you know you want to.... go on.... you can do it.... write! you might choose to write a sonnet, or a pantoum, or just five stanzas that each use two of the words. Or you might choose ten lines, each with one of the words.

Here is a starter line to use if you are stuck:

I barely remember the magic

My birthday

2009-01-15T11:46:00.002-05:00

OK, so tomorrow I am 62. I have already signed up for SS and will get my first check in March. I decided to take early SS as there is not a way I am going to increase things through my minute job at Taft College.

But I have bigger and tastier fish to broil (frying not healthy right so the metaphor has to be altered to fit a healthier lifestyle!). I have just purged the piles and piles of junk that magically appeared while I was teaching Comp. I can see all areas clearly and things seem neat and organized. THAT frees me up to spend time submitting my manuscript and a few poems individually as well. Ahhhh, I love winter. It is a great time of folding in and expanding outward with creative pursuits.

I will say that I have not been without some successes in the literary world even while teaching. Two journals based in Connecticut have taken poems for upcoming issues: Dogwood let me know that one of my poems was in the top 12 finalists for the Dogwood Prize and they will publish the poem. CT Review has also taken a poem for either Fall '09 or Spring '10. Both of these wonderful journals are university-based and I am pleased to say the least. Pleased too because they took poems I absolutely love. I am happy these have found homes!

So, now it is about writing more and enjoying the time I have to write. I love the process of writing, but even more I love the editing and revision that happens AFTER the bones are erect on the poems. It is a bit like playing paper dolls, finding the right clothes and hair styles and making her as lovely and fascinating as possible! Wow! WHERE did that metaphor come from? My childhood is apparently alive and well in the recesses of my mind!

I have also been lucky enough to land a class in the adult ed of the local school system. I will teach on Wednesdays for 4 weeks. My class will cover writing locally, finding poems in "where you live." I look forward to this and have my materials all ready to go for the first class which is Feb 25th.

So despite the bitter cold (it is a hefty ZERO right now), I am warmed as always by poetry.

please encourage followers here

2009-01-05T10:17:00.001-05:00

Poets and fans! Please send the address of this blog to any poets you know who might be interested. Tell them they can post poems here too by posting a "comment" or by doing a "new post."

I want this to grow!

Winter poem 01/09

2009-01-04T21:49:00.003-05:00

Knitted Mittens

Luscious in violet, warm wooled

hands for covering the cold,

they beckon. Slip on the right first,

then the left will be a treasure. But not

these mittens, made for two

amputees, both rights without lefts.

So what of the others, the ones who lost

their rights and wander the snow

fields looking for limbs that fell

in the night? Has someone knit for them?

It's cold here, but poems make me warm

2009-01-04T21:39:00.003-05:00

Well, before heading off to snuggle under the covers, I thought to take a moment to write some thoughts on writing. I went to the Farnsworth Art Museum here today and spent a bit of time in the galleries. In particular I visited the Louise Nevelson exhibit again. I am amazed by her art, but not that for which she is most famed (the sculptures). I love her paintings of people, especially of women. I am so inspired by them. So there I was with my ever-present notebook and a pen. time few by. I made TONS of notes and actually have the bones of a new poem. I also (SHOCK!) have some ideas for a short story. Well, those of you who know me well will be laughing right now and thinking to yourselves "somehow this story will end up a poem!" Maybe, maybe not. Only time will tell. But for now, I am happily in my own head writing the draft of today's poem. That is how it begins for me... in my head for several drafts and then it falls out onto the page or screen and the REAL work starts. Let's talk about PROCESS. If you're up to it, write a response about how YOU get going on a creative project. (Non-poets, contribute what revs you up in any creative projects). Let's blog! Don't make me the only one who writes here!

Carol

2009

2009-01-01T16:08:00.002-05:00

Good New Year all! It is wicked cold here in Maine today, temps sunken to single digits and wind chill way way down. But a warm heart can cure a cold wind, so we are cozy here. I wrote the last poem of '08 and was finished with it at 11PM, leaving me time to watch the ball drop on Times Square. Seemed as if not so many folks braved the cold to be there in person this year. I prefer the tv version of being there.

I am getting started on the first poem of '09 as I am ready to watch the Rose Bowl. Of course I am rooting for the USC Trojans, but I root alone in my family. Everyone else will root for Penn State. I don't mind going solo on this!

Well, I will be posting the last/first poems tomorrow. Be warned: they are drafts. I usually wait several days or longer before beginning the revision process --- after a healthy "distance" is achieved!

Good words to all for 2009!

End of the Year 2008

2008-12-31T12:25:00.002-05:00

Poets, and Lovers of Poets,

Here we go, off on our 2009 adventure. I hope that things begin to get better in the world, but the events of the past few days are a grim reminder that not everyone is seeking peace. [I am not assigning blame here as I have dear ones on both sides of that barrier] But I grow weary of the not getting along, the not seeing peace and seeing it is its own reward. Of course it is great material for poems (strife, fighting, killing), but to the end where violence only begets more violence is seemingly eluding some folks. ENOUGH is what I say! On with more poetry.

I am always a bit excited and filled with fear when the eve of another year shows up. For the past 12 years (this will be 13), I have taken up the project to write the final poem of the year on New Year's Eve (late at night usually). I do this before champagne is popped, before tucking myself in a warm bed to snuggle my husband. I then feel somehow that the year is "done" for me. The other half of the project is after midnight (usually within an hour or two but sometimes after breakfast) when I write the first poem of the new year. What always has amazed me is that the two poems, sometimes written within an hour of each other (OK--- so they're drafts!!) are so far removed from one another in subject or tone or style. It is like I am a new me when I write the second poem. Wonder how that happens????

So, now I have a chapbook number of these poems (will as of tonight/tomorrow). So I think I ought to send these out in 2009, organized and titled. Great! ANOTHER project. LOL

Well, off to the kitchen to get ready for dinner guests. We are doing dinner at six and the guests will be done and gone by 9 pm. Then it's me in my office and my hubby snoozing in the New Year. Isn't life grand?!

Happy New Year everyone. Peace is my wish for you and all.

it's good to be writing again

2008-12-29T16:20:00.003-05:00

I swear I get so grumpy when I am distracted from the writing. I am making a NY resolution to write every day as I was doing before teaching took over my life.

my head is busy

2008-12-27T11:58:00.003-05:00

Poets and Friends,

My head is busy with plans for my time off from teaching. AFTER I clean the clutter in my office I have a number of submissions to do and will take a final pass at the book manuscript. I have so many notes to myself for doing this. And of course there is the jumble of work running around in notebooks. There is always that.

Re: the manuscript, I am toying with 3 sections that can stand alone as chapbooks. So each section of the manuscript will have its own title and focus. I have fussed and fussed for over a year after going to the Compleat (Colrain) manuscript conference as there were poems that I want in, but as they were arranged did not hang together that well. A year later sees the thing more focused. Way different in terms of what poems fit and several new poems. I have 5 places to send it, so hope one of those will see the layout as a good thing along with the poems themselves. One new-ish section is entitled "Breakfast at the Brass Compass" which will feature 20 poems about Maine. I am excited about that. The other two sections are Confessions of a Town Girl, and Naming Water. I am looking for a title for the collection. NO clues there yet. Maybe someone will read for me (volunteers?) and see a title that links all three sections.

Well, I am off to see a movie. Going to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It is a 3 hour deal. Went to Bedtime Stories yesterday...good. Cute and not long. I recommend it. More later on today's film.

Be well. WRITE.

one example of a poem using repetend...no great literary work, just an example

2008-12-27T08:04:00.002-05:00

I am snowed under

with work, my desk piled

with papers and notes

to myself to clear

a space for writing. Snow

is deceptive, piles

of it outside the window

make me sluggish for work.

I need to stop drifting

and plow through the mess

I made here over 10 weeks

of teaching others about writing.

Writing is what I say I do.

I cannot regard others'

writing as more. I need to fall

back, drift away on the weather

that has been building in my head

and write what snow is doing outside.

Lesson of the week/repetend

2008-12-27T07:57:00.002-05:00

Recently my friend Ellen and I attended a workshop in Belfast (Maine) on using repetend in poetry. While the idea was not new to me, it sparked a surge of "oh yeah, I like doing that." The idea is simple really: use of a word or phrase more than once in a single poem, or using a word or phrase to connect poems to each other in a sequence. It is a great way to create emphasis or linkage. I like the idea that one can repeat something very simple and seemingly small or unimportant and make it drive the poem to a new and more emphatic level. I also love the notion that one can link poems this way, making leaps and connections that were previously not happening. I am toying with doing this with a group of poems that might not at the moment fit together in a collection. Hmmmmm.

SO, here's the prompt of the week:

Write one or more short poems, using repetend as a strategy of emphasis.

Semester is done YIPPEE!

2008-12-22T19:21:00.002-05:00

I am thrilled that as of today I am off work until April. I hope to have more time to blog and to do some serious writing. I hope not to get sucked in to obsessively do housework. OK, so I have neglected a few dust bunnies. I am not ashamed to be feeding them as they are SO hungry.

Well, I am off to eat dinner with my hubby (downstairs in the dining room!). He was outside most of the day snow blowing and will probably go to bed early. Then I will return and post a few snow photos! It is sure beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Family news

2008-11-18T12:26:00.003-05:00

Hi all! Here is an update on the family.

Katherine: busy busy busy... the school year is in full swing and that means she is over the moon with work. Still finds plenty of time for Scott and Christopher (a junior in high school and running x-country, doing mock trial, and very involved in church). I am grateful for frequent calls to me. I love that she calls on her way home from work several days a week. Nice private Mom/Daughter time. Scott is busy with his job too and yet finds time to call regularly. His girls are living back with their mother, not the best thing for them or him, but there is nothing to be done about that at the moment.

Kristin: busy busy busy... work as usual and she just went to a nursing conference in D.C. where she visited Arlington and the grave site of my parents. A sad moment to be sure. She called me from there and we had a bit of a "boo-hoo" together on the phone. She also took pictures of the newly-engraved niche cover. It has been fixed as to the date error of my mother's info and the Purple Heart is back (it had been omitted when her info was put on originally) Thanks Kris for letting me see it is fine now. Alexander is a senior and we are planning a trip to CA in June for his graduation. Justin at VVC for some general ed. stuff before deciding what to do about going back to NAU for upper division work.

Gina: busy busy busy... work and kids' activities and balancing too many of those. Kids are involved up to their ears in scouts (Jake) , water polo (Nick) and drama performances (Jennie)

Hubby Bill still playing music with his group and spending time with his kids when he can.

Erin: busy busy busy (see a theme emerging here?)... running around like a chicken with kids activities and taking care of a senior lady (Ann) and another woman's household (personal assistant?). Adam busy too with job at Microsoft (loves it and is doing great there!) Jozeph is doing so well in school and enjoyed playing kid football. Jenna Bee is her sweet self, enjoying first grade.

Richard: way busier than we want to know! His life is filled with job and managing the three boys and worrying about Yeya (his wife) who is having another cancer surgery. Prayers for these folks, please.

Lauren: busy busy busy... running around doing kid stuff with a very active three year old (almost) and taking care of Matt who is recouping from serious back surgery. He is chomping at the bit to get back to his job as fire captain. It must be bugging him to be home with all the fires to be fighting now in So California. Patience Matt! Alyssa (9) and Megan (7) are busy with school and Brownies/Girl Scouts as well as their other interests. Lauren's scrapbooking job ended when the store closed. She is getting her online scrapbooking business up soon. Watch for info on that.

Bill and I are busy too, getting the house ready for winter and preparing for a trip to the White Mts of NH and then to my sister's for Turkey Day. Soon it will snow, but so far the ground is just bare and the air is cold. Brrrr. But we love winter here. Way more than in CA.

Enough for now. What are YOU doing?

Become a blog follower!

2008-11-18T12:23:00.002-05:00

You are invited to follow this blog! It's easy. Just find the followers link on the left of my blog and sign up. You will be happy to be a part of the Poet's Room.

my winter poem from assignment 11/18/08

2008-11-18T12:04:00.003-05:00

Waiting

It's easy to know that when the horizon blackens,

something new is on the way, a dream rinsed

in yesterday's black mood. The sun spins away like a mad kite,

its light a shattered wine glass on the hearth.

How can we mend visions of fuchsia and heather

when there is less and less, not a crumb to gather

for the table? And what of the plot to bury the yard

in shrouds of white? What witch cast that spell here?

What moth ate all the leaves we planted? Stay deaf and dumb,

wait for the sky to open again, to cast its bluest eye

on the yard again, to rouse the seeds that sleep now. Wait

as the bird waits on her egg. It is a season of windows.

Hear the nothing of falling snow. Wait. Watch the sky.

today's assignment 11/18/2008

2008-11-18T09:50:00.002-05:00

Try this: write a 20 line (or longer) poem about winter without mentioning winter. Here are some words to include: blacken, crumb, rinse, spin, moth, glass, mend, witch, plot, dumb. You may notice that some of these words are off or half rhymes with one another. Hmmmm? Could there be something to that? You can use these, use some, use none. Just write.

Go ahead now, pick up your pen. Make tea. Eat chocolate. WRITE!

a winter poem

2008-11-18T09:44:00.003-05:00

Here is a winter poem of mine. It was first published by The Comstock Review. Enjoy. Send in your own winter poems!

awol on my own blog

2008-11-18T09:20:00.004-05:00

Hi everyone! I have been away from my blog because I couldn't remember how to get back! (stop laughing! really, just stop!) OK, I look like a non-tecchie here, but I really do have brain fade sometimes when it comes to these things. Sorry. I promise to be better.

It is getting to be winter here in Maine and my thoughts turn to snow and ice and the coziness of being "tucked in" behind the glass. It is actually my favorite time of the year when there is actually TIME to sit and knit and write. I am teaching two classes (Freshman and Soph Comp) so I have constraints on my time. But I enjoy it, and hope I am making a difference for my students.

One really great thing about winter here is loads of time to read. The stack next to my chair is growing. I read and then cannot bear to put the good book into the bookcase. After all, I might want to get back in! I'd love to hear from my friends and family what they are reading, so come on! Give me some hints as to what I could add to the stack!

I went to the Dodge Poetry Festival this fall and brought back a group of books (poetry of course) and I think I will create a topic later for books we love. So watch for that one. Anyway, I am reading a great collection of war poems, American War Poetry, edited by Lorrie Goldensohn. It traces poems from the pre-colonial time to the present day. Wow. Poets have surely been writing about war a long time. I have been surprised by a few of these. Who knew that the Star-Spangled Banner was originally entitled, Defence of Fort Mc Henry? or that it has three other stanzas? Who knew that Robert Frost wrote war poetry? I recommend reading "Not to Keep," which is wonderful. Although it was written about W.W. I, it is pertinent today. I guess that is one thing about war poems: they (like war) are timeless. I hope for a day when no one will have to write war poems. Having said that, I am doing it myself, adding to the ones in my collection (Daughter of the Ardennes Forest). I guess it will get to be a longer collection. Who knows.

Well, why not send in a favorite war poem of yours, friends. Let's see what we are reading in that area of poetry!

today's assignment

2008-06-26T12:22:00.002-04:00

Go ahead and try this one:

Take any poem of at least 10 lines (a loved poem or a hated one) and choose 20 powerful words. these must be active verbs or nouns. NO ADJECTIVES please. Now create a 10 line poem of your own using these words as end words or beginning words. Do NOT be concerned with "getting a good poem" here... just see what happens.

Post it.

A poem for today

2008-06-26T11:54:00.001-04:00

I want you to see what I mean about endings. Here is a recent poem where the endings are carefully chosen for power. Look at the end of each line and also the end words of each stanza. See how they move the poem along and create dramatic tension. Tell me what YOU think.

Welcome to the poet's room

2008-06-26T11:25:00.000-04:00

Here is the place for poetry-related subjects, for looking at my process, and for some teaching. I will post at least once a week, with thoughts and at least once a week with some idea or lesson.

Today for example, I bought a couple new books, including Susan Woolridge's book on craft as it springs from unexpected non-poetic spaces. I am excited to get that and a book I bought on line. I think a lot about line and its importance. More specifically, I think about ends and beginnings. I get very frustrated with poems where the end words seem capriciously chosen by the poet. When I see throwaway words such as "for" or "the" at the end of a line I grimace and wonder what the hell the poet was doing there. These words do NOTHING for me as far as advancing the line or the feeling or the stanzaic power. Call me crazy, but I like to be shoved into uncommon spaces and motivated to keep going. With so many amazing oems out there, why read on when the words drip in stasis at the ends of lines. I think it is RARE that these throwaway words DO something there at the ends of lines.

Beginning words are important too (just ask the French who believe these more important than the end words!) I look for words that zip and zing at the fronts of lines and stanzas. I recently taught an online class (ask how YOU can take one of these from me) and asked the students to seriously consider the ends and beginnings and to stretch the limits of using words of power in both places. We got some AMAZING results. You will too.