Writing Prompt Wednesday: Technology

Image © Lori Gravley  

This image is from a funny pinball game about an airplane ride at the farm where I pick up my goat's milk everyweek (when I'm not off flying somewhere).  Let the idea of flying, of pinball, or of technology, both the outdated and the advancing, inspire you to write something this week.

I Feel Better Having Sung

When I told one of the poets I was meeting with at Antioch Writers Workshop that I aimed to write a poem every day, he shook his head.  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he said.  “Poets need time to think about things.”

I wanted to say this to him, but I’ll say it to you instead.

One of the places where I might just write a poem today--the tiny deck

by my office trailer.  Image © Lori Gravley

First, I had a long nearly eighteen years where I wrote, at most, five poems a year.  I had plenty of time to think about things.

Even before that, I had years where at most I wrote fifty or sixty poems.  I hoarded poetry. I was afraid I wouldn’t have anything to say.  I didn’t feel inspired.  I was afraid what I wrote wouldn’t be any good so I didn’t write.  I thought poetry was a gift, and I didn’t want to be greedy. 

Pardon my language, but fluff that. Poetry is what I live in.  Lines show up all the time, and I ignore them. Images burn in my eyes, and I turn from them. Poetry is everywhere.  I think it’s the way we (I) experience the world, but we (I) work hard to shut it down and act normal. 

But fluff that.  No, I don’t write a poem every day now.  Some days, I’m too inattentive.  Some days I fill with all sorts of useful things like doctor’s appointments and spin class.  Some days, I’m too weary from the world to raise my head from my arms.  But most days, I try to write a poem and some other words as well. 

I have years that I let slip by without words.  I can’t get them back, but I can capture the ones that are here now, and sometimes, when there is nothing in the here now that shows up to inspire, the past waves its puny hand and says, “Hey, here I am.  You missed me then, do you see me now.”  And I do. 

If I sit to write and there is no inspiration, well, I have a computer file labeled inspiration and a list of links with the same name.  The world is wondrous and strange (and so is my life) so I can usually call something up.

Do I write a good poem every day? Nope.  But on good days, I write a poem and the day is better for it.  And some days, those poems sing, sometimes the songs are silly, sometimes they are dark.  Sometimes they sing in someone else’s voice. Sometimes they sing wonder, sometimes despair.  But every day is better with a little music in it.  And the future is for judging how good the music is.  I appreciate having a voice in the now. Croaking or crooning, I feel better having sung.

So, no, the poet I spoke with might not think it’s a good idea for him to write a poem every day. Indeed, it may not be a good idea for you to write a poem every day.  But for me, it’s a practice that brings magic to my life, even on the days when the poem doesn’t get written.  So, for now, I’ll write every day that I can.

Writing Prompt Wednesday: Late

I love how the edges of the letters have been worn away by the hands that delivered the mail or perhaps even by the mail itself.  Image © Lori Gravley

I missed my Wednesday post this week.  My lateness inspired this prompt.

Write a story or poem in which a letter sent late or never delivered has some bearing on events that follow
.

Cross Training

What's in your locker?  Prepare for cross training by keeping a variety of tools

in your gym, er, writing locker.  Image © Lori Gravley

The theme for Antioch Writer’s Workshop last week--from the Saturday workshops, to Roxanne Gay’s Keynote, to discussions with fellow writers throughout the week-- was cross training.

This was a welcome change from an SCBWI conference I attended five years ago when the talk was all about platform and single message.  I’m just not a single message kind of girl.  I write poetry for adults and children, creative non-fiction for adults, and fiction for children.  I find working in multiple genres enriches my writing and creates a fruitful environment for new ideas. 

This year, working on my adult poem-a-day commitment, I came across a subject perfect for a picture book.  For the next two weeks, I wrote poems for that project.  When I finished it, I went back to the explorations of travel and spiritual practice that I’d been working with for my full-length poetry collection. 

I have to be careful not to use new projects as a distraction from finishing, and I’m ever aware of Heather Seller’s warnings about Sexy New Book Ideas.  But writing across genres improves my writing overall.  Mastering the storytelling I needed for fiction has strengthened my voice in my dramatic monologue poems and helped me find the narrative arc within my verse works for young adults.  Learning to let go of words in poetry has made me a better editor in my fiction and non-fiction work. 

Amy Krouse Rosenthal has been my hero for a long time, in part, because she can cross train so effectively.  John Green is another writer who moves across genres, in his case from fiction to film.  Jane Yolen is a master at cross training within children’s literature.  And my graduate school mentors, Benjamin Alire Saenz and Leslie Ullman, have provided wonderful models, Ben with his leaps between YA and poetry and Leslie with her effortless movements between non-fiction and poetry.

I’m happy that the writing world is beginning to accept that writer’s don’t need to stick to one genre, Jack of all trades master of none may be a truism for some things, but more and more writers are realizing that real mastery can be aided by cross training.   

Writing Prompt Wednesday: For the Bees

Image © Lori Gravley

 When I was in elementary school in the 1970s, I remember the stories about the African Bees that were making their way to the United States from South America.  There were dire warnings of bees that would readily attack even cautious people outdoors.  I'm sure I had dreams where I was chased by bees.

Now, the worry about bees is different.  What will we do when there are no bees?  How will plants be pollinated? Many scientists and climate scientists warn us of what will happen if the bee populations continue to decline.

What would a world be like if bees were somehow other than they are--aggressive, nonexistent, or some other permutation that we can't yet imagine.

Write about it in a poem, a story, or a creative non-fiction essay.

Writing Prompt Wednesday: Beauty and Terror

A view from the window of the slave, the tension between the calm beauty and the inate terror of this window are the 

source of today's writing prompt.  Image © Lori Gravley

This is a view through a window at the Slave House on Gore Island in Senegal.  The house was a famous stopping point in the West African slave trade, and almost below this window is the Porte de Non Retour (The Door of No Return) through which slaves left Africa knowing they would never return.  It's a beautiful view, but for the slaves kept on the island before transport, the view would have been one of terror and not serenity.

Can you write from that place of tension either about Gore or about another place that has beauty and terror?  If you'd like a to write about Gore, you can find more information on the island from the links below.

The UNESCO World Heritage description of the island can be found here.

Wikipedia has an interesting entry for Gore, here. 

An interesting article about Gore and the extent of the slave trade and "sincere fictions" is here at the Washington Post.

What's Holding Me Back?

Bringing organization to my paper life, another imperfect 

practice.  Image © Lori Gravley

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, trying to be more aware of practices and attitudes that keep me from moving forward.  I’ve come to realize that one thing that holds my poetry back is my organization (or lack of it). 

Over the past two years, I have written over 365 poems.  An average of one poem every two days.  This year, the goal, which I haven’t quite hit, has been a poem a day.  Some of them are wastrels, but some shimmer.  Some of them just need a little work. 

The thing is, I can’t really tell which is which because they live in a folder on my computer.  I’ve looked online for the perfect filing process, but I can’t find one.  I want to send the poems out, but I need to see them on paper and sort them.  I have three chapbooks organized.  I can think through twenty-five pages on my computer, but to organize a book, I need to print them out. 

And, I can’t remember which ones need work and which ones seem finished and are ready to fly.  Sometimes, I open a poem that I only vaguely remember writing. It’s so much more fun to start a new project than to organize an old one.  But, to get where I want to get with my writing, I need a little more organization. 

This became even more evident this morning, as I tried to organize my poetic biography of Christine de Pizan and couldn’t find all the poems I’d written this year that I wanted to include. 

And last week, when I was in South Africa I’d planned to begin organizing my book length collection of poems, tentatively titled Imperfect Practice.  Beyond thirty pages, I got confused and lost my place in the manuscript.  I need something physical.  So here’s what I’m thinking I’ll do.  In list form, because I love lists.

1.  Print out the drafts I’ve written this year and last.

2.  Organize at least three binders—one for Christine, one for Imperfect Practice, and another for poetry submissions.  The poetry submissions binder will include all the poems (including Christine and Imperfect Practice) organized into four categories.  Need work, ready to offer, out for consideration, and published. 

3.  I’m continuing my work with rejection, so I may also print out my rejections from this year and last and include them as another category in the submission binder.  Perhaps I’ll do the same for acceptances. 

Just writing the above plan makes the Lorax in me cringe.  But I have stacks of recycled paper with one side ready to reuse, so perhaps I’ll use that paper to make myself feel better about it.

I’d like to be able to get to a time when I can organize a longer book and my daily work just in the digital world, but until then, I’ll try this system, tinker with it, and see if organizing things on paper can help me be more intentional about my writing life.

And I'll also practice what I teach the participants in my courses but I've resisted in my writing life.  OHIO--Only handle it once.  I'll print my daily poems out and file them in the binder and put them in the manuscript folder (if appropriate) when I write them.  

These thoughts come out of questions I’ve been asking myself.  What do you do to organize your work and your poems?  Does it work?  How can you shift it so that it’s more workable for your success in the world? 

Have you found your answers to these questions or found the perfect way to organize your poetry?  If so, I’d love to hear about it.