I don't think there is anyone who calls herself a writer who hasn't collected Tools of the Trade.
I just added another book to mine. It is a heavy book, around 3 pounds maybe, almost 1400 pages. I bought it used. And when I opened it I discovered added value. The previous owners of this book of poetry added notes in the margins, highlights and other marks. I can mosey through the pages and pick up on the trails of readers who came before me.
The new book on my shelf is the Norton Anthology of Poetry, the Shortened 5th edition.
Drop in and share the names of your Writerly Treasure Trove.
I thought I would continue April’s Poetry Theme. The resources for this post are listed below.
I am 95 days into my DH’s retirement. Something that turned out to be very well timed, considering unfolding events. I have been thinking about the turning points
in my life. Those events that make me consider memories as those before and those after something huge. There are smaller things, red flags, ignored hunches, crazy mistakes. There was that day in the hospital, my daughter in my bed and I with a lit Winston in my hand, gazed deeply into her big bright baby eyes and sang, “Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.” I will never forget the day I committed to leave an abusive relationship and there was literally no turning back because the brakes had
failed on my car as I left town on the old frontage road. The day I watched, stunned as the space shuttle exploded on take off. I remember smiling so hard and long on the day my first novel was accepted and I had the cheekies all evening.
Nothing in my life right now is like it was before. I know this moment is a defining one for many of us. We can use the feelings, visions, fear, happiness, the raw
emotion of this time and place for writing novels, memoirs, short stories and poems.
Poets are tasked not only with understanding language and universal truth, but how that truth feels and what rhythmic words can capture that feeling—harness it in
lines and stanzas—and move the audience as the poet once was moved. To identify such moments, recall the epiphanies and peak experiences that calibrate your life. To do so, you might make a list of highs, lows, and turning points you experienced over the years. A high can be a birth or a marriage. A low can be a death or a divorce. A turning point can be how a low like divorce metamorphosed into a high like re-marriage, and so forth.
The Poetic Process
Most poets choose topics containing metaphysical insights or hard-earned truths—usually drawn from the author's highs, lows, and turning points—as explained in Chapter One of The Art & Craft of Poetry. These truths are conveyed throughout a poem via themes depicted by images and metaphors that build in intensity,
foreshadowing an "epiphany," or universal truth, in the ending. You can vary your truths, using your imagination and envisioning other viewpoints and perspectives.
Poets are tasked not only with understanding language and universal truth, but how that truth feels and what rhythmic words can capture that feeling—harness it in
lines and stanzas—and move the audience as the poet once was moved. To identify such moments, recall the epiphanies and peak experiences that calibrate your life. To do so, you might make a list of highs, lows, and turning points you experienced over the years. A high can be a birth or a marriage. A low can be a death or a divorce. A turning point can be how a low like divorce metamorphosed into a high like re-marriage, and so forth.
In other words, make a list of highs, lows, and turning points relating to love, nature, the supernatural, war, politics, and occasions. Have you experienced an
enduring truth associated with romance, nature, etc.?
Bugeja, Michael. The Art & Craft of Poetry . Unknown. Kindle Edition.
Fundamentals of Poetry Writing Writer’s Digest University.
Chat begins at 7PM EDT at the Writer’s Chatroom
Poetry in Lock Down
It is a strange, new world. It is also a frightening new world. Most of us are Staying Home to do our bit toward saving the world.
For those who can’t work online, remotely, a whole lot of writing time just opened up. Oh, okay, I forgot that some of you also have children. When they aren’t
accusing each other of breathing too loud, you probably have a moment to yourself.
This might be a perfect time to become involved in some online writing related courses. And some of them are offering their courses at a lower price than usual.
This is how I stumbled onto an online Poetry Course.
I know very little about poetry, but I do know how to read it. I cannot tell you how poems are written or judged any more than I can tell you why some red wine
tastes like the inside of a grapefruit peel. The course suggestion showed up in my email and I thought, why not. And I am taking advantage of Sheltering in Place by taking a deep dive into something new.
Join us on Wednesday, tomorrow, April 1st for a mini-topic on poetry.
1 April at 8PM EDT
April
Every year, the month of April is celebrated by the Academy of American Poets as National Poetry Month, in celebration of writing, reading and enjoying poetry and those who make
it.
Poetry is all about exploring the ways writing can communicate to the world. With various poets and more popping up in the limelight, it can be hard to keep up
with the latest in poetry.
From old to new, Poetry Month celebrates the art of poetry in all its forms, appreciating the history behind it. It also celebrates the lives of poets that
inspired it and forming a new generation of poets to change the landscape of the literary world.
A Little First Person Insomnia
The first person point of view has
two different tenses, present tense and past tense. Present tense “I” focuses on the actions and thoughts of the narrator as they unfold in the present. ... For example, a first person present tense narrator would be, “I open the window and yell at him to leave me alone.
In January my new primary care doctor took my sleep meds away. I can lie in bed and worry that my scratchy throat is the first symptom of the upheaval my death
will cause or I can read. I can sit up and watch my neighbors come and go, driving down to the end of the driveway, turning off their headlights at the mailboxes and waiting silently before reversing the activity and coming back up. I can worry about my son who is in week three of some respiratory illness but needs to be at work because his job is essential. Or, I can read.
I just finished a book by Suzanne Redfearn called In an Instant.
I am going to include the blurb and cover art for you in case you are prone to midnight worries.
A deeply moving story of carrying on even when it seems impossible.
Life is over in an instant for sixteen-year-old Finn Miller when a devastating car accident tumbles her and ten others over the side of a mountain. Suspended
between worlds, she watches helplessly as those she loves struggle to survive.
Impossible choices are made, decisions that leave the survivors tormented with grief and regret. Unable to let go, Finn keeps vigil as they struggle to reclaim
their shattered lives. Jack, her father, who seeks vengeance against the one person he can blame other than himself; her best friend, Mo, who bravely searches for the truth as the story of their survival is rewritten; her sister Chloe, who knows Finn lingers and yearns to join her; and her mother, Ann, who saved them all but is haunted by her decisions. Finn needs to move on, but how can she with her family still in pieces?
Heartrending yet ultimately redemptive, In an Instant is a story about the power of love, the meaning of family, and carrying on…even when it seems
impossible.
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I was well into this book when I realized it was written in First Person Present Tense. Reading it was like participating in some kind of art form. I followed
along as Finn showed me what she saw and felt and in come cases couldn’t feel as she lingered with her family and friends. For me, First Person Past or Present is beyond my writing ability. But it is well withing my ability to appreciate and enjoy.
So, after spending a week with Suzanne Redfearn I was wide awake. This time thinking about the possibility of my oldest granddaughter breaking our State Lockdown,
sneaking across town to see her boyfriend. My son still wakes periodically to cough, I offer him a stick to push his lungs back inside. So, I ask Amazon what I should read next.
I scroll through the Amazon Site looking at book covers and blubs in much the same way young people swipe this way and that on a dating ap. I’d tap on a cover and
read the blurb. Tap. Read.
Then I found a possibility and downloaded a sample. I’m reading and thinking about how interesting it is that I am about to read another First Person book. I
finish the sample and flip back to make the purchase and this is when I discover I am reading another book by the author I just finished. So, I will also share the blurb for this book.
If I stay, he will kill me. If I leave, he'll destroy Addie and Drew.Jillian Kane appears to have it all - a successful career, a gorgeous home, a loving husband,
and two wonderful children. The reality behind closed doors is something else entirely. For nine years, she has hid the bruises and the truth of her abusive marriage in order to protect Addie and Drew, knowing that if she left, Gordon would destroy her and destroy them.When she flees in an act of desperation, her worst nightmare is realized and she finds herself on the run with her two young children, no money, and no plan. With Gordon in hot pursuit, there is only one inescapable certainty: No
matter where she goes, he will find her. Kill her. And take her children.A riveting page-turner, HUSH LITTLE BABY exposes the shame and terror of domestic violence as well as the disturbing role manipulation and sabotage can play in the high-stakes game of child custody. Suspenseful and unforgettably moving, it's a novel about the unbreakable bonds of family and the astounding, terrifying devotion of a mother's love.
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Drop by The Writers Chatroom on Sunday at 7PM EDT and let’s talk about First Person Past and Present. Do you have the skills to pull it off or are you like me and
bask in the warmth of other writers who can do it so well?
When Iniki hit Kauai
In September 1992 Iniki hit Kauai.
In September 1992 Iniki hit Kauii.
During the days leading up to this weather event people on the islands were optimistic. They were Hawaii, after all, and Hawaii tough.
The Islanders hoarded rice and Spam even in good times. They added to their stockpiles under their beds and met Iniki head on.
The ordeal lasted hours, people gathered and rode out the storm and came out to view the destruction.
Phones were down, everywhere and cell phones were scarce, cell towers, even more so. There was no way for the Islanders to reach out to their families.
A few days after the storm, the phone companies erected free call stations, actual phone banks. People would stand in line and make quick calls to worried family members.
Clean up had begun.
Between phone calls I received letters in the mail. It was interesting to note that on one day, the people would pitch in and chainsaws ran until it was too dark to work. I would speak with my family member and she would be so
excited and moved by all of the people coming out. A man with a chainsaw was as popular as a Chippindale’s Dancer.
A day or two later, the mood would change. People would go through various stages of grief. The same woman who was so upbeat and inspired would spend her phone call expressing anger at not being able to find a place to stay.
This went on for a very long time. Calls and letters eased up. The Islanders began to find their new normal. Housing was a huge problem. Senior housing was made available but my family member had a son who didn’t meet the age
requirement.
They eventually found a hotel. Things became predictable again. My mailbox began to fill with little packets of hotel soap. When I was a kid I spent a lot of time in hospitals and would save my sugar packets with images of North
American Birds and send them home for my siblings to enjoy.
During the past few weeks, our world has experienced uncertainty and fear and anger and our day to day is filled with dread, doubt and worry.
During Iniki, people did not have cellphones, internet and many of them didn’t have homes to shelter in. We have The Writer’s Chatroom and we are open every Wednesday and Sunday. Come on over. We can talk about writing or talk
each other off the ledge. We can do this.
Hurricane Iniki (/iːˈniːkiː/ee-NEE-kee; Hawaiian: ʻiniki meaning "strong and piercing wind") was the most powerful hurricane to strike the U.S. state of Hawaii in recorded history.
Wednesday Open Chat Reminder
Come Practice Social Distancing With Us
Our Flash Fiction Contest is still happening. I made the announcement a Sticky Post.
To Recap the Prompt
You are on your last errand of the day. You should have been home, already. You are inside a store or business or bank or gas station.. You name the place. People in hazmat suits suddenly rush the place. They have secured all the exits. You are all being quarantined for an unknowable amount of time. Write a story about how you will be passing your time.
