Thirty

I didn't have a post last night, I was working on my Trifecta entry. The term this week is "observe", using the third definition which is to celebrate or solemnize an occasion (that's obviously a paraphrase, you can find the actual definition on Trifecta's page).

I'm feeling a bit narcissistic and instead of creating a fictitious poem or short story I'm writing about my upcoming birthday. Last night I made quite a few starts but they all sounded depressing or depressing, none of them seemed to fit a poem-not without cheesy rhymes (who hasn't seen some variation of the dirty/flirty/thirty combo on a "For Her" birthday card before?). Tonight I started over and began with a lame paragraph that fit the requirements but certainly didn't please me, then out of nowhere this came to me:

The edge of thirty approaches,
How crazy anxious
I am becoming,
Random failed feats are finding me.
This day I no longer want to observe
Yells: "only a few short days left to go."

It's still a bit depressing, maybe a tad cheesy, but trust me-it is way better than what I could've posted! I don't know why I didn't think of spelling thirty vertically sooner, it made a huge difference in my thinking process tonight.

Thanks for reading :)

Annoyed, in haiku

After last week's embarrassing screw-up, where I miscounted my syllables several dozen times, I made sure to count these a dozen and one times!

This week's prompt for Sensational Haiku Wednesday at You Know That Blog is "Annoyance".

Here are three things that have recently or are currently annoying me:

Green lights equal go;
If the road is clear, don't drive
under the limit!

There's one little hair
Refusing to stay put; it's
Always in my eyes.

For lack of sunblock
I dealt with nasty blisters
Now it's time to itch.

Have a great night!

Woebegone Limericks

Limericks seem to have a bad rap. They rarely get face time in any of the serious creative writing classes-the only time I ever heard about them was on random St Patrick's Days in grammar school and maybe once during high school. I have always enjoyed a limerick when I came across one and since I recently found MadKane's Humor Blog I have been submerging myself in them! She is so incredibly crafty with these things!

This week's the Limerick-Off theme is "Woebegone Limericks" and the two first lines to choose from are:

"A man was recounting his woes"

"A gal was recounting her woes"

And here are my entries:

A gal was recounting her woes,
a fancy rhyme she tried to compose.
The pen wouldn't move,
A fact that could prove
She ought to be writing in prose.

A man was recounting his woes
As he sat on the street with no clothes.
His girlie was livid
the foreplay too vivid:
A vulgar man reaps what he sows!

Be sure to check out the other great entries this week!

"Limerick-Off" Challenge

I have discovered ANOTHER fun poetry challenge to take part in!

Each week Mad Kane hosts a "limerick-off", where she provides a limerick and those entering the challenge respond with their own limerick using her first line.

For this week, you can choose between either of these gender specific first-line prompts:

"A fellow was starting to snap"
or
"A woman was starting to snap"

I love limericks so when I first found Mad's site I was excited, especially when she told me about the challenge. Then I felt discouraged today because I'm not too good with the funny. I can bring a random one-liner to the conversation once in awhile, but a whole 5 lines that have some sort of humorous kick? Ha, that alone is a challenge! But I am actually pleased with the two I came up with.

A fellow was starting to snap,
The others beginning to clap;
A girl they called Honey,
She danced for their money
Batting stray hands with a slap.

A woman was starting to snap,
The pea pile growing tall in her lap
The kids bitched and moaned
even the husband he groaned
"Why do I have to eat that crap?"

If you want to join the fun this week, visit this week's challenge post!

Sensational Haiku Wednesday-"Happiness"

I have written two haiku for today's Sensational Haiku Wednesday on YouKnowThatBlog. I know, what an overachiever hahaha!

My first haiku:

Both children napping
time enough to sneak off and read
just a few pages

My second haiku, and the eye candy that inspires it:



Indescribable,
her face lighting up
smiling up at me

Two completely different things that make me happy on a regular basis!
I don't like the double use of "up" in my second one, but it works for the form.


Thanks for reading ;)

Trifecta Challenge

One of the things I miss most about school is the assignments. I enjoy the pressure of a deadline, the forced focus on a particular subject. I have tried giving myself "homework" in the past, but it just doesn't have the same feel for some reason. Before I started blogging again I would look at challenge blogs-not just writing but crafting blogs too-and wish that I could participate. I probably could have taken part on my own, but like the self-assigned homework, it just didn't feel the same.

But now I have a blog! Now I don't have to sit on the sidelines! Now I can participate!

One of the challenges I am going to do is the Trifecta Writing Challenge. A weekly challenge with a single word prompt, your use of the word has to be based on the third definition of said word and your response needs to be between 33 and 333 words. Fun, right?

This week's prompt is "Scandal" and here is my response:

Within an ebony interior,
the letters smoked and curled,
crumbling to ash
Flames consumed the proof
written with her father's blood

Hope for his lover's child,
incinerated.
The scandal,
erased.
Her legacy,
untarnished.

You don't necessarily need to write a poem, but since it is still poetry month and I am trying to stick with the poetry theme most days for Blogher's NaBloPoMo I decided to go with a poem.



Thanks for reading!

Context/POV in my poems

I'm tired, I'm not sure that I am correct in calling this problem 'context' or not and it isn't important enough at this moment to research the correct term. But one of the things I have trouble with in my poetry is worrying that people will assume, correctly or incorrectly, that my work is about me. I don't seem to have an issue with this in any of the stories I write, I guess because they are longer and fleshed out more, maybe? Anyway, this is one of the things that makes me hesitate most often when it comes to sharing my poems.

In a lot of my writing I draw on material from my personal life, but in high school I didn't want anyone to know that (let's be honest I still don't want people to know that!), so I would try and make the poems more universal. Usually I would do this by adding in extra lines or stanzas that fit with the rest of the poem but were about situations that were obviously not my own. Here's an example from one such poem:

'Instead, I worry
how drunk my dad will be,
if my friends will notice the bruises on my back,
or if my boss will fire me
when he finds out
I am only fifteen
or that I am illegal.'

Anyone who would've read or heard this poem in my English class would know that at least two of these did not fit me, so I felt it would be unlikely for them to assume any of the rest of the poem was personal to me.

Another way I found around this was remaining gender neutral (well, back then I thought it was gender neutral, now I see that some of it could've been taken as a comment on my sexual orientation) by saying things like "my girlfriend or boyfriend", "my football coach", "my prom dress" all in the same poem. And I have several poems that are in second or third person instead of first person POV.

Even with all the work I put in to disguising the poems, I was still terrified someone would guess that some part of it was relative to me, even if only in a small way. I don't even know what I thought might happen-I kept to myself but wasn't picked on, I doubt I would become the subject of ridicule or anything.

I own several textbooks and handbooks that discuss this, and even though they explain it logically and I have heard people assure me that I worry for no reason, I still get nervous when my poems are read. If you happen to have a tip on getting over this, or if you do the same thing and want to share how you handle it in your work I would appreciate it!

Mother Goose Still Inspires Me

I mentioned the other day when I was praising captchas that I have a list of first lines from poems. I should have been more specific, because in reality I probably wasn't the first to come up with the idea and if I ever get popular enough for trolls to steal my ideas this one probably won't be thieved. I have a list of all the first lines of Mother Goose nursery rhymes. If I remember right I found the list through Project Gutenberg a few years ago-probably in the table of contents of one of the collections. I copied them into Excel so I can sort or search however I please.

So far I have only really worked with a couple of them, I was so pleased with the first one but then wanted to try different ways to explore the other ones instead of just transferring those same ideas from the first to the rest. I pick them randomly-first using the "close eyes and point" method, then using Random.org once I discovered it.

After I mentioned it the other night I went back and looked through the few I have so far. They are fun to play with and full of possibilities. Here's what I have come up with so far for I won't be my father's Jack:

~~~
I won’t be my father’s Jack

IWONTBEMYFATHERSJACK
A fabric jest, woken myth
Two jets fire back a hymn
Brace whom a jetty finks

I twist and turn and
Won’t say a word but
Be assured that I know
My day is coming. The angry
Father’s twisting the handle.
Jack in the box. Pop

Jack is the favored son
Jackie should have been a boy
Jack is a feminine boy. Goes by Jackie

I
Won’t won ton two not now
Be
My
Fathers father fat her stare hare hear hears share fare fares safe hate hater hates haters has
Sea seat feat fear fears ear ears are art heat heats heart hearts sear sat ate eat shaft
Jack
~~~

Some of it is just word play, random nonsensical lists of words. But some of it could be the start of an interesting piece of work. Inspiration can be found anywhere-even in silly nursery rhymes!

Favorite Poems

Lots of people can easily tell you who their favorite poet is or which poem they've read has made the most impact on their lives. I cannot tell you such a thing, because I can never pick a definite favorite anything. I love nearly every single book I have ever read. I love nearly every single song I like--if I don't like it I certainly don't love it. I love quite a few poems and poets and can't really say which would be my favorite. Well, I could say that I am my own favorite poet, but I have been slacking and am unpublished etc, so that would just be conceited on my part.

The closest I have to a current favorite is Langston Hughes' Evil. I have had it as my signature on one of my personal email accounts for a year or two. It is a short poem, a single stanza of four lines, but it is powerful. He was referring to racial injustice, but it can be applied to any theme in anyone's life..It's saying "Look this really pisses me off, and it may not piss you off yet but you're going to hear enough about it from me that soon enough you'll be pissed off too!" He just says it much better than me!!

If you've found your way to my blog today, what poem inspires or moves you?

Evil

Looks like what drives me crazy
Don't have no effect on you-
But I'm gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.

Langston Hughes

In Loving Memory Of...

Today's prompt for NaBloPoMo on Blogher is "What poem brings comfort at a funeral?"

I have been fortunate in that I have only attended a small handful, maybe 5, funerals in my lifetime. In 2010 I had the honor of creating the memorial handout for the service of a close friend's wife. I wanted to choose a poem that was meaningful for her and her family, something that wasn't just filler in the handout. After reading through a dozen or so poems I came across "To Those I Love" by Isla Paschal Richardson. Sure, there may be better funeral poems out there, but I could almost hear my friend saying this to her family if only she had had the chance. In fact, if I wasn't worried about being morbid I would tell everyone I wanted this to be read at my own funeral-but I need to wait a few years at least before making funeral arrangements. (The fact that it was possibly read at Sinatra's funeral was an added bonus as my friend and his wife is/was a fan of Old Blue Eyes and love random trivia facts).


To Those I Love

If I should ever leave you,
Whom I love
To go along the silent way
Grieve not.
Nor speak of me with tears.
But laugh and talk of me
As if I were beside you there.

(I'd come. . .I'd come,
Could I but find a way!
But would not tears and
And grief be barriers?)

And when you hear a song
Or see a bird I loved,
Please do not let the thought of me be sad
for I am loving you
Just as I always have.

You were so good to me!
There are so many things
I wanted still to do
So many things I wanted to say to you
Remember that
I did not fear
It was just leaving you
That was so hard to face.

We cannot see beyond
But this I know:
I loved you so
'twas heaven here with you

by Isla Paschal Richardson.

No Sestinas, but here's a Haiku!

I am failing again at the sestina. Apparently my old college try isn't good enough, considering that my study habits in college were fairly typical in the whole "wait til 8 hours before the paper is due to open the book" method.

I did some googling to expand on what I already know about the sestina, but didn't find much other than the history of the form and a few suggestions on how to begin writing one from scratch. My typical way of starting, and never finishing, is the more common but least successful way: pick 6 end words and force them into line (haha). Several people suggest that a better way is to just write the first stanza of the poem and then the end words will be given to you by default. So I think I might try that method later this week.

In the meantime, I revisited 'You Know That Blog' for her weekly haiku meme. Last time I was blogging I participated a few times and decided now is the perfect time to start up again, what with my new blog and it being poetry month and participating in Blogher's poetry themed NaBloPoMo. If you aren't into her weekly haiku feature, the rest of Jenn's blog is pretty interesting. The lame thing about picking this week join in on the haiku fun is that it's an open theme week. I hate open themes. I prefer forced topics--sounds less creative but I feel like I get to spend more time being creative with my writing time rather than spending a chunk of it brainstorming. Even though I have a ton of ideas to use for "later", when I am actually sitting down none of them feel appealing.

Today, however, I wasted work time instead on brainstorming! This kind of reflects my mood this afternoon:

A complete lack of
Everything necessary
To survive this time

I'm annoyed with the "A", even though it works and if I was being objective could say it was kind of putting the emphasis on the rest of the line (it's a bit of a stretch but still). I feel a little like the "A" was a cop-out syllable. Oh and technically the second line is 8 syllables, but since I (and most everyone I know) pronounces it "ev-ree" not "ev-er-ee" I feel it works.

Now, back to the sestinas...

Sestinas, Pt 1

Hopefully tomorrow will follow with a part 2.

I have until tomorrow night at 11p EST to write a sestina in order to enter it in the Blogher Poetry Contest. This is the format, taken from the post on Blogher:

"Stanza One: A, B, C, D, E, F
Stanza Two: F, A, E, B, D, C
Stanza Three: C, F, D, A, B, E
Stanza Four: E, C, B, F, A, D
Stanza Five: D, E, A, C, F, B
Stanza Six: B, D, F, E, C, A
Envoy: uses two end-words per line (with three lines total) with one word appearing in the middle of the line and the other word still being utilized as an end word."

I have attempted the sestina twice before, and I suck at it. I love the challenge of a fixed form, as much as I love the freedom of an open form poem. But the sestina can be SO tough! When I have tried in the past, I have always picked 6 random nouns-completely random-and tried to force them into a prosy story that fits the format. Both poems are left unfinished in a notebook somewhere, because they really did suck. This time I am still going to go with some random words, but I'm not going to go with just nouns. Maybe that will help. If not I will still force myself to finish, even if it is past the deadline for the contest.

April Challenges Bring...

...about renewed commitment to writing? ...a sense of accomplishment? ...a reason to search for excuses to get out of writing? ...all of the above?

My timing for getting back into the whole blogging thing happens to coincide with
National Poetry Month, and in honor means the NaBloPoMo theme for April is Poetry! So even though I'm a day or two late I'm going to attempt this challenge. Along with any other random post I write, I will also post something involving poetry.

There are daily prompts available on Blogher based on the monthly theme, and while I won't use them everyday I liked today's prompt:

"What was the first poem you ever memorized?"

While I may have memorized a few lines here and there before 7th grade, the first few stanzas of 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam' was the first I consciously had to memorize then recite in front of my 7th grade English class. I still remember the very first stanza, but since I haven't reread the poem in more than a decade I can't really recall any other lines. I was so nervous reciting it, which is funny because up until mid-Junior High I had never really cared about talking in class or anything, I even seemed to enjoy it. That time though, I was terrified, and have remained nervous and scared of public speaking ever since. While I could almost blame my fear of speaking on that one instance, almost, I defintely can credit my love of poetry to it.

"Hark, for morning in the bowl of night,
has flung the stone that sets the stars to flight.
And lo, the hunter in the east has caught
the Sultan's turret in a noose of light."