Sublime

The way of Aurouran winds

Pushing laden clouds like

Destiny was braided with 

dandelions into your curls

But really it's just a Monday

And you had your coffee

And you've got shit to do

Before a yawn, and the end 

of this short Winter day.

Thoughts on a dead astronomer...

Did her fever-ravaged middle years

Prevent her from a doting husband

And a sticky child

Or did she love like me,

Only quietly, hidden, 

a seed buried In a grape,

Her map hidden by daylight.

I am impressed with her name

And her ability to read the 

Naked face of stars.

What does love have to do with it?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we can blog from phones now.

New media new words new sentences.

I'm trying to adapt. 

I really admire how Eileen Myles writes to her blog. She is fearless.

Are blogs the new vanity press? Obviously. And by new, I mean less than 100 years old, not in the last decade.

Raw

What is raw 

to you, my love?

The cicada song

Throbbing in the chill 

Of a fall night

A cell phone

As a conduit for 

happiness and gratification

Raw is a hit of dopamine

And mimed language

As art

It is coming home late

And rolling into the

Curve of your back

Alala

One of the truly bizarre wonders if this new digital age is the ability to write blogs while you poop. Now, I'm no Luddite. I love my technology, but I hope that nobody starts a blog for their bowel movements. I refuse to google to see if it already exists. 

I read an interesting article about "scary places" this morning. Deserving of poems probably. Stay tuned, imaginary readers! I will avail you with random words soon. They might even coherent.

Peace, love, and poetry,

K

A poem about things you can't lose.

I am violently silent

around them,

about it,

in the way

a rock wears flat

beneath the caress 

of time and river.

If poetry is cracking

open ribs to lay bare the hidden

I would kindly request reprieve.

Today there are words 

I'm trying to work around my lips

Without so much cracking

"When we were trying"-

And the box of hand me downs

My mother bought for us.

Good morning.

When writing is more real than life
hunker down,
but sometimes
in the dripping summer heat,
that doesn't burn the way it
did when the constellation of freckles
between my shoulders
wasn't skin damage,
there were no words;
just kissing boys on thigh-searing
car hoods under a canopy of oak trees,
holding sweaty hands at movies,
falling asleep drunk and raw
insisting that we practice more
to really perfect the french kiss-
words were excuses.
Hunker down,
when there are no words.
Now I write about a stable love,
a flock of cannibal chickens,
a pride of barely domesticated
house cats, a sink of dirty dishes,
fingers ringed like Saturn, a mesh of legs
crossed beneath a thinning quilt,
lazy Sundays, fights in the kitchen,
breakfast in bed, rushed morning kisses goodbye.

Poem about a river

May on the Pomme de Terre river

Sweater weather, cold noses at night,

A thick fog, a firefly traveling downstream,

 a remnant shooting star, your hand on my hip

An update, of sorts...

The power cord for my laptop is caput so I'm updating from my phone. Ahhh, technology! 

We had a fabulous workshop tonight; the first in many months. We even talked more about putting out an anthology in December. Huzzah!

Rachael read the next chapter in her grotesque and wonderful novel. I can't wait to see how it goes... So creepy and engaging!

I'm  having an early night. More later, kittens.

Rambling, as per usual

I wrote a poem! Yays! It may make the next poetry compilation.

An observation: it is spring.

These are the flowers at our back fence! Proof of Spring!

I like to sit outside and write on my laptop in the backyard, on our patio table. Winter is so quiet. Spring is another story... it's like everything is alive. the ground even makes noise. It's just a clicking, chirping, thumping buzz. I love it.

Chase a ghost

On the side of the cement trail,
naked rib cage curling into the sky,
broken spine crushed into the dry earth.
Too big to be a rat or a squirrel,
too small to be a human, and the vertebrae
 the diameter of a toddler's sticky fist.
Surely the prey of some moldy goddess,
half-chested, grieving with her arrows,
a prayer, an offering to the flesh eaters
and spindly dandelion roots, desperate
for the fertile soil of another new Spring.

In which I ramble about roller derby and poetry

Is there anything poetic about roller derby? I mean, sure, kind of? My body sings when I hit a good pace. I feel like I'm in sync with the world... but I'm going to be real with you. I don't like sports poetry. I don't like most war poetry, either. I don't know what that's about. Maybe because of the aggression? I don't know. I don't even like hula hooping poetry (and there is a lot of it, believe it or not). This is a frustrating conundrum as I've started training for roller derby and it's pretty much all I think about.

Anyway, this month is all about refocusing on poetry (and derby derby derby derby, okay? okay). I haven't written as many poems as I'd hoped (I never do) but I've written about 10. 2 I think I might even like. I remember when I was in college, I tried to write a sonnet-a-day. That was just flat-out ridiculous.

I think I tend to write more poetry during the spring and summer because I'm outside more. I think about the things I see- I stop and hike and look at weird shit. That's normally good fodder. Oh! I'm going to quit and post this because I'm thinking about an animal skeleton I saw when Mel and I went for a skate outside. IT WAS WICKED INTERESTING.

Happy poetry month!

Peace
Love
Poetry

Concentric

The ground has been root-soaked
three weekends already, this spring.
I haven't dug my toes in the mud, yet.

Is Poetry Dead?

Is Poetry Dead? asks Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post.

I have lots of opinions (and have written at least two unpublished blogs) about spoken word poetry, most of my feelings are fairly negative but I think it's a semantic issue. I like performance art, which is what I feel spoken word poetry is- but as a written art form, it lacks in subtlety, complexity, craft, and depth. You can disagree with me, and most of you probably do, but I love written poetry. I love the cadence, the slow moving flow that the written word gives us- and I like hearing the poets slowly spill them out at readings.

Slam poetry matters, to my chagrin. It speaks to many people. I can appreciate that. I was watching a powerful piece that a friend forwarded to me:

And I put aside my frustration for the poetry in spoken word poetry to just be present with the video. Something that occurred to me: the repetition that generally annoys me is a part of the oral tradition. People like Homer and Sappho were using repetition as a part of their work (which was relayed orally). I cooled my jets.

I still maintain that spoken word and the written word are radically different, and I'm still not a fan of most performance poetry, but it's very much a part of our culture. It speaks to a lot of people.

Let's be real: poetry has never really been a craft that can support somebody. Sure, there have been a few
people here and there, but most of the classic poets were already independently wealthy, aristocrats, or sponsored by some rich family.

So all of these ramblings culminate to this thought: I hate that we're even asking the question "Is Poetry Dead?"

• People still listen and read it. 
• People are still writing it.
• Poetry has had many incarnations and manifestations in our history and in our present: limericks, lyrics, spoken word, epic, etc., etc. It morphs and flows with our language and culture, and that's okay. That's what it's supposed to do.  

Writing Prompts, OH MY!

Good morning and happy Monday (blech blech blech)!

We didn't make it through the week of poetry prompts, but that's okay. It's about persistence, write (right)?

 So at the last workshop, we discussed writing prompts. The general consensus was that the week-of-writing-things has been a fun endeavor, but the pace is a little intense for all of us. We decided to roll it back a little to one prompt/week.

The schedule will look as follows:
First week of the Month: Kirstin will host a poetry prompt for the week.
Second week of the Month: Rachael will host a prose prompt for the week.
Third week of the Month: Abbey will host a poetry prompt for the week.
Fourth week of the Month: An open discussion focused on the craft. During this week, everybody is encouraged to post something about the mechanics of writing, submitting, editing, what-have-you to share with the group.

Exceptions: November & April (NaNoWriMo & NaPoWriMo).

So your mission for this week, should you choose to accept it, to write a poem with four stanzas. The goal of this prompt is to get us to write a longer poem than we normally would. This can be in any form, just as long as there are four stanzas. It's due by Sunday at Noon. Post it to this comment thread.

Happy writing!

Day 4 of a week of poetry

You've made it past the halfway mark! How is the poeting going? I've only missed one day (yesterday) and I liked the prompt so much that I'm still going to try to make it up today. I want to try my hand at crafting a beautiful image for the sake of beauty. 

Today we're going to work on Haiku. That means you're going to shoot for 5/7/5 syllables. Some folks do this all on one line, some folks do 5 syllables on the first line, 7 on the second, 5 on the last. It's up to you. You can also do multiple stanzas, or just one. Focus on conjoining two images or ideas as simply and concisely as possible.

See you tomorrow, friends!

Pinterest poems on a snowy day!

So I made some pins of my poems from a record of night. Check these dudes out! I tried to make them like a piece of paper.

Week of Poetry on a Snow Day... [Day 3]

Hello, writing friends! How are your poems going? Here in CoMo, it's a snow day for most of us! I just finished breakfast with my wife and a dear friend. Now I'm lounging in the living room, in front of our wonderful fake fire, with all the windows open so I can watch the snow. Breakfast was bacon-pancakes, which you should definitely try. DELICIOUS. I also just read that one of my books of poetry sold in the past month. So, basically, it's a perfect day.

So I'm going to make a Grand-Poomba declaration: today is for writing! If you're looking for an excuse to curl up with your laptop or notebook and write, now is the time, now is the place. Get some coffee (or tea) and warm yourself with words.

I might even finish Hild today. A book by the fire, anybody?






Your prompt for today is as follows...
adoxography (n.) beautiful writing on a subject of little or no importance


Use this word or embody it somehow in a poem.



Have at it, friends!

Poetry a Week: Day 2

I made a banner! Whaaaaat.

The prompt for today is to go to a window or take a walk (but it's cold, so feel free to stay in the cozy warmth of a heated building). Write a poem based on the images you see. No form is required but please feel free to use one if you would like.




No narrative today! Knuckle down and get a'writin'. 

Imbolc: the poet's sabbat

I haven't talked about religion on this blog, and I'm not going into the woo-woo things behind the holiday, but this is one that really resonates in our house. Imbolc celebrates Brigid, the Celtic Goddess of poetry, bards, midwifery, fire, and the hearth. As I write poetry and Mel is a musician, we tend to really really dig this day. Who doesn't like poetry, music, and fire?? That is rhetorical as the answer is obviously everybody. It's no coincidence that I planned a week of poetry that starts today.

I love this sabbat more than Yule- which is saying a lot, because I love the crap out of that one. I love excuses to meditate on things that are important in our lives, any excuse for decorating, eating, and drinking. So I just wanted to share our alter and all the poems I scrawled on our front door.

Also, today is the 13th birthday of our deer kitty, Dinka. Happy birthday, old man! We love you.

Dinka on the left, Nishi on the right.

Burn some shit down and Yawlp! at the world! Purrrrrrr.

February Poetry Week: it begins...

look, I made a banner thing!

Oh hey, there! Welcome to a week of poetry. This week of poetry prompts was originally created by the Wilde Workshop to prepare us for National Poetry Writing Month. There will be one more in March, before NaPoWriMo starts. We will be work-shopping these prompts privately, but I wanted to share this practice with y'all, in case you find it useful.

The goal of this practice is to challenge yourself to write a poem-a-day. Each day of this week, I'll post a prompt that you can use to get your creative mojo juicing. You don't have to consider yourself a poet to participate! I'd like to invite you to join us by posting your poems, inspiration, prompts that work for you, and encouragement in the comment section. Maybe we can motivate each other to make it happen!

Not every poem you write this week will be good, or even mediocre. Writing is hard and we can't hit the perfect note every time we put pen to paper, or finger pads to keyboard, but we have to work our creative muscles so when we do hit the note, we can sing the whole song. It's a silly metaphor, but it's true.

Your first poetry prompt is to use the following words in a poem: cinnamon, Osage orange, molecular.

They don't have to be in any particular order and if it works better plural or as an adjective, do it. As long as the root stays intact. No particular length or form.




Have fun! Can't wait to see what y'all have up your sleeve :)

A quick note on paper poems and writing

I've tried to like e-book poetry, but I don't think it's my jam, which is rather a shame since that's how I self-published. I'm contemplating different ways to do a second edition. If I reserved all rights to Amazon, I could just have the book go through them. This would be very convenient but a very snobby, elitest part of me feels that would simply be feeding the beast.

But to make this artisan, I would have to get down and dirty with some book binding, which is not something I ever learned to do. I'm not sure how that would end.

I'm contemplating many things right now. Back in the day of Chaucer and other folks, they would have a single book that would be passed from noble to noble. Books were precious and printing them was a pain in the arse. This is a distinct possibility.

I'm also considering an idea, of about 5 seconds age. What about a book that grows old? I kind of like the idea of this... I've known I would never, ever, make a living off of poetry. No poet does. It's a fraking shame. What if I made a book that grew in perpetuity? I wonder what that would look like. Worth contemplation.

I'm also thinking about pinterest-ifying my poems. That's a thing? What about pinterest books of poems. What would that look like? Too kitschy?

In other news, workshop related...Want to write a poem a day? Join us. Resistance is futile. Us wylde, Wilde, wild writers are gearing up to start a week of poetry prompts. We've been doing it monthly. We're prepping ourselves for NaPoWriMo. Come to think of it- it would be kind of fun to do some stuff here? I'll post the prompts and y'all can use 'em if you want. We'll get something going, yeah? Moar poetry! Poems poem poems poems. Write.

It's nice to see y'all in 2014. Hibernating is bad, this time of the year. All of the trees are barren. The ground is made of cold, green spikes. The air is difficult to breathe. I tend to hibernate and eat as much as possible. Winter is a hard business and hopefully next weeks poem-a-day will help me grasp that flame. I'm really cold, right now. That's not a metaphor. My office is freezing and I wish that I could be warm for five whole minutes.