Happy National Poetry Month! Beginning tomorrow (this is no April Fool’s joke), I will attempt for the second year in a row to participate in the NaPoWriMo challenge of writing a poem a day for the entire month and publishing each poem here on the blog site. I promise, no cheating; I will not be publishingContinue reading “Embarking On Yet Another Forced Creativity Experience”
Monthly Archives: March 2014
#100: Serious About Poetry
I have just now reached my personal goal of writing 100 poems in a year! I know poets who have written a poem every day for a year, so this may not be the most amaze-balls news of the world, but it’s amazing for me. I think it’s a personal best, a personal record. I’veContinue reading “#100: Serious About Poetry”
#99: It Sucks When There’s No Resolution
Sometimes I argue with my poems. Sometimes, I write things I don’t believe, just to try them on. I just published a poem that claimed that good fiction sometimes has no resolution–and in that way–good fiction mirrors this same aspect of living–that often, more often than we’d like, issues, problems, and conflicts go unresolved. Certainly,Continue reading “#99: It Sucks When There’s No Resolution”
#98: Sometimes the Resolution is No Resolution
In fiction writing, or in reading fiction, it’s important to understand that sometimes the resolution is that there’s no resolution: there’s no way it can be solved or fixed or for all parties to see eye to eye about a situation they’ve disputed. And the reason it’s that way in fiction writing and in reading fiction,Continue reading “#98: Sometimes the Resolution is No Resolution”
#97: Doing the Extra Soul Credit
Is this worth any points? they ask. And I say, of course, but you won’t see them in the grade book; instead, you’ll feel them somewhere inside your head or your heart–that’s why we call it extra soul credit. Very few students are motivated by this. I don’t care. While I’m not opposed to enrichmentContinue reading “#97: Doing the Extra Soul Credit”
#96: An Extra 5 Years To Live
So these folks made a video to call attention to the fact that today’s generation of children is for the first time in history expected to die five years earlier than their parents. The film- makers asked a bunch of kids what they would do with another five years to live. This is a poemContinue reading “#96: An Extra 5 Years To Live”
#95: On the End of Spring Break
There’s laundry to fold and put away and dust bunnies to suck up and it’s raining and blowing so hard we’re sort of trapped in here. Water puddles up in the flower beds and these damn sugar ants keep crawling over my keyboard while I type up another poem. It’s Saturday, half way through, andContinue reading “#95: On the End of Spring Break”
#94: Hair
So, I’m almost 50 and I still think about my hair. I’ve written poems about my hair and here goes another one. I’m growing it out again– which I’m pleased to say, I’m still able to do, but embarrassed to say that I’ve given it this much thought. I’m revisiting (this time around) my hairContinue reading “#94: Hair”
#93: The Resident Eight Year Old Questions the Literary Merits of Finnegans Wake
What the hell is wrong with that book, he asks, listening to Dad attempt a reading out loud of the third paragraph of Finnegans Wake. What the hell is wrong with that book, Dad? Well, for starters, there’s a word in the paragraph in question, the third word in the first sentence, in parentheses, that’sContinue reading “#93: The Resident Eight Year Old Questions the Literary Merits of Finnegans Wake”
#92: On Reading The Wake Out Loud
I’ve written before how it’s been impossible for me to finish Moby Dick and now I’ve once again picked up another formidable tome, Finnegans Wake. This one, too, I’ve tried many times before and failed but nevertheless keep coming back to it, a glutton for punishment. But with neither Moby Dick or the Wake doContinue reading “#92: On Reading The Wake Out Loud”
michael jarmer 