Days go by, and they keep going by constantly pulling you into the future. –Laurie Anderson. For starters, days go by one right after another, but today, during meditation, I held my father’s hand one last time before they wheeled him into surgery on the eve of his last day on the planet 7Continue reading “#282: On the Last Day of National Poetry Writing Month, The Poet Speaks of Things that Happen Over and Over Again”
Monthly Archives: April 2017
#281: Gin
Today, from napowrimo, the suggested prompt is to take a favorite poem and find a very specific, concrete noun in it. After choosing the word, put the original poem away and spend five minutes free-writing associations – other nouns, adjectives, etc. Then use the original word and the results of the free-writing as the building blocks for a new poem. PerhapsContinue reading “#281: Gin”
#280: A Mostly Unrhymed Food Dipodic at the Close of Teacher Appreciation Week
This week for teacher appreciation, they bring us junk to eat, like chips, and candy, bread, pancakes, syrup, none of which I can eat, sadly. Yesterday, kids wheeled in wagons full of goodies into classrooms from which I could only choose bottled water. Somehow, this week I don’t quite feel the love; appreciation is notContinue reading “#280: A Mostly Unrhymed Food Dipodic at the Close of Teacher Appreciation Week”
#279: The English Teacher Reveals the Writing Prompt for the Day
The English teacher reveals the writing prompt for the day and tells his students to start writing and one student doesn’t have his notebook and while it’s supposed to be quiet another kid tells the kid without a notebook that he saw him leave it inside the lunchroom and the notebookless kid doesn’t believe him andContinue reading “#279: The English Teacher Reveals the Writing Prompt for the Day”
#278: When I Was Away, Before I Was Born, I Have Never Been
I attended a writing workshop last weekend taught by the Oregon Poet Laureate Emeritus Paulann Petersen where I was asked to participate in a generative process very much unlike the process I am used to in my own creative work. It was a very particular kind of brainstorm activity she called “priming.” Now, as aContinue reading “#278: When I Was Away, Before I Was Born, I Have Never Been”
#277: The Topography of Our Intimate Being
The Topography of Our Intimate Being is a box or a series of boxes. I’m in there, over four decades on hundreds of scattered pages, in a drawer, on a shelf, the most recent version of myself in a box on my writing desk, or, where the oldest pages are stored, in bins in theContinue reading “#277: The Topography of Our Intimate Being”
#277: Dog and Bunny Medieval Marginalia
I A dog astride a bunny is jousting to the death against a bunny astride a snail, battling while balancing precariously on a thorned tendril of a rose bush. The dog appears joyful in the face of this encounter, but both the bunny he is riding and the bunny he is battling look surprised, concerned,Continue reading “#277: Dog and Bunny Medieval Marginalia”
#276: Paradox–a Double Elevenie
On day 23 of National Poetry Writing Month, I’m back to the suggested prompts: Here are the instructions for an “Elevenie” from Napowrimo: “The first line is one word, a noun. The second line is two words that explain what the noun in the first line does, the third line explains where the noun isContinue reading “#276: Paradox–a Double Elevenie”
#275: At the Writers’ Workshop
This is a special kind of torture. On day 13 of my Whole 30 regimen, as I have sworn off alcohol, grains, beans of any kind, dairy of all sorts, cheese of all stripes, all things artificial, AND sugar, our workshop facilitator today puts a pile of candy in front of me as a writing prompt.Continue reading “#275: At the Writers’ Workshop “
#274: Overheard
For an Easter gift my wife bought me an eraser that looks like a human ear. I brought it to school with me and I overheard the following conversation between two students: one student said to the other student, hey, I dare you. I was curious, so with my rubber eraser ear, I listened moreContinue reading “#274: Overheard”
michael jarmer 