Well, to begin with, a Wally boy who shall go nameless (after doing an absolute killer reading from his new novel) came down to the porch at about 10 o’clock last night wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, and for the rest of the conference, I predict we will be asking him over andContinue reading “Dispatches From Writer’s Camp: Organized Chaos”
Category Archives: Writing and Reading
Dispatches From Writer’s Camp: Reading What’s Not On The Page
I arrived at Mt. Holyoke College last night right in the middle of dinner after a long day of traveling. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning in order to get to the Portland airport by 5 to catch a plan by 6 to arrive in Chicago to hang out for a coupleContinue reading “Dispatches From Writer’s Camp: Reading What’s Not On The Page”
#139: Writer’s Camp
I’m going to camp. I’ll be alone most of the time but at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and at least once every evening, I will be surrounded by friends, writer friends, people who know me and who share the dream and the drive or the dream of the drive or the drive of the dreamContinue reading “#139: Writer’s Camp”
#130: Farewell, For Now
I asked my students what I should write my last poem of the month about and one kid suggested I go all meta. Write a poem about writing a poem about writing poems, he said. It was a pretty good idea. But instead, I took the prompt from the last prompt of the month from the NaPoWriMo website, not quite soContinue reading “#130: Farewell, For Now”
#125: This Is Not A Poem
This is not a poem, but a message. This is not a poem, but an explanation. This is not a poem, but a note to say that, this is not a poem, and that I have not eaten any plums, but rather, this is not a poem, and I will be off-line tomorrow, so thereContinue reading “#125: This Is Not A Poem”
#123: On Shakespeare’s Birthday
Harold Bloom said that Shakespeare invented the human. Bloom’s a blowhard pretty much but I think in this case he might be right. What writer in English before Shakespeare anticipated Freud and Jung, fleshed out all the archetypes, captured the various loves and hates and the myriad mental states and the thousand natural shocks that flesh isContinue reading “#123: On Shakespeare’s Birthday”
#115: Terza Rima (A Complaint Ending In Banana)
I’m sorry about this one. Written late in the day when the brain is mush, it’s a terza rima, a form invented or popularized by Dante and bastardized by the English: 3 line stanzas in iambic pentameter with a “chained” rhyme scheme that ends in a single line chained to the middle rhyme of the lastContinue reading “#115: Terza Rima (A Complaint Ending In Banana)”
#110: Shameless Self-Promotion (An Advertisement Poem)
The NaPoWriMo website today suggests that we try an advertisement poem. That’s an actual thing, apparently. As an example, the NaPoWriMo curator provides Exhibit A: Said Farmer Brown Who’s bald on top “Wish I could Rotate the crop” Burma-Shave So rather than create a poem advertising Burma Shave or a made-up product or some thingContinue reading “#110: Shameless Self-Promotion (An Advertisement Poem)”
#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”
michael jarmer 