(a found poem, with minor edits) Out of all the people I could think to be my dad, you fall into that category easily. Thank you for making me grilled cheese sandwiches so I don’t die. All around people love you (the person in front of you, your lodge buddies, your workspace friends, etc.); youContinue reading “#287: The Resident 12 Year Old Writes a Bunch of Easter Egg Notes for His Dad”
Tag Archives: A poem a day for a month
Gearing Up for NaPoWriMo 2018
In six days I will embark once again (for the fifth year in a row!) on the endeavor to write a poem a day each day for the entire month of April. Won’t you join me? I will post every single one of these things, the good, the bad, and the ugly, right here upContinue reading “Gearing Up for NaPoWriMo 2018”
#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”
#273: One Must Have Toys at Work
I had to hide my rubber ducks because for some reason my freshman boys could not leave them alone. Now they are hiding inside my office with my owl lip balm and my librarian action figure with shushing motion and my James Joyce finger puppet and my Shakespeare, complete with quill pen. They’re all gathered around myContinue reading “#273: One Must Have Toys at Work”
#272: Let There Be Rock
In the beginning Back in nineteen fifty-five Man didn’t know about a rock ‘n’ roll show And all that jive The white man had the schmaltz The black man had the blues No one knew what they was gonna do But Tchaikovsky had the news He said Let there be sound There was sound LetContinue reading “#272: Let There Be Rock”
#271: The Neologist Speaks about Food
Lately, I have had two dreams, both inexorborific, one concerning jelly beans, another about beer, farfignewtons. I will dream next about cheese. I have not had a sandwich in ten horrorflopnoggen days. Candy is no longer thingful. I wouldn’t recognito a potato chip if it bit me right on the keatettle. I’ve not had milk.Continue reading “#271: The Neologist Speaks about Food”
michael jarmer 