(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: poetry
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”
#285: A Poem Against Nothing
During meditation practice today I wrote some words and phrases on two notecards in response to the following three meditative prompts: Nothing, Form, and Intention. As a writer, I live in the world of specificity, concrete detail, or in ideas expressed explicitly and with clarity. Sometimes I struggle with some of the more esoteric aspectsContinue reading “#285: A Poem Against Nothing”
Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: The Resurrection of the Contest in Order to Exacerbate Feelings of Rejection, a Dongle Dilemma, When a Poem is Not a Poem, One Bad Dream, and More Blessedness.
Things started out kind of rowdy here at Mt. Holyoke. The microphone was wonky. There’s nothing worse than a wonky microphone. Better no microphone than a wonky one. One of our attendees was trapped in his room by tables of books. But he’s got the only refrigerator in the entire building in his roomContinue reading “Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: The Resurrection of the Contest in Order to Exacerbate Feelings of Rejection, a Dongle Dilemma, When a Poem is Not a Poem, One Bad Dream, and More Blessedness.”
#283: I Dream of a Song
It was crazy. I dreamed I had written a song fully formed and recorded about my mom and then my dead friend called me on the phone and wondered about copyright permissions because I think she wanted to use it for some other purpose. I wish I could remember the song, the lyrics, the tune,Continue reading “#283: I Dream of a Song”
As a Result of Maintaining a Regular Blog…
I have found a book. It just appeared there. I wasn’t intentionally writing a book. I was just blogging. One day I decided to look closely at a pattern I saw emerging (among many patterns), and there I found a book! I found a book of poems, needing revision, sure, but almost fully formed, a bookContinue reading “As a Result of Maintaining a Regular Blog…”
#282: On the Last Day of National Poetry Writing Month, The Poet Speaks of Things that Happen Over and Over Again
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”
#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”
michael jarmer 