Poem Tryouts: Baby, It’s Cold Outside. No, Really.

11:24 a.m. — Atlanta

listening to my husband coughing — damn allergies (I know. I promised music once back, but I’m fighting with my desktop.)

Hello, everyone. I hope all is well. Me? Rats, rats, rats, rats, rats. Whew! That felt good. My desktop is not speaking to me as far as my blog goes, so I am peering at the screen of my tiny travel laptop. Thanks, Barbara and Misky for your suggestions. When I post this, I’ll log out and work from scratch. Maybe by next Tuesday…

Before anything, if you have not visited last week’s post to read the fruit of that exercise, go! There is some wonderful stuff as a result. Just scroll through looking for the links and ignoring conversations. Then, if you haven’t written your own blazon and are thinking ‘Darn!’ go ahead. Write one. Post it.

Today is a lovely easy prompt. No particular exercising or stretching, unless, of course, you’d like to, hmmm? I want winter, your winter; not necessarily the winter you have [when it happens], but the thing that for you evokes winter. What do you dream of when you think winter? It might be the silence after a snow, fifteen blankets on the bed, cooking stews and soups, or, palm trees — I lived in the tropics for twenty years. We went to London for Christmas break so we could have miserable, cold, wet weather.

If you want, find an image, a photograph or a painting, and use that as your inspiration, giving us the image to see and feel. Sensory detail, people, sensory detail. Have fun making your day, and ours, wintry.

I shall see you next Tuesday for one of my favourite exercises — heh heh heh.

Happy writing, all

 

Tuesday Try an Image Out

8:22 a.m. — Walnut Creek

We have internet; hello all. This will be my last post from Walnut Creek. Next time I appear, I shall be back in Atlanta.

Today we are going to play with a found image as inspiration. If the copyright is okay, let us see the image, or give us a link. The poem does not have to be obviously from the image, but it will be fun to see what started you down the track leading to your poem. What image? Why, winter, of course!

Find an image that, for you, speaks winter. It can be a photograph, a painting, or a drawing; literal, or abstract; obviously winter, or metaphorical. Decide what it is you want to do with the image, what truth about it you want to convey to us. Choose how, what form, you can best convey to us that image.

You do not have to mention the source image, at all. You might create a story; maybe, a memory will surface; or, you might describe the scene as if the speaker is in it and looking at it. You might decide you wish to include the source image in some way, and that is fine, too.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Remember, the image of winter only has to make sense to you, as an image. The poem is where you make something happen for your readers.

Post your poems, so we can read them. I’ll be able to read early ones and will catch up on the rest, once I am settled in Atlanta.

 

Happy writing.

 

Tuesday Try Winter Out

8:04 a.m. — Walnut Creek

Hello, all. Is it my imagination or are the days slipping by even faster than they already seemed to slip by? Not fast enough, you say? Bring on neutral weather with comfortable temperatures? I’m with you there. How about we start with this week’s prompt which mirrors the one we did on summer. Let’s give winter a turn.

It’s no longer a new party trick, but you can still do it. Write, without thinking, a list of all the words and terms you associate with winter: cold, ice, icy, freeze… come on, no censoring to save a word… snow, hot chocolate, mittens… What’s that? You wouldn’t have thought of hot chocolate and now you have? Ah, well. Fireplace, Christmas, skiing… Write winter out of your brain onto the paper. Remember the fresh and original poem you wrote about summer? To reach it, you had to write summer out of your system first.

All done? Okay, remember that you may not use any of those words in your poem. Consider what it is about winter you want to convey. Those of us undergoing weeks unending of heat, might want to convey  the bone-chilling cold of a winter day; those undergoing the bone-chilling cold of that winter day, might wish to convey their view of a perfect summer day. Decide if you want to write a universal, or a personal, truth about winter; if you want to describe a scene, or an event; if you want positive, or negative; if you wish to recall a memory, or create a fantasy.

Freewrite your thinking as you are doing it. Jot notes about what, as well as how. Write down words, images, and sensory details. Think about the best form [this does not mean you have to use a form as opposed to free-verse, but you do need to decide which] for the winter poem you have running through your mind, now. What form complements your content?

Write, post, come back and read others or, read all of last week’s entries now, and this week’s entries next week! That way you will catch several poems to read. I will see you Friday for the Freeforall and next Tuesday for an image. I know: Ooooh!

Happy writing, everyone.

P.S. Should you have the kind of brain that automatically runs possibilities by, when you glance at my Tuesday and Friday attempts at different titles around the same words, feel free to let me know!