the poetry mini-challenge: time for our own words

This is the day in the Read Write Poem February Poetry Mini-challenge when we write our own poems. We find the themes and sounds and phrases that resonate with us from our centos and our poets and go off on our own with those bits of inspiration jingling in our pockets.

It gets confusing to me what comes first (yes, chicken and egg style): does the life come first and dictate what we’re interested in reading, what we seek out? or does the reading put us in a frame of mind about our lives? I don’t know the answer to it, and I am too busy to give my brain over for long to philosophical considerations. It is only a thought I pass by, like the sinking, boarded up house I noticed for the first time today on my drive to the workout studio. I wondered who used to live there and what happened to them, but I probably won’t think about them again.

I mention it — how books influences us/how we select our books — in the context of encountering Rebecca Shumejda’s work for the first time a week ago and choosing her poems to work from in this writing challenge. I heard in her work a toughness and a loneliness that truly resonated with me. I have no way of knowing if those themes are intentional in her work. I do know, of course, that her narrator isn’t talking directly to me. We hear what we hear when we hear it.

So when I get running with a poem or two about loneliness and toughness, and think I’m paying homage to Rebecca, that may or may not make sense. Certainly, don’t blame Rebecca for my hasty drafts and whatever crazy direction they may go. The poems I’ll write on my own for the challenge are also going to be inspired by the pacing of the centos I created here and here. There’s something about them that moved slower than my typical narrator voice.

My poem for day #3 is here (I can’t remember if I’m a day behind or if I’m on track), and other poets’ poems for day #3 can be found here in the third forum.

UPDATE: I’ve written my day #4 poem, too, and the fourth forum is here.

RWP mini-challenge currently in progress

The Read Write Poem February Mini-challenge is here.

The first poem we compose for the challenge is supposed to be a cento (patchwork poem), which creates a new poem from another poet’s lines. There are rules, though! Some of them are mentioned in the mini-challenge link above. My attempt is posted here at “i am maureen.” Go to the forum to see what others are doing! (UPDATE: My second cento for the challenge is posted here, and you can find other poets’ work, as well, in the second forum.)

For the purposes of the challenge, we are supposed to profess our love for the work of a single poet. The poet I’m in love with at the moment is Rebecca Schumejda, and it’s not just because one of her books glows in the dark (I don’t have that one yet). By now, she must think I’m stalking her because I think I’ve tried to talk with her every day since we met, including yesterday in which I asked her permission to use her lines.

She did a reading in Albany at the Fuze Box a few days ago. She was a terrific reader, and her poems are phenomenal. Her poetic voice is mature and alluring and intriguing and insightful. And she’s genuine. She doesn’t try to shine things up. I love honest poetry.

OK. Gushing is done. Go see the first cento at the “maureen” link in the text above!

two reviews in new issue of poets’ quarterly

The second issue of Poets’ Quarterly is a total redesign of the website, and it’s full of good stuff: reviews and interviews. I was so happy to be included in the launch a few months back, and I was delighted when Lori May, PQ Editor, asked me to write for issue 2. This time, I reviewed Fire Pond by Jessica Garratt and The Guilt Gene by Diana M. Raab.

I hope you’ll go read the magazine!

P.S. Jill’s in this issue, too!

A revision activity for Read Write Poem

It’s our 10th activity at the Read Write Poem group Revisionaries. We post first drafts and then fiddle with them in public to come up with a revised version.

Want to fiddle with your own poems publicly? Join the group using the link above! Or maybe you just watch from the sidelines and cheer the rest of us on? You’ll find us in the discussion forum.

My offering for the activity is posted here at “i am maureen.” This week, we typed notes in the raw condition in which we find them (our “original poems”) and then we turned them into poems (our “revised poems).

finishing up the month with another poem

Well, I did it. I kept my streak going through the end of the month. The most recent poem (here at “i am maureen”) means I wrote seven poems in seven days. As you’ll see when you click through, I’m going to stop counting for lots of reasons (though I’ll keep writing and posting).

The poem could be considered an expression of gratitude for my recent time in Portland, Oregon. It references the sun that surprised me on a Monday morning (pictured in this post, the view from my hotel room) after several days of rain. (I’d been warned about — but not deterred by — the rain.) It references the delicious plates of fruit I ate almost every morning for breakfast. It references William Stafford and a poem read aloud at an event (which featured Stafford’s son Kim) I attended with Deb at the Writer’s Dojo on Stafford’s birthday.

Finally, it references two big things: my gratitude that I was able to use the time I had in Portland to jump start my writing practice (which had stalled out) and my fantasies about what we all want: earth-shattering, steamy love in which we are desired as unique persons, separate from — but fed by — the relationship. I know: asking a lot.

So those are the warnings about process notes for the poem. I hope you’ll go see it.

progress: six in a row

That’s right! Here’s #6 (at “i am maureen” — instructions about the password are over there, too, if you’re new ’round here).

None of them will bring me glory (whatever that is), but I’ve written six poems in six days. It seems like I used to do that all the time, with little fanfare. But I need some fanfare this time. It’s been difficult!!!!!

is it a habit yet?

I don’t remember how long it takes to make a habit. I’m five days into writing a poem-a-day (today’s offering is here at “i am maureen,” an extended, stretched and tortured metaphor about a tailor). I do know five days is not a habit. (Isn’t it something like three weeks?) I do know that I have missed the regular poem-ing though, and while I don’t have my groove back yet, I finally feel like giving it a good effort.

I also finally figured out some of the reason behind the drought. I had attributed it all to creative failures. However, I realized while driving earlier this week (my brain makes sense when I am driving in the car; road trip, anyone?) that I began to spend less time writing late this fall exactly around the time I began teaching Zumba (getting certified, learning choreography, traveling around for classes, etc.).

My regular writing routine depended on a loosey-goosey schedule. I wrote anytime during the day I felt like it (and could bribe the children into cooperating with “quiet time”). But once I started teaching Zumba, large chunks of my time ceased to belong to my amorphous writing and reading addiction.

I love Zumba. I love teaching Zumba. It makes me happy. Reliably. It’s rare to have something like that. It’s movement, movement, movement, and it’s wild, wild, wild. And at times, it’s sexy, sexy, sexy. Most often, it’s goofy, goofy, goofy. I never take myself seriously in it.

Do you see how it’s the perfect balance with poetry? It’s an odd and glorious combination. I need both.

And now that I know my poetry drought was, most likely, an issue of time management and not loss of mojo, I feel hopeful.

i’m read write poem-ing it this week

Despite my best intentions, I keep missing participating in the weekly Read Write Prompts. But I made it this week!

It was an image prompt (here). I posted my draft poem/response at “i am maureen.”

Visit the Get Your Poem On post to see what others wrote! While you’re there, check out the news: Jill and I are rolling up our sleeves and getting more involved in RWP.

something i don’t usually do

If you’re on Facebook, you may have seen this photo. While I was in Portland, Oregon, earlier this month, Deb invited Dale and me to her house for dinner and wine. We chatted about poetry and family and friendship, and it was lovely, lovely, lovely.

On the plane on the way home, I made some quick notes about the evening, and I just spent some time trying to turn those notes into a poem. It’s a poem, alright (you know, line breaks and a metaphor or two), but it lacks my usual edge. Even worse than that, it’s quite sappy (something I don’t usually do). But you know what? It was that kind of night. The trip was that kind of trip. It was a dreamy escape from the frozen white Northeast and all its associations. And yet, there was time for introspection.

If you still dare, I invite you to read it here at “i am maureen.” Deb and Dale, I don’t know what kind of gift it is to send you a mediocre poem, but it’s sent with affection!

another poem. for real-ish.

Yesterday, a draft (posted here at “i am maureen“). Today, a draft (link below). Two in a row.

I started today’s piece on the plane on the way home from Portland, Oregon, after my recent vacation. I am in the early chapters of Steve Kowit’s In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop. It is my unofficial official New Year’s Resolution (I don’t believe in resolutions) to complete the exercises in the book — cover to cover, of course. And then, do the same with Sage Cohen’s Writing the Life Poetic. (Don’t tell anyone about the resolutions, which, I must remind you, I don’t believe in.)

Anyway, the poem I posted today is a stab at the Poem #2 assignment from Kowit’s book. Mimic the structure of Antonio Machado’s “Memory from Childhood,” a poem in five stanzas, in which the 1st and 5th stanzas are the same. Talk about a different scene in each stanza. Use detail. I did those things and posted the draft (which I tweaked while I typed it, but otherwise is the draft from the plane. It’s here at “i am maureen.”