Figure 8 is really great!

Many years back, one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons actually came between the shows in the form of School House Rock.  And on this eighth day of NaPoWriMo, I am going back to one of those early educational cartoons for my inspiration.  I'm keeping it simple today, so feel free to come along for the ride.  Just watch the video and let your pen (or pencil or marker or crayon) be your guide.  The only rules are to have fun and let yourself write for 5 - 10 minutes.

Enjoy!  Hope you are having a productive month of poetry!

Reviving Darlings

Today, for the third day of NaPoWriMo, I decided to revive some of my previously discarded darlings.  Some poets call them their murdered darlings (or babies).  Either way (or whatever terms you may use), they are the lines or phrases which you have edited out of your previous work after many long hours of fretting how you could keep them.  I keep a running list on my computer, because that's where I do my editing.  But I also have some sprinkled through my journals - those are the ones who don't even make it to the editing phase.  Also in my journals, I keep those phrases and lines who have come to me while driving, at the gym, or walking.  I may scribble them onto a random scrap of paper first, but then put them in the journal for safe keeping - sometimes, I transcribe them, but, most times, I just tape the scrap into the journal.  It helps to remind me of the moment of conception for it - and helps later on when I'm working it into a piece or building something new around it.

Constructing Sonnets on Day Two

With day two of NaPoWriMo, I turn to some interesting homework from my sonnet class at the Carnegie Center with Richard Taylor.  He gave us a list of 14 words around which to construct a Shakespearean sonnet.  Yes, the words follow the appropriate rhyme scheme.  Our charge: given the end-rhyme words, build the fourteen lines in iambic pentameter and follow the three quatrains / one couplet form and "plot line" conventions within the poem - laying out the story, building to climax, turn (volta), and then resolve in the final couplet.  If you would like to play along, here are the fourteen (14) words (in order)...

drift
leave
shift
weave

rack
cigarette
attack
forget

slight
loathed
tight
clothed

plot
lot

Good luck and great writing!

Day One

Being the first day of NaPoWriMo, I awoke to a push poem tapping on my shoulder.  I'll take some time later to explain push poems (and give proper credit to Katerina Stoykova-Klemer for the concept).  This particular little bugger wanted me to write about different things that I had given up.  And with it being the Lent season, I felt it would make for an appropriate prompt.  So today, fellow poets in the pursuit, write about something (or someone, even) you have given up.  As I always recommend, give yourself a set time frame to just write and let your pen, pencil, or your fingers go.  I usually do at least 15- to 20-minute free writing.  Don't stop.  Keep going.  Please take more time if you catch a good ride.