Wednesday, October 31, 2012

WordCandy Wednesday: The Particular Wheel



Photo by Sonia Joie.

I'm enjoying using these wordcandies as poetry prompts. Good language invites more language, yes? A poem then...


It may take months

to find

the way the wheel speaks
itself in circles,

to understand
the particular language—
a whirring, a come-again
before we're through

it may take months to turn

the silent road to you.


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Saturday, October 27, 2012

On, In, and Around Mondays: You Want the One-Star

Booked Cover 2

"You're going to want the five-stars and the one-stars," I told her.

It is Karen's first book—a poignant and humorous memoir, Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me.

Karen has been an award-winning professor and a writer for a long time. She knows what it is to be read and responded to. Still. There is nothing so surprising as your first one-star review, and I was just broaching the subject before it happens.

The one-star review is a good surprise; of course, it needs to be generously balanced by five-star reviews if your book is truly excellent. But the point is that the best books will garner reviews in two directions. This is desirable. It means you have a strong, distinctive voice, and that people either love that voice or despise it.

Karen is gracious, and she thanked me for the unsolicited advice. It goes without saying... I am wishing her more five-stars.

_____

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

WordCandy Wednesday: Metaphysics Laced



Photo by L.L. Barkat.

This candy is from the On Poets & Poetry category. Perhaps a poem, then...

Metaphysics
laced with poppies

makes me wonder
how I can be

more or less

red
with black
seeds.


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Monday, October 22, 2012

On, In, and Around Mondays: Walk in the Woods

MT-woods

We stepped onto the pine needles, in a slice of woods barely qualifying to be called woods.

"It's like a carpet," my girl said.

"Yes, I used to walk such woods. My sister and I. How we loved the pine needles so soft under our feet! We could go as far as the eye could see under a thousand trees. It was our secret place."

My daughters' eyes get wider. Is there such a place on earth? They want to believe it, even though we are standing only in a slice, a suggestion of the possible.

They begin to spring up and down, testing a life I can only suggest to them with my tellings.

I can tell of other woods too, like the ones in the photo above. I can give you a slice. This is what I do as a writer. I tell you something you might want to believe. I give you a suggestion of the possible.

It is up to you to go there, if I can just give you a place to spring from. We work together, you and I.

_____

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Wednesday, October 17, 2012

WordCandy Wednesday: The Soul



Photo by Kelly Sauer.

This candy, from the Sweet Dreams category, is so lovely. It begs for a poem, don't you think?

The soul
bends down
to wait.

The soul
like fragile lace
lays itself
across the white.

I note
the filagree.


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Monday, October 15, 2012

On, In, and Around Mondays: Writing Landscapes

Leaved

He walks the old ways and pays a toll in skin. The paths are chalk, and his body writes itself onto the landscape, even as the landscape writes itself onto his body.

MacFarlane has taken a fall along The Icknield Way, and somehow I think of my own skin, and the way I sit, on this day, near my daughter's warmth, and our bodies are making a memory—her landscape writing itself on me, mine writing itself on hers.

She listens to my cadence as I read: magnesian limestone, Permian mudstone, Middle Lias, Great Oolite, cornbrash and, yes, London chalk.

I remember when she was tiny and loved to draw on asphalt—chalk in her small hand, colors and visions set down, now long washed away by rain.

"I could see you doing this," I interrupt my reading, bringing memories forward and on into her possible future. My chalk girl. I can see her walking The Icknield Way.

"You can?"

"Yes, I don't know why. I can see you walking this path."

And I know that in this moment, whether or not she ever walks MacFarlane's London Chalk way, that she could. It is within her.

"Take me with you," I want to say.

But I don't.

Her head is on my shoulder. I lean down to kiss her warm face, let the moment write itself onto my skin.


_____

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

WordCandy Wednesday: Proper Tea



Photo by Claire Burge.

I am loving the new Tea category at WordCandy. This one is great wisdom from Winnie the Pooh. How do you make your tea proper?


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Saturday, October 06, 2012

On, In, and Around Mondays: Walking to Love

Sepia Girl

I am supposed to be reading The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, by Robert Macfarlane, to review it for Books & Culture.

So of course I've only gotten as far as chapter one, and instead of continuing to read, I began walking every morning.

Macfarlane's journey began in winter, and he claims you can't go anywhere without walking. I am already in disagreement. You might know why.

It's okay. He could be right, in his way. It doesn't change the fact that I went somewhere without going anywhere. Two things can be right. This is something I had great fun exploring in The Novelist.

Anyway. I began walking every morning, and whereas Macfarlane quotes Emerson, "the ground is all memoranda and signatures," I am noticing that the ground is a cradle for love.

And I, like some kind of wandering mother, have the chance to embrace what the ground is holding out to me, if I want.

One morning, the ground gave me an ivory-coated terrier. This little dog would not move until I came to greet him. I held his face between my hands and looked directly into his melty brown eyes. "I see you," I said to this tiny creature named Tiger. "I am so glad you are saying hello to me."

Another morning, the ground gave me a brown-haired girl, skipping her way to the school bus. She raised an eraser to her nose and sniffed hard. "I love the smell of this eraser!" she shouted to the wind. "I love this eraser!" I gathered her words.

This morning, it was two old men. Jamaican, I think, if I heard their deep, throaty sing-song correctly. "You gonna buy this house?" one of them asked me when I walked by. "Oh, just stretching near the driveway," I replied. "Great house, isn't it?" I added. And he nodded yes and turned back to his friend.

Macfarlane is right about walking. It takes you somewhere.

In my case, I feel like I am mother-walking to love.

_____

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Wednesday, October 03, 2012

WordCandy Wednesday



I am so pleased about the new Chocolate category over at WordCandy. Too fun.

This new category is only equaled by—okay, maybe not quite—the new Tea category.

Either way, it's yummy tea and chocolate for me!


Photo by Kelly Sauer.

Want to make Wednesday simple and sweet? Blog WordCandy. Can't wait to see yours.


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