On, In, and Around Mondays: Writing with Luci Shaw

I open my computer today and notice Friday’s red umbrella. It belongs to Luci Shaw.

I have Luci's umbrella, because I have her picture. I have her picture because I used it to create a background for her new Twitter account. She has a new Twitter account, because on Thursday she will be coming to a Twitter poetry party.

Just yesterday I listened to someone deride Twitter. There are those, I suppose, who make it something to deride. But even with talk of heavy rain or indigestion or lost keys, I believe that Twitter is a red umbrella— a tiny space in which to work, to express oneself on the way, to move through crowds in the crimson shadow of words.

Once I took a writing seminar with Kay Marshall Strom. The thing I remember most was her assertion that the good writer benefits from writing small. "Limit yourself to a few sentences," she said. That feels to me like red-umbrella talk.

If you are going to say something of worth in a few words, you will be forced to concentrate more carefully on details. If you don't concentrate on details, it will seem you have said nothing at all, except perhaps heavy rain, or indigestion, or lost keys. Details make the rain like needles or like a sky of white nectar. Details make the indigestion burn the esophagus, like an old woman with a kerosene lamp, winding her way back to the sea. Details remember that the keys were on the counter at the bakery, just when you were choosing to splurge on a chocolate-filled croissant.

On Friday, over the phone and online, a friend and I helped Luci open her red umbrella on Twitter. We wrote about fishermen and red bobbers, casting lines and car hats. She laughed and played and saw the possibilities. She found her keys.


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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. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

The Poetry of Pie

I have always preferred pie to other desserts, especially on my birthday.

Perhaps I agree with Ken Haedrich. In Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie, Haedrich says...

To me, pie is poetry that makes the world a better place. Oh yes.

But poetry is also sometimes pie. Like last week at TweetSpeak's poetry party. Here are a few slices for you from my personal 140-character pie plate... :)


Listen, Lover Boy,
to the mourners
marching,
while we eat milk pie
and turn our sheets
to the night

*

And mourners need
floured hands,
ghosting lost pleasures

*

Make mine apple,
make yours mincemeat;
I will put them
near each other
on the maple table

*

Is there such a thing
as disposable sexy pie?
Does it come in aluminum, flimsy?

*

I have upended pies
and brothers of pies
and sisters of pies
in search of my grandmother's
last touch

*

Quick,
give me a cherry pie,
I am in need of
a sweet and sour
red night






Pie photos by L.L. Barkat.

This post is in honor of TheHighCalling.org's Twitter Pie Party, tonight. (Add your pie post link here.) It is also for One Shot Wednesday.

Stealing Each Other's Words

The game just got harder over at Tweetspeak Poetry. Now, goodness help us, we're writing sonnets by using each other's words.

Some of these lines are mine (that was necessary because of how we played the game), and some are sheared from others and rewoven. I've changed a few tenses and pronouns. It is still, in my opinion, crowd-sourced poetry. Have a look...

Another Communion

We spit out our past like sour wine,
but it clings to our tongues, thick coats
our minds as quivering lips at the edge of a wine
glass slip over crystal, timber soft notes

that float like lost stories, lost bonds, lost dregs,
because the first time we thought we'd misread,
so we mourn for lost loves and quietly beg,
"Who cooks for you," as though never fed.

We spend our hours discussing hope,
we are praying hard the off'ring will work,
oak pollen too, like ashen seeds of toxic rope,
orange cigarette butts, smashed cans by the curb

to drown out the shouts, the shouts from crazed czars
in our heads, wishing love was within us, not lost, not far.

Well! It is definitely more of a challenge to write a poem that makes sense using words that weren't originally intended to go together. But there you have it. :)

Thanks to the following fellow gamers for letting me steal and reshape their words: @JavaNicky, @KathleenOverby, @MattPriour, @mdgoodyear, @TchrEric, @Denadyer, and @Togetherforgood

Clock photo by L.L. Barkat.

Ticket to Party

Want to keep me? Make it easier for me to leave.

That's the philosophy behind a strategy that, more often than not, helps businesses retain executives. How do savvy businesses make it easier for executives to leave and, surprisingly, get them to stay? Besides offering professional development opportunities, they encourage social networking, by hosting events where execs will meet others beyond their immediate circle.

How cool is that? We regular-people have a word for "social networking event." It's called a party. I'm guessing there needs to be some kind of synergy. Executives at a party-social-networking-event meeting other executives, discussing, to some extent, business.

Which is just to say, this past Tuesday I participated in a social networking event, otherwise known as a Twitter poetry party. As a manager and culture columnist for HighCallingBlogs, this is the kind of sanctioned fun that will keep me at HCB for a good long time. (Part of my job is to meet poets and writers, engage in social networking, and write articles about poetry.)

All right, I know you want hear the best part. Who was at the party? What did they say (um, tweet)? You can read more about that at Tweetspeak Poetry.

For my part, I drank water (sorry, that's so unpartyish, isn't it?) and tweeted the poems below. Our theme for the night was Love in Character. I focused on Pocahontas & John Smith, Cleopatra & Mark Antony, Cyrano & Roxane, Lancelot & Guinevere, Shah Jahan & Mumtaz Mahal (of the famous Taj Mahal tomb), Elizabeth Bennett & Darcy, Scarlett & Rhett, Romeo & Juliet, Samson & Delilah, Owl & Pussycat, and Yuri & Lara...


Stop asking questions,
Mr. Darcy, with your
dark brown eyes... kisses
need no answers

*

Lara, I watched you
through the window,
choked on the scent
of goodbye

*

Mr. Young has
his Janet, now tell me,
who is Yuri?

*

Mumtaz,
the air is silk,
morning raises yet again
its veil of longing

*

Lancelot, you were my
green earth, the round
table upon which
my heart spun

*

Roxane,
don't ever doubt it,
for what it's worth
I loved you silent
as the stars

*

Dear Rhett,
this is Juliet
speaking. What
kind of fool are you
to spurn love?
I would die for
my lover's touch

*

Darcy, you too
could know purple,
could lie amidst the
heather. Let your eyes
but look on me

*
I am missing you,
Rhett, the lilacs are in
bloom beside the house
like purple flame

*

I watched them
shave your head clean,
strip your strength
in fallen locks, now I am
missing you, your hair
like rope around my wrists

*

The curry leaf
floats, curls
'midst black onion
seeds, brown sauce,
and I think once again
I taste your love
upon my tongue

*

I still remember
how your bangles
whispered glass love
through the halls, your hair
coconut fragrant, hands
henna red

*

When you stepped
under the Eastern Hemlocks,
John, I still had a few stray baby
teeth. You licked them sober, tall,
I left the shores

*

Mumtaz, would that
you could echo voice
over this dry river
through this dark tomb,
light my heart once more
like stars.

*

Vault of marble
cave, emerald-studded
calligraphy holds my love
for whom, at death, I plucked out
artists' eyes.

*

Had we but honey,
quince and money
a pea-green boat,
we could have
fled the sand,
put war behind

*

Who said love was
softer than the asp,
it bites the heart

*

Forgive me, Mark,
your ship arrived
my almond eyes
could never let
you go


MORE FUN:
Would you like to try writing a love poem, in character? Post your offering by 6:00 pm, Thursday November 5, for links and possible feature at HighCallingBlogs.com. Drop your post link here in the comment box so I don't miss it. Don't be shy! :)

God & the Song writing project: Right now at InCourage, they're GIVING AWAY a copy of Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places. One of my favorite SC chapters speaks of God as our Song of Songs lover. Would you like to try writing a love poem or vignette about God using the voice of a Song of Songs lover? (be as shy or brave as you wish :). Drop your post link here and I'll link to you.

Also, thanks to Michelle Gregory for asking me to share my writing journey. Check it out— includes the story of a very unfortunate string of rhymes.


Love Lane photo, by L.L. Barkat. Hat tip to Bradley, for the Wall Street Journal article.

The Poet Speaks in Tweets

Over at High Calling Blogs, I wrote a post called New Media: honks, tweets and sassy talk. Among other things, it discusses the 'poetry of Twitter.'

I was going to skip doing my own poem this week, but then I wondered if I too might find a poem on Twitter. Here it is, a conglomeration of mini-thoughts from me, Brian, Christine, and Marcus...

I'm Following You Now

Thanks, L.L., not
sure how I feel about
chaos and emptiness,
just signed on
to this and
playing with words
is fun. It is, and I wonder

about the Guatemalan gang
member poets, is it
simply for pleasure
they speak and not
for procreation
of chaos and emptiness
or maybe it's what

they do when they
forget to feed the birds—
thank God! or we'd have
to resort to the top song
at funerals (My Way),
and could we say it
had looked into our souls

anywhere near as
deep as the gang members
playing with words, spitting like
mist. God help me, there will
be evidence itchy as a new
tatoo that I know you'll
appreciate. Evidence that

gang members, playing
with words, say what we all feel
every day and don't say.

Bird Sign in Vienna photo, by J Barkat. Used with permission.

Just Twitter Poetry:
Pristine Poetry, on Twitter

Poetry Friday:
Cindy's Mysterious Gentleman
Monica's This Wrath He Bore
Ann's All Things New
Steve's This is Just to Say
Erica's Bend
nAncY's Therapeia
Laure's Not Yet Conceived But Gleaming
Sarah's Twitter poem
Jim's Twitter Poetry
Deb's When Quiet Needs Song