Found Poems

I made these for a postcard exchange….it’s interesting how differently I approach words when cutting them out of a magazine or newspaper….

What’s really interesting about doing poetry like this is way that you make meaning based on the size of the words/whether they are in caps or not etc. How much do these things matter? As I was transcribing the poems I wondered if I should keep the line breaks, caps and size of the words as they are on the cards….also, how much do the images contribute to the meaning or richness of the poems? Not that I am saying these are masterpieces or even terribly meaningful but it certainly sparks the imagination, no?

Contact doesn’t
make
these dark times. We are finding ourselves
a little bit of us
hungry
for those running.

 

Free! When they flew they always kept within a few feet
walking inside the story
lost breaking blood
the stars shimmer

Low-lifes
light up
dark. Honoured
war
move.
( I especially had a lot of fun with this one, not sure why..is there an “s” at the end of “move”? Perhaps…)

 

My body….

Advice from a magazine writing course that I wished I followed more closely:

–Strip sentences to their simplest components

–clear thinking becomes clear writing (no hope for muddle-headed me, then;)

–Constantly ask, “What am I trying to say?” and continue to ask this as you write

–thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force on themselves

I believe those are all excerpts from On Writing Well, by William Zinsser.

It was pissing rain this morning but now only the thick gray clouds. Light on the top, dark on the bottom as though the colour had settled at the bottom like a glass of juice. I’m not going to lie to you, I am not pleased. Please come back sun! Bad weather makes me grumpy, but not anguished, the least conducive mood to writing.

Exercises:

1. Write about nature. Include the following words: hard drive, stapler, phone, car, billboard. (Ooooh, you could use them as metaphors for things in nature!)

2. The most beautiful smile I ever saw…

3. My body (not my body!)…

Ok, feeling a little more creative now. I’m going to sink my teeth into my body…er…

Number Four–Chips are Dope!

Written Yesterday:

It’s sunny outside, though the sun no longer reaches into the living room. A robin’s two-note song plays over and over sometimes in quick succession and sometimes with pauses in between causing the intensity of the song to wax and wan. There is also the raucaus, gravely song of the crow and blue jay that is exuberant despite it’s lack of musical talent. It seems everyone is happy today….

 

Writing Exercises:

Free Writing Prompt – Write for twenty minutes using “white noise” as your title.

Free Writing Prompt – Flip through a magazine and select a page for your inspiration. You can use the subject matter, or the illustration.

Happy Writing

 

Alais on the Hill (no dirty puns needed:D)

Here is post #3 which I put together in the pain and agony of the aftermath of falling clumsily down the mountain skiing on Blackcomb Mountain yesterday. I don’t know what happened, I just kept falling! My sweet husband didn’t laugh once, though my daughter and I were breathless with laughter as I lay there with snow up my back and down my pants. But how could I have been anything less than cheerful with the sun (mostly) out, a view that left me speechless, and Grandpa watching Henry the whole day ( oh, he made me pay for that last night. “What’s that Mommy? You want a day off? I’ll give you a day off…by crying for an hour before falling asleep! How d’you like them apples?”). So, not only am I one human-sized bruise, I’m also exhausted. But still smiling because it was SO worth it! And we’re going to do it all again today:D

This is not a photo blog but I promised pictures:

“What’s this?” you might be asking yourself right now. Unless I happen to be a fat baby an d the ski hill looks strangely like a subdued cat, I’ve put up the wrong picture. Well, for some reason I can’t put up those pictures so I decided to put a picture of my son harassing the cat instead….because I can.

Writing exercises:

• Take a piece of your writing that you have written in first person and rewrite it in third person, or vice-versa. You can also try this exercise changing tense, narrators, or other stylistic elements. Don’t do this with an entire book. Stick to shorter works. Once you commit to a style for a book, never look back or you will spend all of your time rewriting instead of writing.
• Try to identify your earliest childhood memory. Write down everything you can remember about it. Rewrite it as a scene. You may choose to do this from your current perspective or from the perspective you had at that age.
• Remember an old argument you had with another person. Write about the argument from the point of view of the other person. Remember that the idea is to see the argument from their perspective, no your own. This is an exercise in voice, not in proving yourself right or wrong.

Something new and post #2:)

I am writing you from Whistler (a two hour drive from where we live in North Vancouver). While it isn’t exactly cold any more there is supposed to be new snow on the hill and the skiing is going to be great. I’ll try to take some pictures while I’m up here. Keep an eye on my photoblog as I will be posting a series of photos taken a couple weeks ago of the cabin we stay in when we come up here. It is your stereotypical, 1960’s/70’s cabin full of all the essential trinkets: a wall of creepy wooden masks, some First Nations carvings, a shrine of dried flowers, small embroidered birds in little gold frames, a couple of stained-glass skiers, a fireplace, and the orange shag carpet without which no cabin would be complete. I wouldn’t change a thing!

A picture of the drive up yesterday.

I was thinking of starting something new….tell me what you think. I want to do themed weeks. So, each week I’ll pick a topic/form/genre and do three posts on that. I’ll take suggestions that will have to be in by Saturday for the following week or just choose my own. What do you think?

 

Exercises:

I got these exercises from http://languageisavirus.com/writing_prompts.html

Write what is secret. Then write what is shared. Experiment with writing each in two different ways: veiled language, direct language.

Write a perfect poem. (I think this is interesting, funny and thought-provoking. What is “perfect”, does perfection exist? And if it does what does it look like in a poem? And we all know it’s impossible to write a “perfect poem”, right? Inquiring minds….)

Something on your mind? Write about it.

 

 

 

Post #1 for this week: Discovering the mirror in contact with threes

Written last night but I was too tired to finish it…..

Here are a couple of writing prompts for prose writing.

Prose Prompt – Write about someone discovering a key.

Prose Prompt – Write about a reflection in the mirror.

Prose Prompt – Write two pages (500 words) with the scenario of a character urgently needing to get in contact with a family member.

Prose Prompt – Write using the adage, “these things happen in threes.”

I am currently watching a movie called The Divide about a group of people in an apartment building who take shelter in the basement as they see their city get blown to bits by unknown invaders. Very suspenseful……

Here is the second of my three weekly posts in keeping with my new resolution. The previous exercises and these were taken from here  http://ofkells.blogspot.ca/2008/04/30-writing-prompts-for-national-poetry.html

 

 

 

Write from the number six.

Write to your pain: “Dear Pad of My Thumb, Will you kindly stop hurting? It is very hard for me to stir a pot or write a poem when you hurt like this…”

Let your pain write back to you: “Dear Liesl, if you would lay off the text messaging and playing minesweeper it would help me a lot, then you can write your poem or stir pot…”.

 

The pain one is kinda silly but you never know what’ll work for you. The “Six” one caught my interest. I’m not even sure what it means. I like that:D

Happy Writing!

Chuck It

Okay, here is my “ugly poem“. Feel free to read into the title:D

When I thought of an ugly poem I guess what I fixated on was sounds that were ugly to me, and some imagery that was kinda gross or unpleasant. There isn’t much to this poem in the way of depth or content. Nice low standards here people. See, you can put any old crap up here! 🙂 And I’ll probably take the advice of the title with this poem:D lol

Chuck It

The word “chuck” cuts

hard as nails

leaves a metallic

taste on the tongue

I hate it

the way the “k”  sound crashes and stomps

on the fluidity

of words

and the “ch” is static

turned up loud

an ocean roaring

a song that clangs dissonance

dark

hard

dropping the poetic ball

stomping on toes

a child throwing a fit

fucking with the rhythm

stupid

sticking to the tongue

the way licorice sticks in your teeth

and you dig

distending your mouth as you try to gouge out the black

gunk

and the strong flavor of the offending words is thick as grease on the roof of your mouth

and there is nothing you can do but wait for it to break down

fade like an echo

Ugly Poem

First of all, I know I’ve been neglecting this blog and have decided to commit to posting three times a week on here otherwise I’ll procrastinate.

Here are some exercises for you!

 

1. Write a really ugly poem.

2. Quickly pick out 12 words from the titles of books on a nearby bookshelf. Use them in a poem.

3. Write a poem with an invented biography for yourself.

4. Take a 1-2 page poem from a book and re-type it backwards—from the very last word in the poem all the way to the very first, keeping the lines the same lengths as they are in the book. Use this as the starting point of a poem, picking out the word formations that are particularly interesting to you.

 

I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with! I promise to post at least one of the exercises that I do. By way of apology for my neglect here is a tomato poem for you. Belated (I actually wrote it the same day I posted the tomato exercise but didn’t think it was any good. Still not sure it’s any good but I’ll put it up anyway.), but better late than…well, you know.:D What I did with this poem is look up synonyms for the colour red and use them in the poem…

Oh tomato

garnet globes

rosy skin smooth to the touch

like a cheek

blushing beautifully

ruddy

round

vermilion sweet in sauces

florid fruit

heavy in the green hands of the vine.

 

Obituary

First of all, here is a link to a great site about writing. They have writing tips, prompts, grammar etc. I have found all of what I’ve read useful so far.

10 Experiential Writing Prompts

Thank you, again, Graphite Bunny, for participating in the “your mother” exercise! If anyone is interested in reading more of his stuff visit him at: graphitebunny.wordpress.com

Here is another exercise for you all to sink your teeth into. There were a number of exercises to pick from but this one caught my eye. It may seem dark or depressing at first but, as with anything in writing, you can make it what you want it to be. Who ever said death can’t be funny?

(Okay, probably a lot of people, but sometimes the things that scare us the most or that we take the most seriously are exactly the things that we need to laugh at, if for no other reason than to give that thing the metaphorical finger.

When you think about it the only thing scarier than death is the prospect of our own eventual demise…;). So lets show death that we have cojones

(or ovaries, as the case may be:D

Exercise:

Taken from here:http://www.poewar.com/fifteen-craft-exercises-for-writers/

Write your obituary. List all of your life’s accomplishments. You can write it as if you died today or fifty or more years in the future.