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by Deb ScottI was discussing food associations with a writer not long ago, about how she will always pair a certain food tasted for the very first time (she was very young) with her father’s funeral. This week, let’s not just explore the taste and texture of food, but the associations we have about a particular food or dish. Any family gathering is ripe with opportunity: funerals, birthday parties, weddings, anniversaries. Any meeting where people you intimately know are munching, nibbling or feasting will do. Perhaps it’s the yearly occasion with a prescribed menu, and the sour-cream Jello mold, frightening in its vivid greenness that a grandmother insists you love. Perhaps it’s the first time you went to a ball game or the circus and tasted cotton candy, along with an odd smell (identified much later in life as alcohol) on your uncle’s breath. Jot down five or six old or childhood memories, ones where you might have been confused or awed by the people or the circumstances. Recover or rediscover what was served as refreshment, nourishment. Let the people, place and food stuffs speak. Give voice to those particulars and let them take the point of view of the poem. Still stuck? You might try a list poem or write a recipe and include the physical surroundings and any people required to support the scene, but make food the focus. Let it paint or point to the discoveries you made as you explored. If you would like to take a different approach, one not so keenly tied to the experience of food but to food as an object in and of itself, check out the prompt Jill wrote in March about food. Last but not least, here are a few poems for your reading pleasure:
Come back next week and share your experiences with this week’s poetry prompt in Thursday’s Get Your Poem On post, whether they involve food or not.
by Jessica Fox-WilsonHow did your poems progress? Did they pop with power and persuasion? Did they perk up with all the peppy P-words? Well, pony up and participate! Pull out the links to your p-p-p-poems and post them in the comments below. Personally, I am pleased as punch to see your pretty verses. Please read this page to find out how the Get Your Poem On and Read Write Prompt posts work. Remember that work linked from this post is shared in precisely that spirit: sharing, as opposed to critiquing. To learn more about how to respond to work that is being shared versus critiqued, read this page. If you haven’t done so already, please read all the pages under About in the navigation bar. If you participate in a Read Write Prompt, we ask that you link back here in your posts, either with a link to Read Write Poem or by using the Read Write Poem badge in your post. Sidebar links are great but it helps others find the site when you link in every post you contribute to the project. It’s not a lot to ask in acknowledgment of the work everyone is doing in providing prompts for members to use.
by Ren PowellOne of the awkward quirks of social media is the occasional crossover of cliques. A few weeks ago, I stumbled on the blog profile of one of my theater students. He wrote that he considers himself an actor,“although” he knows he “really isn’t one yet.” The fact is I saw very little of the student the first months of school this year because he was acting in a supporting role in a television mini-series. He has been acting in professional children’s theater productions for a large fraction of the modest number of years he has spent on this earth. He has performed for audiences and for cameras, and I am assuming that, for the latter at least, he was paid real money for doing so. So when is he a “real” actor? When he has a degree from a particular school? When an actor’s guild gives him a card? When he is smugly satisfied with his skills and doesn’t give a prop what anyone thinks of his craftsmanship or talent? Or will he be disingenuous and, accepting the academy award for best actor, say that he hopes he will one day be able to consider himself a “real” actor, thus ridiculing anyone without an award on the mantel who calls him- or herself an actor? I have to admit to having a preoccupation with this question. The past decade, I have traveled quite a bit. Every time the airplane approaches the runway and they hand out the landing cards, I get a rush of panic. I stop at the blank that follows the word occupation. Poet, like actor, seems to be one of those titles some of us feel ridiculously self-conscious taking upon ourselves. I am occupied by poetry. I am trained to write poetry. I do not make a living writing poetry. Two out of three dictionary definitions isn’t bad? The years that my tax form read self-employed, and published a book, and earned enough royalties to buy new shoe strings, or received a grant, I proudly wrote: Writer. Why not poet? To be painfully honest, because I worry about what people think: Poet = A person who writes poetry? Poet = A person who publishes poetry for other people to read? Poet = A person whose poetry is published by people who have authority within academia? Poet = A sensitive soul? Poet = An inspired spirit? Poet = A rebel with a cause? Poet = A total flake, a suffering romantic, a person who can’t be trusted with small children or sharp objects? And just when I think I am in a place where I know the other to whom I am presenting myself and think I can comfortably claim the title as my own, I get sideswiped: This summer one of my doctorate advisers said, “I know you want to have a career as a poet someday.” My defenses jumped to attention: I almost choked on my indignation, my CV … and my own hypocrisy — I thought I was having one. (Glad I’d written “student” on my landing card that morning.) I have heard people I respect say the oddest things when it comes to the question of who is a poet. One woman I know calls herself a “poetry practitioner” because she thinks “poet” sounds too fancy. But “nurse practitioner” comes to my mind, which makes me think of poetry as ministering to the soul, something I would be very uncomfortable claiming to do. Many people have told me they feel that the title of poet is something they should not take upon themselves, but rather something that should be conferred by others. OK then: By whom? Is it appropriate to ask them to consider you for the rubber stamp? Or do they tattoo it on your hairline? Is there a pageant to enter? (Is there a swimsuit competition?!) Can one be stripped of the title when a residency term is finished? When the journal, zine, blog has dissipated in the ether of cyberspace? When you no longer think the world sucks and have no need to refill your prescriptions? I am going to make this simple. I hereby confer upon us all the title of “poet” and will schedule appointments to tattoo everyone — base of the skull only, please. I can begin this weekend. Right now I need to get to class. My student may have earned more money as an actor than I did this year, but he still has some things to learn. And so do I. Sign up below for the tattoo.
For this installment of O Video!, we are sharing a piece by Read Write Poem member David Moolten titled “Astronaut Goes from Migrant Fields to Outer Space.” Moolten wrote the piece for José Hernández, who recently traveled into space as an astronaut on the Discovery space shuttle. Moolten feels the story of Hernández — once a child laborer who walked from Mexico to California to pick strawberries — “honors both the desperate struggle of immigrants and the greatness of which they are capable.”
by the Read Write Poem StaffFor this installment of Off the Shelf — the column in which we share the latest five books Read Write Poem members have read or are currently reading — Mark Stratton shares his latest reads, along with a brief comment on each collection.
Recovered Body, by Scott CairnsI read a poem or two every few days, then think on them.
Poetry MagazineIt’s pretty cheap, and of good quality.
Creating Poetry, by John DruryI believe myself to be a neophyte in the truest sense of the word. This book gives me the feel, without the drudgery, of a textbook. I learn from it.
The Haiku Handbook, by William J. HigginsonAgain, I have much to learn. This has been a wonderful book for this purpose. Plus it has wonderful haiku to read and enjoy.
Japanese Haiku, by Kenneth YasudaAs much of a collection as guide and instruction.
Mark also adds, “I read Dickens for words and stories. But words … words he used to wonderful effect. I also have a few of the Everyman Pocket Library poetry books; Poems of New York, the Brownings, and the Beat Poets. All have been fun. Finally, the various poets and contributors to Read Write Poem show me much in the weekly sharing of work based on prompts. If you want to share your latest five reads, send an email with your titles and comments for each book to info (at) readwritepoem (dot) org. by Jessica Fox-WilsonBefore we dive into the prompt, I should note that I am stepping away from my writing responsibilities here at Read Write Poem due to increased responsibilities in my day job. I am deeply thankful to the Read Write Poem community for their support of my writing. And now for the prompt: While pondering the plenitude of pretty words that the people of the Wordle Word Bank proffered, it appeared that many of the words began with “P.” Pleased with this pleasant development, I picked through the piles, just to produce a perfectly P-themed prompt. Whew! Do you want to play along? All you need to do is pick up your pens (or pencils) and craft a poem, including as many of these P-words as you can. If you’re really psyched, you can add a few alliterative P-words of your own. Then, next Thursday, pass by here to share your p-p-p-poem. As a reminder, please reserve the comments of this post for discussion of this prompt and preserve your poem for Thursday’s Get Your Poem On post. Poets Mark, Katie, Rallentada, Neil, James and Kathy helped to prepare our list of P-words, so you should peruse their blogs and praise their philanthropy. If you’d like to participate in providing words, join us at the Wordle Word Bank. We can always use more words, P-related or not. Good luck!
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