read write prompt #19: go green!
As Juliet mentioned on Monday, this Friday — March 21 — is World Poetry Day.
So I thought we could all take some time to go green this week. Laud the beauty of nature, decry the ruin of the earth, or simply ponder all the things we throw away and ask yourself this fundamental question: what is trash? There are many directions you could take this prompt: Get inspired by a news story on the environment, spend time in nature trying to make new observations or imagine the state of our environment at some point in the future.
Ideas for collaboration:
- Keep a list of everything you throw away for a day. Exchange lists with a partner, and write a poem based on each other’s lists. (You can also try a variance of this on your own, but people may think it odd if you ask about what they have thrown away or find you poking around in their wastebasket.)
- Reduce, reuse, and recycle! Choose a poem you have written that you would be happy for a partner to deconstruct and reassemble. Exchange and reassemble each other’s poems -– bonus points if you choose poems with an environmental theme as fodder.
- Partner up and give each other assignments in contradiction. Choose something environmentally themed (like recycling or landfills) and a disparate subject (like relationships or dance), and combine the two in a poem.
Whatever you do this week, try mixing in a little poem and a little green this week. The earth will thank you.
~Blythe.
Come back Monday after midnight and find the Get Your Poem On post to leave a comment for us, with a link to your poem the week, whether it is green or any other color.
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News : Don’t miss Dana’s interview with Dorianne Laux. There’s great information and inspiration in this piece, written especially for Read Write Poem.
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Update: We’ve dropped the link to the blog posting environmental poetry for World Poetry Day, not because we don’t support that cause, but because the blogger hadn’t given satisfactory credit to one of our participants. Giving credit for work shouldn’t be such a tricky thing; it would be very simple to add the writer’s name at the end of the poem and not rely only on the writer’s name being in the title post with a “link back.” It’s always smart to refresh your knowledge about copyrights — we have a quick look, with some links, on our “on copyrights” tab.
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This is great, Blythe. I might be ashamed to admit what I throw away, even though I recycle as much as I can! This is a great way to raise consciousness, and is also a wonderful avenue for metaphorical thinking, an aspect of poetry I’m always eager to improve.
Christine: I know what you mean. I think it’s also really interesting to discover the odd objects in someone else’s trash: medical bills, concert tickets for a show that has not yet taken place, recently cut and discarded dreadlocks. Ever since I read about cops going through people’s trash as a kid, I’ve wondered what my trash says about me.
Kind of strange, I know.
If anyone wants to collaborate, let me know!
April is National Poetry Month. In the past, blogging poets have done NaPoWriMo — a poem a month for 30 days. Last year I stuttered to a start and a stop, and since lost track of who is inciting and managing this effort.
Anyone know?
Anyone up for it?
Blythe, I’m interested in collaborating, but really am clueless about how to go about it. (I love the stuff you noted! Wow. Today, mine would have been pretty boring, but too much even at that. Too boring. Yuck.
)
SB, funny you should mention that. January will post up something next Tuesday (a week before 4/1) about NaPoWriMo and we’ll do a few things around here for encouragement! Jan will also write something about National Poetry Month for her 2nd Thursday of the month column.
I’ll (Deb) also ask the team - or ANY of our participants - to send word prompt ideas and we can refresh the randomizer and help those who participate in NaPoWriMo with ideas (I know I used the Poetry Thursday prompt randomizer a lot last April).
Send those ideas to:
tips (at) readwritepoem (dot) org
And get yourself in gear!
Oh, excellent! I’m always so pleased when other people take this on.
I hope to post a poem a day, but not necessarily write a new one every day, as I will be working on another project as well. But I’ve always enjoyed seeing what folks do with this.
I left a link of one of my poems on that link here for celebrating World Poetry Day in anticipation of Earth Day.
Milou did not even bother to show my link in the comments section and posted my whole poem on her blog without giving me credits. I do see a link back but that is not enough for me. I even told jeques to leave a link on that blog and his poem is to published without credits.
Then she went and posted the link on her blog for MY poem on Witers Island! Rob did remove it after I brought into his notice.
Repeated reminders and emails to her has not helped. I am kind of shocked.
I thought I would let you know of this.
Thanks for letting us know, Gautami.
It’s critical that our work stay ours, unless we have given our specific written permission otherwise. Milou’s apparently not playing by the rules; I can’t speak to her motives or intent (the blog says Milou’s only nine), but the result is the same: not good. Writers must have the credit of their name clearly linked to their work. (For more about published work copyright, go to our on copyrights tab.)
I’ll amend Juliet’s post with a note of caution (and on my own personal blog, too.)
…deb
Gautami, I’m sorry about that. My poem was credited with my name at the bottom when I had sent it in. If at that stage there had been an issue with Milou crediting the author, I wouldn’t have recommended her site.
Thanks deb, for taking this seriously.
Juliet, It is not your fault. In fact, it is no ones fault. As a concept, that is good one. As long as we follow the copyright rules.
I mentioned this here because, I thought I should let you know about this.
I felt bad as I had told Jeques too, about it. Now she has put our names on the title field. However, for two days that was not so. I had sent her an email and left numerous comments on her posts. None of mine are showing as she moderates it. Needless to say, she did not reply to any..not even to my email.
As Jeques says, lessons learnt!
BTW, I loved doing this exercise. I like to recycle, reuse and reduce!
Thanks for this!
i have lots of “green” poems–now to figure out which to post! or maybe i’ll get a new one written–just spent a week in yosemite valley–how’s that for inspiring??
how funny–there’s that picture of my son again…
i’m at http://artpredator.wordpress.com
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