by the Read Write Poem Staff
Happy Get Your Poem On day! Did you enjoy Dorianne’s prompt? Was is hard? Did you learn something about your writing and maybe even yourself or your past in the process?
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OK, that’s all we’ve got. We are thrilled at the way people are gussying the place up and very excited about the breadth and depth of everyone’s engagement. This response is ample reward for our efforts to make Read Write Poem a place that provides poets with a deep, enriching and fun experience.
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I’m not leaving the first link. Heck no!
geez, Dana. I thought you said no hair-pulling…
I really had a good time with Dorianne’s prompt and I’m loving the new place. You guys are awesome! You’re gonna be in the history books–just wait and see.
oh, yeah. poem:
http://therer2doors.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/propagation/
Hmm. Where is everyone? You always rush to leave your links!
Fine. Here is my piece:
Obediance
Here’s mine. poem
I found the prompt too much direction for me personally, as I am a rather undisciplined writer, so it was hard – but valuable!
I tried to follow the prompt, 23 lines
anonymity
http://alotus-poetry.livejournal.com/77957.html
I think I’m very pleased with how this turned out. Enjoy!
I’m really glad I did this, I feel like I stretched myself.
http://saphiza.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/39/
http://poemsotherwise.blogspot.com/2009/08/here-it-began.html
Ramble, ramble
Here’s what I’ve got: http://disorder1313.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/behind-a-door-sweeping-shut/
[...] I’m fessing up: I’m off prompt this week, for Read Write Poem’s celebrity prompt. However, I have a really good [...]
I’m off prompt this week, but with good reason.
Favoring the Good Leg
Collage
She arrived unexpectedly
a shock surprise
not to be repeated
Fortunately
the sweet bright popette
learned to excel at conformity
and became the apple of the family eye
performing all the customary rituals successfully
as expected she married and divorced well
found freedom
ripped off her foot bindings
then tangoed recklessly for a while
over several continents
losing bits and pieces along the way
She searched in vain to find them
but they were scattered far too and wide
A troubador came idling by and together they set about restoring the missing pieces
gaps were filled with literary lace,poetic pearls and celebral colour
she became his masterpiece
a work in progress
Carolee replied:
August 6th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
i like “she arrived unexpectedly” as the first line of this. sets the tone/story right away!
Perfect
Phew, I got a lot of memories/emotions out in this one!
correction:too far and wide
I’ve been working on this prompt, and have looked at those already posted in your Blogs and find your poetry intense and your sites beautiful. You all are certainly inpiring – but I have a question I must ask.
If I post my poem in my blog, is it not then “published”? Calls for submission are almost always for unpublished poetry. So, by posting our poems, are they no longer eligible for publication elsewhere?
This has long troubled me, and it’s the reason why I post only my published poems on my website or Blog. Thanks,
Wanda
Wanda, good question, one I have many thoughts about and hope to address in a feature story here soon.
Short answer: It depends on the journal. Each one is different in terms of their submission requirements. Many do take pieces shared on personal blogs, or pieces shared on personal blogs that are removed from those blogs at the time of acceptance or before the work is sent out.
It troubles me deeply that journals, which are already taking our work for free, would limit our ability to share work in our online journals with our very limited audiences. (The average blog only gets about 50 hits a day and hardly poses a threat to a print or online journal if that journal is doing its job of creating audience.)
I for one have chosen to share my work on my site because working online is essential to my poetics. It is how I got started writing poetry again, and I cannot and will not change my poetics for journals that don’t understand what “publishing” is and that feel the need to lock down the drafts and sharing of work in teensy venues like personal blogs.
But that’s just me.
I don’t think journals are bad for having these rules, mind you. They just don’t know very much about traffic patterns online, and I think they aren’t thinking in a very complete or complex way about online communications, sharing of work or how technology has literally transformed the work style and work process of many poets. I think all journal editors should be required to get a master’s in digital communications in addition to, or instead of, an MFA.
I mean, would someone take a quill pen away from Shakespeare? That long, continuous roll of paper away from Ginsberg? OK, those comparisons might be over the top. I am just saying. As someone who doesn’t even keep a paper journal and who literally has no record of her poems other than as captured in blogs, microblogging platforms, social media networks and the like (and eventually in the publications that accept individual pieces or collections) — I would love to see more journals reconsider their stance about what publishing is and give individuals the right to the expression of their own poetics and the tools they need to share their work in the context of those poetics.
Note to self and others: We should compile a list here at Read Write Poem of journals that take work that has been shared on a personal blog. Does Duotrope parse journals in this way?
erindavis replied:
August 9th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Dana, Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts on journals and online writing. This has been on my mind lately, and it seems that traditional print journals do need to get a better grasp on the online writing community.
Whew! I’m going back to haiku
http://briarcat.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/passivity/
Here it is:
Footloose
stimulating and exhausting. just like good ______ should be.
(poetry-writing, silly. that’s what goes in the blank.)
here’s my response:
in the spirit of read write poem
(you’ll find process notes and a link to my poem there).
i’ll be back later to read your work. i have to feed my kids. isn’t it ridiculous how often children need to eat?
LOVED this prompt – it was just the challenge I needed at this point! Thank you!!!
Here she is:
BECOMING
http://intothewoode.blogspot.com/2009/07/readwritepoem-prompt-86.html
I am not satisfied with what I wrote but still posting it:
http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2009/08/chemical-analysis-of-poet.html
Flow
Here is my link for this prompt. It didn’t go as I wanted, but rather took off on its own. A psychiatrist would have a field day. I’ll have to revise later.
http://synecdochicstuff.blogspot.com/
Here is mine….could be just a draft…..as there is soooooooo much to say…..sooooooomuch left out…so this is a start anyways
http://www.waynepitchko.blogspot.com
Here is mine…seems like I left out soooooooo much so maybe this is a draft…..PSYCHIATIRST???????? you mean painters and poets need therapy?….hmmm thought we were all each others therapists. this was fun…I think
OK – I’ll get the hang of this. Revise before giving the link.
Please take a look at my revision- less therapy needed!
http://synecdochicstuff.blogspot.com/
Wanda
Here is my effort. It tells a story but my attachment to rhyme means that I’m not really happy with it!
http://melrosemusings.blogspot.com/2009/08/exploration.html
Dancing and chasing dust devils
Okay, one more time……….
Dancing and chasing dust devils
Once again another week where I didn’t manage to write to the prompt, but I did write my weekly Torah poem, and here it is:
Not by bread (Ekev)
http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2009/08/this-weeks-portion-not-by-bread.html
Nostalgia
My best friend Dorothy stands on the curb lawn on her side of
Our street. I stand on my side and we holler back and forth.
We are too young to cross the street by ourselves. In the early
Summer evening, neighbors are sitting on their front porches.
They are listening to their radios which tell them about the war.
Each curb lawn has a giant sycamore tree growing on it. Their
Branches meet and form a leafy green arch across the middle
of the street. To Dorothy and me, the street is wider than the Red
Sea before God parted it. We can’t wait to grow up.
When we grow up, we marry, have children and move far away
From the streets with green arches, I live in the country, by the
Lake on a road which is bordered by rows of ancient willow trees.
When it storms, big branches are cracked, broken and blown down.
The men get their chain saws and the air is filled with the roar of
Advancing engines as the men cut up the wood for winter fires.
This evening no storms threaten and the children ride their bicycles
Beneath the long, leafy branches which dangle just above the road..
I want to spend the rest of my life in the shade of
Green, leafy branches. Perhaps I will be able to watch
Through my windows as the seasons pass. The children
Of my grandchildren will learn to walk, ride bicycles and
Plant more trees along the roads of the future. Then
My spirit will soar to the top of the leafy green branches
And the wind and I will whisper stories to each other.
What does that mean, “Your comment is awaiting moderation?” I am not very skilled at computer stuff.
velveteenrabbi replied:
August 7th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
marianv, this is a moderated forum, which means that when any one of us posts a comment, it has to be “approved” by a moderator before it will appear on the site and be visible to others. When you make a comment and receive that response, just be patient; a moderator will approve your comment as soon as possible, I’m sure!
Many blogs have this same policy (I do this on my own blog) because it helps prevent spam comments.
Feldman the Robot replied:
August 8th, 2009 at 1:28 am
Actually, once you’re approved, subsequent comments should also be approved, unless too many links appear in the comment and make it look like spam. We are getting lots of people in moderation because it’s their first time commenting on the site.
This took me so much longer than normal! I loved the prompt… and yet, I found myself in avoidance.
I am reasonably pleased with the final outcome.
Where the Exchange Happens….
http://juliejordanscott.typepad.com/jjspoetry/2009/08/where-the-exchange-occurs.html#more
This is very late, and it has evolved from what began as a focused response to this RWP prompt #86, to become something a bit different. Be warned… it’s edgy and blunt, but it is honest — so I share it here. It is entitled Perry Street.
Rob, I *loved* party lines when I was a kid!
We had them at our lake house, which was actually a trailer. But my mother insisted we call it a mobile home, because we were classy.
Then eventually it was a house, because — long story long — my father sold the trailer and went into a terrible depressive funk, so my rich great aunt Gladys — who had raised my father when his parents gave him away to her during the Great Depression (but kept their other son, the effeminate one they dressed like a girl) — bought the house for him to cheer him up.
He’s the reason she was rich, after all, having used his business acumen to help her invest her oil money wisely. So the house seemed like a reasonable enough gift, and it made my father happy.
It made all of us happy until, while he was docking his boat on a trip he’d taken alone, he cut a deep gash in his hand that spanned his palm from index finger to wrist. It was his last trip to the lake before his heart attack killed him later that year.
He made it back up to the house to call out on the party line, blood spilled like blackstrap molasses all over the side table where the phone sat and even on the nicotine-stained off-white chair next to the table. My mother and I didn’t come across the blood until years later, when we worked up the courage to go back to that house. Neither of us could bear the thought of being there without him.
Or the lake without him on it, pissing in the water and listening to eight tracks of Barbara Mandrell. He always loved the female country singers, and sometimes I wondered about his motives. He couldn’t resist the looks of a beautiful woman. I wondered what he wanted to do with Crystal Gayle’s miles of dark hair.
To his credit, he was offended by that one talentless Mandrell sister, Irlene, the attractive one who couldn’t sing. He grumbled about her every time “Barbara Mandrell and The Mandrell Sisters” was on TV. Irlene didn’t have the talent of Barbara and Louise, he would say. She didn’t deserve to be on the show. Though he loved attractive women, he hated to see women getting something based solely on their looks or building their lives around their looks at the exclusion of creative and intellectual attributes.
He also once stormed out of a room, as angry as I’d ever seen him, when the main character in the movie Silkwood was portrayed as flashing her male co-workers. That wasn’t her, he said. That isn’t the way she would have behaved. He refused to watch the rest of the movie. He was especially protective of Karen Silkwood because she was from Oklahoma, just like him. Like us. You could measure his level of anger by how hard he slung ice into his glass when pouring an anger-management cocktail. Nearly broke the glass that day.
I loved that scene in Silkwood. That was the difference between me and my father. I wanted to be Karen Silkwood because of that scene, without the death: brave enough to lift my shirt and expose my soft, bodily armor to shut unkind men, or even women, up when warranted.
My father had this same ferocity when it came to my mother’s character. He would have laid down his life for it. He saved her from her demented family, from the brother-in-law who molested her when he was in his 30s and she was just 14 and from a mother who chased her with an axe. He refused to have her be part of that life, a refusal she welcomed.
But he also imposed on her his idea of what a woman of character should be and do. That imposition limited and shaped her — too many voices on her party line, their lines crossing in her head, nothing decipherable in the end.
My father loved Willy Nelson, too, though I don’t remember him listening to Willy on the lake. He did listen to Woody Guthrie. I liked to run my fingers along the eight track’s label, which showed Woody holding a guitar. I would pretend I was related to someone like him, someone talented and famous. Someone with better things to do than play Yahtzee later with parents who were listing into evening, drunker and drunker as twilight strummed its diminished chords until the refrain of darkness.
When my mother and I finally did go back to the lake after my father’s death, there was his blood, not unlike a crime scene. Evidence he’d lived, once. That he was alive and fragile and capable of being damaged as well as healed. I imagined how a lesser man, once he wasn’t able to get anyone on the party line, might not have made it out the door and to the car.
Might not have managed to drive himself one-handed down the gravel roads all the way to The Corner Store, which was, appropriately, located on a corner. (They don’t pull punches in the country: They tell it like it is.)
Another man, another husband and father, might not have convinced the store’s owner to take him the rest of the way to the hospital where he would be stitched up and returned to us, as crisp and precious as a $2 bill.
Sorry, Rob. That reply got a little long. Look what your poem made me do! It made me write. That’s the highest praise of all, when you open up worlds for people that they want to explore and write about.
rallentanda replied:
August 8th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
God!Dana if you keep this up I’ll be developing a drinking problem myself.Phew!Some people have the most incredible lives.Mine seems so uneventful in comparison.Powerful and unexpected response.Wanda should give her word to you as a present.Or perhaps you could share it.Its 3.30am Sunday morning here I’m off to
bed.
Here’s a threepenny bit,
Mind the fog
Good night.
What an interesting, well-written memory Rob’s poem elicited in you, Dana. That’s one of the best acts of a poem, isn’t it?
I’m pleased this piece was a catalyst for you Dana. That is likely the most engaging reply I’ve ever received. I was fascinated and moved…
Perry Street was not what I set out to write in response to the prompt. The first 4 stanzas were focused at the prompt, but I got stuck. In breaking through the block, the door opened onto the darkness that is always nearby – and mostly kept at bay. But this night I stepped through and there was no going back… demon-driven free verse.
And yes, I loved party lines — frustrating at times, but fun. Our first phone number was JAckson 2738. My very earliest childhood on tree-lined small-town Perry Street remains a sweet oasis.
Aaaaargh! I’ve broken my streak! I had no time this week to write a poem. I am still going to try to get it done this weekend. I will be back soon to read everyone else’s, though. By the way, I am loving the new RWP!
To Velveteen Rabbi
Thanks for explaining about the comments. I read your Torah poem, Interesting.
Marianv
This is my first attempt – http://damianinreallife.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/read-write-prompt-1-fear-and-love/- I feel it’s a little derivative, but I think that’s ok to begin with.
Dana: that was astonishing in so many ways, thank you for sharing.
Apologies for the late commenting, but I was in Missouri/Illinois/Indiana on Thursday without Internet. Hurrah!
http://namingconstellations.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/indecisions/
Sorry, everyone, for being all hoggy with my piece of flash memoir. I really didn’t see it coming and only meant to write a pithy comment to Rob. I almost didn’t post it, but then I thought, “This is where it was born. This comment thread is its home. I can’t not post it in its home.” I hope that makes some sort of sense.
Oh, dear. This is so, so late! I didn’t follow the directions esactly–couldn’t fit my future into this poem…
http://freckledwriter.blogspot.com/2009/08/liturgy.html
Dana – I really enjoyed what you shared, it sparked in me a recollection of my adoptive father, Bob — my rock and safe haven in what became for me a bitter childhood.
Bob shared a small island in Canada, just outside of Espanola Ontario, with the Desanti’s — an Italian-Canadian family. On it was a small log cabin, a dock, an ice house, and an outhouse — all built by my father and Aldo, the patriarch of the Desanti family.
Amelia Desanti made spaghetti by hand, and would hang it to dry next to the cabin’s wood-burning iron stove, on wooden towel racks. Her homemade spaghetti was always the departing meal when we returned to the states. I was always so sad to leave.
We went to that Island twice yearly in our wooden fishing boat, the beginning and end of summer, carefully navigating the rocky narrows through a ten-mile chain of beautiful lakes. We embarked from a small wilderness outpost called Leyman’s Landing — 15 miles of rocky dirt road from Esponola.
I loved that island, and I loved my adoptive father. He taught me well how to fish. I cried when he died.
Rob, I am just hopping into bed, but I saw this last post from you and wanted to say how lovely it is. Thank you for sharing. I love all the conversations that are cropping up around this prompt. Just look how it’s got us all going about our childhoods! I think Dorianne Laux would be tickled to see our collective, and individual, enthusiasm.
…
hey guys–
I don’t think Jenny’s link up there is working, for her poem “Crooked Teeth”
here it is:
http://saphiza.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/39/
Trying this again!!
saphiza.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/39/
this was a wonder in disguise… shift