by the Read Write Poem Staff
Did Zachary Schomburg’s amazing prompt help you create something completely new this week? Was it inspiring, frightening, freeing or complicating? All of the above? None of the above?
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‘The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring Fa La’
http://rallentanda.blogspot.com
stuck fast
I’ve surrealed m’self
to the volta
My poem – a draft prose-poem this week – is titled: “DEATH BY DROWNING“
I found the prompt stimulating. Here is my poem in response http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2010/03/11/come-let-us-die/
You can call it “photographic memory”
http://wp.me/pdTja-y2
My poem this week is ‘Mothers. Let me know what you think!
I’m not sure what happened there – It’s Mothers.
You’ll find mine here:
http://beyondtheblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/history
One of the more difficult prompts to write, just for the sheer emotions it calls up. Kudos and thanks to Zachary Schomburg for providing it!
Kommos for G_____
last things first
I wrote a short prose poem:
http://www.slowreads.com/postHollow.html
- Peter
Ah yes, life’s issues, mental baggage: For it too will end.
Oops: For it too will end.
I’m not sure how well I accomplished the prompt idea, but I did spend DAYS attempting it!
You can find my selection here:
http://cynthiashort.blogspot.com
I wrote mine in memory of my mom and something I did that I am sure she wouldn’t have been proud of. It is called “platinum arpege”. Thanks for the prompt.
http://flaubert-poetrywithme.blogspot.com/2010/03/platinum-arpege-rwp-117-creating-hinge_10.html
I moved this week and was eaten up with the loss of the old place and the wonder of the new place, in the middle of an organic farm on a river in northern Washington state. I’m saying I didn’t really follow the prompt this time. I’m leaving 10 acres in the midst of forest with 3 acres of it on a mountain; I will always love that place. So I wrote something touching on that.
http://jimmcneely.blogspot.com/
My poem “Stealing Away” is here –
http://theresebroderick.wordpress.com/
“The Need For Bread”
Your skin was like rice paper
Thin, sticky and pale
My fingertips traced the inked numbers on your wrist
Soft like the brush of a butterfly
Whose wings never spread towards freedom
You whispered my name with your Yiddish accent
Dropping an “h” as if it was irrelevant
In a world where ovens baked people
Not loaves of challah
And we all need bread…
The tray of muffins sat unsupervised
Smelling as fresh and sweet as a summer’s day
My belly was as empty as a promise
And poverty was all I owned
Fingertips as hard as the steel bars
That stand sentry against escape
Snatched dozens of heavenly dough balls
The laws of man had no meaning
As I ran toward gratification
jmcneely replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 7:37 am
Beth, nice one! I liked the connection between your hinge items. Chilling reference to the holocaust as well.
Beth replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Thank you so much, Jim!
Cynthia Short replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 8:42 am
“In a world where ovens baked people, not loaves of challah, and we all need bread”. Wow, that was about as powerful memory of the holocaust as anything I’ve ever read.
Beth replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Wow…thank you, Cynthia! I appreciate it.
juliejordanscott replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
such rich storytelling here… thank you.
Beth replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Thank you!:)
Nicole Nicholson replied:
March 15th, 2010 at 8:45 am
Wow….such a connection between your two hinge items…how you juxtaposed your guilty secret against the knowing and revealing of the world that your addressee cane from (In a world where ovens baked people/Not loaves of challah. Thank you for sharing.
I may have taken the prompt too literally (I say that because I ended up using memories very similar to the prompt examples — a grandparent and something I stole).
Dear Grandma Katie
Did anyone else find that the transition in their poem came more naturally than expected?
*inhale* *exhale* Here goes:
Confession
Well, mine came out a little different than I expected, but here it is:
http://thegoodtypist.blogspot.com/2010/03/failure-6and-hinge-experiment.html
Joyce Ellen Davis replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Kristen! I LOVE your poem, (altho’ it may not be exactly a “hinge” poem). You are terrific with words and images!
Here is mine: http://deowriter.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/double-dare/
Fun prompt!
I didn’t manage to write to the prompt this week, but I did write a poem, and here ’tis:
Anticipatory psalm 2
http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2010/03/another-mother-poem-anticipatory-psalm-two.html
Beth replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 10:48 am
As always, your poem sparks vivid pictures in my mind and stirs my heart.
Annette
The iris bed we tried to start is slimey with decay.
Shrunken drifts of snow remain but I start to clear
away the piles of old leaves. The sun is
Warm upon my back, can spring be far away?
We didn’t know what colors, but iris is bright and gay
We wanted a variety, we loved to see the blossoms
Flitting like butterflies in the breeze.
That, of course, was yesterday.
You will never see their tender bloom. I try to
Clean the rhizomes, toss the dying stalks away
This morning I discovered some shoots of green.
I packed the earth down carefully, to help them
Grow and stay.
11
What I remember most is trying to take something and not
Get caught. When there was a vacant house in the neighborhood
Somebody would find a way to sneak in, even with all the doors
Bolted and the windows boarded up. It was a kind of game to
Get in and find something, like a souvenir hunt, that we could
Carry away and brag that it came from so & so’s house.
There was never anything of value, the thrill was in breaking in
And getting out again with no one ever finding out.
111
My daughter-in-law, Annette & I really enjoyed flower gardening.
Our husbands disdained it, going around saying “You can’t eat flowers”
Then, almost all of the newly-built McMansions, 2nd homes for people who
Lived in , say, Cleveland or Columbus went on sale, their mortgages taken
Over by banks, their gardens by weeds. In the late autumn of last year,
Annette & I rescued some of the flowers before they were completely lost.
Annette died very suddenly at the beginning of last May.
Karen replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Beautiful and poignant poem.
Didn’t follow the prompt exactly, but I think I caught the spirit of it in a Horse Shadow
I am in quite an emotional space these days and I suppose I should get over trying to hide it or turn from it.
This poem wrote itself after I wrote a letter to my grandmother and remembered a secret I try to forget. I am sure, well – almost sure she knew about it.
When I was in the eighth grade for four days I hid in the closet in my bedroom rather than go to school. There was this boy who sat behind me in class who taunted me constantly.
I couldn’t take it any more, so I separated myself from it by not showing up. I managed to continue the ruse for four days.
I managed to forget this, for the most part, until I needed to share some compassion with my middle-grade daughter, Emma, to let her know “I understand the mean kids.”
I remembered time with Granny – who somehow managed to cut through the fog and made me feel significant.
The poem which was born from the process is titled:
Merely 5′4
I thought the prompt this week was completely unique & would be a great exercise. I pondered it all week but, in the end, couldn’t come up with anything worthy of the prompt. But, I won’t give up because I just know one day this prompt will help me write something completely different.
In the meantime, I did write a poem this week – maybe y’all would care to check it out.
desructive intent
Here is my effort.
http://poemblaze.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/narrator-and-poet/
Matt Quinn replied:
March 11th, 2010 at 10:40 am
It wasn’t 100% following the prompt, but inspired by it.
I gave it a shot because it was such an intriguing prompt. It brought me to memories I hadn’t reviewed in quite a while. Hopefully I came close to hitting the mark.
Hero Factor
Journeys and passenger slips….
http://motherveg.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/journeys-and-passenger-slips-prompt-117/
The best thing is I wrote something after a slump:
http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-arms-wont-let-me-down.html
Deviating from the prompt, my main dialogue this week was with a powerful book, “The Soul’s Code,” by James Hillman, in which the acorn is the dominant image. Hence my poem about an oak tree that is special to me: “Density.”
http://yourinnerceo.blogspot.com
This prompt was difficult and after several false starts, I managed to finish a piece that needs revision.
When it Comes
…born of a hybrid of two separate prompts: The Elephant
My Hinge is here. Now I am going to read some others!
I was inspired, but only have a first draft, When Truth Hinges on a Long-gone Picture
.
This prompt is so great I have to repeat the effort, again and again.
May take me a while to read you all, folks. I am sorry in advance for my bad manners.
The prompt takes me back to childhood…
http://keeping-secrets.karen.blogspot.com
Oops! Sorry! Wrong URL above…
http://keepingsecrets-karen.blogspot.com
Beth,
This a beautiful poem combining a Holocaust victim and hunger. Very nicely done. Thanks for sharing.
Pamela
Marian,
I love this poem you have written for this prompt. Very nice indeed. Thanks for sharing.
Pamela
(After) Mourning (After)
I found this prompt intriguing and challenging. http://www.spiritsoflena.com/2010/03/get-your-poem-on-117.html
I’m really enjoying reading all the poems.
http://paperdreams-jgc.blogspot.com/2010/03/writing-this-poem-wasnt-easy-and-im-not.html
OK, so I am a little bit closer to Thursday this week! I am really looking forward to reading everyone’s poems.
http://freckledwriter.blogspot.com/2010/03/thirty-years.html
Funny, how I wrote this earlier in the day and then saw this that afternoon, yesterday too…
I took liberties with the length of the second part, but I believe if I could cut some more out it would be a ‘hinge’ theme…
http://tmi-chef.blogspot.com/2010/03/friday-shoot-out-remember-emeraude.html
Striving to catch up. I am two poems, behind
http://makeda42.livejournal.com/58210.html