The Music In It: Adele Kenny's Poetry Blog: Poetry Prompt #2

Friday, April 30, 2010

Poetry Prompt #2 - Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

What are you afraid of?

A childhood experience?

Something that happened to you more recently?

A person? Illness? Being alone?

Write about something you fear, something that "haunts" you, something you'd like to forget but can't. Take your personal "big bad wolf" by the tail, swing it through the air, then toss it over your shoulder in a poem.

Examples:

"Fear" by Hart Crane

"A Fear of Old Age" by Jack Anderson
"Fear of the Future" by John Koethe
"When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be" by John Keats

1 comment:

AlecMay 5, 2010 at 1:16 AM
Attack

The garage
had claws
shattered mirrors
oil rags
tattered magazines
car parts

The lock was loose
but the little boy was trapped
trapped
with vultures
and a toy
chainsaw

http://binyon.posterous.com
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THE MUSIC IN IT

"The Music In It" is a blog for anyone interested in poets and poetry—the craft and the community.

The title comes from Countee Cullen, who wrote: "My poetry, I should think, has become the way of my giving out whatever music is in me."

Look for a new prompt or guest blogger every couple of weeks or so, usually posted on weekends, and check the archives for older prompts and posts. Be sure to click on the poetry-related links in the sidebar.

Thanks for your visits and comments.

Enjoy!

ABOUT WIND OVER STONES

From Renée Ashley

Compressed and brilliant in their philosophical and imagistic scintillations, the prose poems in Adele Kenny’s Wind Over Stones are of one piece in both voice and intensity of gaze. Through each artwork she has chosen as her lens, she seems to be saying, If we look hard enough and long enough, and with just the right slant of light, we can see through these paintings into ourselves. Her vision embodies, without presumption, the knowledge that, as John Muir told us, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” Kenny tells us, “This kind of purity comes to us without intention—in ordinary things that are anything but ordinary….” She paints it for us herself: “A flurry of bats becomes the Milky Way, and we make no pretense of understanding the infinite (deep inside us), our need to become nothing before we unname ourselves and disappear.” Everything is connected, and through the language of fairytale, examination, and prayer—the same language, after all—each of Kenny’s poems is a gem in a garland of gems.

Publisher's Comments

This unique collection of ekphrastic prose poems continues Adele Kenny’s reflections on the spiritual condition of being. Despite loss and change, she looks into the dark without flinching and finds light among the shadows.

Using ekphrasis as a rhetorical device and combined with Kenny’s signature elements of technical proficiency, hauntingly lucid imagery, and compelling immediacy, these poems filter and record experience in startling ways as they journey across aging’s inevitable arc. Hardwired by Kenny’s understanding of the human spirit, these poems offer us insights into the healing power of attention and awareness.

QR codes are included in this book so that readers can access the paintings that inspired the poems while they are reading. This interactive element enables readers to enjoy a multi-dimensional experience through their smart phones with cameras or free QR code scanning applications on their mobile devices.

ABOUT NOT ASKING WHAT IF

"Kenny has written some of the most hauntingly beautiful spiritual haiku I’ve ever read—haiku that take us as close to divinity as human language can get. Her haiku are spare and commanding, rich in imagery, and layered with meaning." (Alex Pinto, Tiferet)

“Traditional haiku, environmental haiku, psychological haiku, spiritual haiku—Adele Kenny has done them all. Her haiku are spare and powerful, always nuanced with rich symbolism. Her images and juxtapositions make readers hold their breath in wonder.” (Malachy McCourt, Author of A Monk Swimming)

Review by Emily Vogel in Ragazine:
http://ragazine.cc/2016/09/more-books-more-reviews/

ABOUT WHAT MATTERS

"These poems are eloquent, candid, straightforward and genuine." (Robert Pinsky, U.S. Poet Laureate, 1997-2000)

"In Adele Kenny's finely wrought meditations on grief and loss, she never forgets that she's a maker of poems. What Matters straddles two of the exigencies of the human condition: diminishment and endurance. It abounds with poems that skillfully earn their sentiments." (Stephen Dunn, Pulitzer Prize in Poetry)

"These are poems that come to (poetic) grips with the issues of grief, fear, and death ... focused in a new and strong way." (Gerald Stern, National Book Award in Poetry)

Click Here to Read the Tiferet Review of What Matters

Click Here to Read Michael T. Young's Interview

Click Here to Read Michael T. Young's Review

Click Here to "Attend" the Virtual Salon for What Matters

The Music In It: Adele Kenny's Poetry Blog

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The Music in It

Friday, April 30, 2010

Poetry Prompt #2 - Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

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