Happy autumn everyone (in the
northern hemisphere anyway)! Autumn officially begins in my place on the map at 10:49 AM today
(September 22nd). Just as that happens, I’ll be conducting a
workshop and critique sessions at a Women Who Write poetry conference in Madison, NJ, and
tonight I’ll be celebrating the autumnal equinox (a time of equality between
day and night) with friends, dinner, and a bottle of mead. My mom always called autumn “the brief, bright season.” As a
child, it was always my favorite time of year (quite probably because autumn’s
arrival heralded my birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas).
There’s something special about autumn's mixture of warm sun, cooler air, and colorful leaves. This week, let’s celebrate the season and write
poems about autumn. You might try an ode or a sonnet, or you might write about
an autumn experience that you had (memoir poem). You might describe the season (being careful
to make your description unique and memorable – avoid those seasonal poem clichés that can ruin otherwise good poems). You might work with autumn as a
metaphor (again, be wary of clichés and definitely stay away from autumn as a metaphor for a particular time of life). Another idea is to use the prompt title as the title of your poem
(“What Autumn Brings”). An option you might like is to take on the character of an autumn aspect and write a persona poem (write from the perspective of a tree, a leaf, a bonfire, a chestnut, a
migrating bird, etc.). Have fun with this – enjoy the imagery of this colorful
season!
When I went to “The Music In It”
this morning, I found (to my dismay) that the blog was automatically redirected
to something called Famous-Poets.org. I thought at first that something glitchy
had occurred, but the redirect continued (to my increasing dismay). It was
disturbing, to say the least, when every time I opened the blog it was redirected to the Famous-Poets site in a matter of seconds.
After trying a number of help
programs, I called my friend Diane Lockward who knows much more about blogging
and computers in general than I do and who, in fact, encouraged me to start a
blog. (Check out Diane's excellent poetry blog.)
I was beginning to worry that I
might lose the blog completely or, at best, have to start all over again. But, to
make a morning-long story short, Diane guided me to a Google help group in
which I left a message that was answered very quickly by a person named Joe
Wales (Redleg x3). He knew exactly what the issue was and gave me perfect
directions for fixing it. Seems that two of the gadgets I’ve had on the blog
for a couple of years (Poetry Quiz and Today’s Poem) were the culprits. I have
no idea how they came to “author” the automatic redirect, but I deleted both
and now the blog is fine.
I'm tempted to rant on about what happened, but I'd rather go eat a chocolate cookie (which I will do as soon as I post this!).
I send my apologies to anyone who
visited and was annoyingly redirected this morning (so glad you came back), and I send my sincerest
thanks to Diane and to Joe!
In poetry and still (happily)
blogging,
Adele
P.S. This incident has “prompted”
me to re-do the right sidebar (where the offending gadgets were located). It
will take a while to plan and post, but please stay tuned for new material.
Our days are a kaleidoscope. Every instant a change takes place. New
harmonies, new contrasts, new combinations of every sort. The most familiar
people stand each moment in some new relation to each other, to their work, to
surrounding objects.
– Henry Ward Beecher
While recently “playing” with an
online photo program, I changed a simple photo of hydrangeas in my yard to the
image above. It reminded me of a cardboard kaleidoscope that I had as a child and how
much I enjoyed that tube-shaped toy – an optical instrument, part of which I
turned by hand to produce the most amazing symmetrical designs
through mirrors and pieces of colored glass at the end of the tube. Over the
years, I’ve heard the word “kaleidoscope” used as a metaphor for changing
colors, for changing events, for the ways in which we look at things, the ways
in which our perspectives can change, and for life itself. I’ve heard terms
such as “a kaleidoscope of illusions” and a “kaleidoscope of dreams.”
Best-selling novelist Danielle
Stelle, also a poet, opened her novel Kaleidoscope
with a poem of the same title; in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, the kaleidoscope is a metaphor that speaks of
change or disruption; Lewis Carroll’s Through
the Looking Glass has been called “a kaleidoscope of English history;” and the Beatles described Lucy in the Sky as a "girl with kaleidoscope eyes."
You can see where I’m going with
this, right? Your challenge this week is to include the word “kaleidoscope” in
a poem as imagery or as a metaphor. The obvious poem would be one in which
“kaleidoscope” is a metaphor for life. If you choose that approach, be sure to
avoid clichés and work toward language and ideas that are fresh and unique. Another option is to include a single kaleidoscope reference (see the example poems below). You might even write about a kaleidoscope you had as a child.
Things to Think About:
What are some kaleidoscopic
things in your life?
What’s your emotional
kaleidoscope like?
How is your personal/family/professional
life a metaphorical kaleidoscope?
What experience in your life involved a dramatic change with just a small shift (as in a small shift of a kaleidoscope)?
Have you ever been offered
kaleidoscopic possibilities (emotional, spiritual, professional, etc.)?
What fantastical scenario does
“kaleidoscope” suggest to you?
Can you think of anything in your
life that was a kaleidoscopic comedy?
Did you ever own a kaleidoscope (as a child or as a collectible in your mature years)?
FYI: The kaleidoscope was invented in 1815 by Scotsman Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) during experiments with light polarizations. Brewster's name for his invention was derived from the Greek (kalos or beautiful, eidos or form, and scopos or watcher), thus meaning "beautiful form watcher." A patent was obtained two years later, and the original scientific tool was later copied as a popular toy. Brewster hoped to make money on his invention, but a loophole in the patent wording allowed others to copy his design. During the Victorian Era, kaleidoscopes were popular parlor "toys," and both old tin and cardboard kaleidoscopes remain collectible.
Do you have a favorite day of the
week – a day you remember because something wonderful happened on that day? Or
a day you remember because something no-so-wonderful happened? Do you like
Sunday because Sunday is the day you just “hang out” and relax? Do you like
Wednesday because it marks the halfway point between weekends? Or do you like Friday
because it’s the last day of the work week? Is there a day on which something
special happens regularly (club meeting, poetry reading, dinner with friends, prayer
group meeting, favorite TV program? I don’t suppose we spend a lot of time thinking
about a particular day of the week, but this
week that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Think about all the days of
your life (that reminds me of a soap opera), and then pick a day of the week that
has special meaning for you. Write about that day. Your poem might be narrative, or you may want to go in another direction. You might enjoy writing a fantasy
about a particular day of the week. Most importantly, capture the essence of
one day of the week in a poem. Don't be afraid to stray from the day you've chosen. If your poem leads you elsewhere, go with it (and remember to work toward layers of meaning). Resist
the urge to “finish” a poem by tying it up in a neat package – last lines that
explain or sum-up can ruin an otherwise good poem.
As summer winds down and we begin
the month of September, autumn migrations – heralds of cooler
air and bright colors – begin in my corner of the world. Many years ago, back
in the days when I was active in the haiku community, I wrote a poem about
migrating geese, which later became the title poem of a haiku collection. The
poem was honored with a first place Henderson Award in 1984, and the book won
the first place Merit Book Award for 1987.
migrating geese –
once there was so much
to say
I haven’t thought of the poem or the
book in years, but I did yesterday when a flock of geese, apparently in a
pattern of early migration, flew above my back yard just as dusk began to
settle. I thought then about that little poem and how it linked the seasonal
migration of geese (nature) to the way a relationship had changed (human nature). It occurred to me that there are times in all of our lives when we find
ourselves in a process of migration (not merely physical migration, but
movement from one spiritual place to another, from one emotional place to
another, from one relationship to another).
I hope the idea of “migration” will capture your imagination this week. Think about it: birds and animals migrate; people migrate; migration
is a way of marking time; migration is about journeying; migration is about
change; migration is a state of mind. This week, let's write about a personal migration – your movement from one place to another
(emotional, spiritual, actual).
1. Begin with a freewrite and
then look over what you’ve written to see which ideas you can work into a
poem.
2. Try to incorporate some nature imagery.
3. Compare yourself (or something in your life) to a flock of migrating birds or to a single migrating bird.
4. Write a persona poem from the perspective of a migrating bird, butterfly, or animal.
5. Try using “What The Wild Geese Know" as a title or theme.
7. If writing about a personal “migration” doesn’t come together for you, write about a bird, butterfly, or animal migration. (You might even try an immigration poem.)
Most importantly, think about the rich potential in migration for metaphor, imagery, and figurative language; go beyond the obvious; give your poem room to discover what lies behind its conscious subject – "migrate" beyond your poem's surface content to create layers of meaning!
A few days ago, I sat in a
restaurant two tables away from a group of young people who, instead of
chatting among themselves, were all using their cell phones. I say using because they weren’t talking;
instead, they were all busily texting. It amazed me to think that instead of
enjoying one another’s company, they spent their time together texting other
people – even after their meals were served! It wasn’t an uncommon sight.
I’ve seen groups of teenagers walking downtown and talking or texting on their
cell phones, and I’ve seen people in cars talking on cell phones while driving
(even though that’s now against the law). I think one of the funniest things
I’ve seen was a young couple sitting on a park bench, sweetly cuddled up to one
another, each with an around the other, attention completely focused on their
cell phones, their free hands texting away. It all made me think about
telephones and how much phoning has changed since I was a little girl and we
had a single two-party-line phone in our living room.
With all that in mind, how about writing some "phone poems" this week?
When I was a child my mom
sometimes sang me to sleep with a song called “Me and My Shadow,” or my dad often
entertained me into the “land of Nod” with stories about hand shadows that he
made on my bedroom wall. Remembering those nights filled with music, stories,
and the wonder of shadows led me to this week’s prompt.
Shadows have an intriguing,
mystical aspect, and we often encounter then in poetry, even when the poems’
subjects are not specifically shadows or even shadow-driven. “Shadows of the
world appear” in part II of Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott;” in Eliot’s “The
Hollow Men,” we read “Between the motion / And the act / Falls the shadow;” and
in Yeats’s “When You Are Old,” we find the deep shadows of a loved one’s eyes – and this is just a tiny sampling!
Superstitious thought proposes
that your shadow is part of your soul and that to step on or throw stones at a
person’s shadow may cause that person harm. In dreams, shadows are said to
represent a person’s latent potential, fear, illusion, and unknown parts of the
self. Seeing your own shadow in a dream may also signify an aspect of yourself
that you haven’t yet acknowledged or recognized; it may also suggest a quality or
part of yourself that you reject. In Jungian psychology, the shadow or “shadow
aspect” refers to the unconscious – everything of which a person is not
fully conscious, as well as a facet of personality that the conscious ego
doesn’t recognize within itself.
Shadows typically suggest things
that are dark or threatening, but have you ever seen the beauty in a weeping
willow’s shadow on a lake, or the way cloud shadows float over a field or
mountainside? This week, let’s think about shadows and write about them. Keep
in mind that you needn’t go to the dark side in a shadow poem – though you can,
of course, if you wish to.
Be sure to stretch your inner
vision and your imagination. Remember that a poem needs room to move, sometimes
away from your original idea. Give your poem room to veer off course and to
change direction.
More important than your
compositional method or conceptual framework is how you make a poem about a
single experience (idea, time, place, bird, stone, stream, etc.) bigger than its
singularity. In poetry, it’s important approach the universal through the
personal.
Now …
1. Write a poem about
your shadow.
2. Write a poem to
your shadow.
3. Write a poem in which shadow
becomes an extended metaphor.
4. Write a poem about hand shadows on a wall.
5. Write a poem about any shadow – a weeping willow’s
shadow, a tenement’s shadow, an animal’s shadow, skyscraper’s shadow, a
flower’s shadow, cloud shadows on a field.
6. Write a poem using the following (borrowed from T. S.
Eliot’s “The Waste Land”) as your title or epigraph: “Your Shadow at Evening
Rising to Meet You.”
7. Write a poem based on the following shadow poem, written
by Emily Dickinson (c. 1863):
Presentiment – is that long Shadow – on the Lawn
Indicative that Suns go down –
The notice to the startled Grass –
That Darkness – is about to pass –
8. Do you remember the old song “The Shadow of Your Smile,”
famously sung by Barbara Streisand? Try writing a poem based on the title of
that song. Here’s the song for you to enjoy:
