April 2020 nears its middle and we persist through the glorious...
You will have a change to write poetry even if you've never done it before—the writing prompts aim to demystify the process of writing a poem. This will not take the place of the 2020 Writing Exercise Series, but will be in addition to it, so there will be a bounty of poetry to feast your eyes upon.
So. Let's begin.
April 14, 2020
National Poetry Month 2020 Activity Pack Day 14
1) Let's begin with getting a little more Rita Dove into our lives. Check out this interview with PBS about selecting the poems for The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry which she was chosen as editor.
part II
2) TV TIME! Let's start off with a few of Rita Dove's awesome short poems. First here is Rita Dove reading her poem "Chocolate".
And here is a video of her reading 2 more short poems, "Singsong" and "Fox Trot Fridays"
And now for something a little different, here is a video of Charles Simic reading the poem Summer Morning". I've read so much of Simic's work over the years, it's interesting to hear a poem in his own voice. Also I love that the only comment on this video at the moment is someone saying "Hello Mr. Simic."
3) Now go read one, or preferably all of the following three 'recently' published poems:
"Robocall" by Veejay Seshadri in Ocean State Review 2019.
"In My Own Dreams I Own a Laundromat" by Elise Triplett in Okay Donkey Issue 7.
"Music Indoors" by Adam Gianforcaro in Cincinnati Review miCRo July, 2019.
4) Go read all of the following three short poems that were published more than two years ago:
5) We will be focusing on the magazine 3 Elements a little later in the month, but for now let's use their featured prompt for today's game/exercise. The gimmick of the journal is just like my "Three Things" exercises, they have a required set of three things that must be used in your piece, and that's it. They publish all genres yadda yadda. Check out the link if you're so excited about it, geez. If you love them so much why don't you marry them?
So, the current prompt has a deadline of May 31st, so you have time to write a few options, polish them up and then put off submitting for a couple weeks, polish the piece again and finally send it off to them. The current required items are: Lobe, Parrot, and Half-life
Let's brainstorm a little bit first. Lobe—first thought is likely either earlobe or a brain's lobe—frontal lobe, likely... those are definitely the most popular usages. It is also just a round shape so a pear would be an example of something lobe-shaped, or a teardrop diamond... An actual teardrop of heavy raindrop. Then, parrot is both the animal and to repeat something (without understanding it or thinking about it usually), as well as a last name, and even a a lunar crater. Half-life is of course a very popular video game series spanning from 1998 to the most recent release Half-life Alyx which came out on March 23rd. And it is also quite famously, the time it takes for something to decay by half of its size, as expressed by the symbol t1⁄2. In my house the half-life of a box of Chewy Gobstoppers is about 10 minutes, for instance.
So with those three things there are almost innumerable options. Before you decide exactly what you want to do, make a list of five non-obvious options for each item—for instance, LOBE: A water balloon, an avocado, a bubble being blown by a little kid at a birthday party, a sidewall bubble in a car's tire after clipping a curb not-quite-hard-enough to blowout, a hamster's water bottle with a drip hanging off just waiting to be sipped. See? Easy. Once you have those five things for each word, figure out which two items are absolutely indispensable—in my experience one thing will especially stick out, then another will make a lot of sense in your head. Ostensibly, with a "Three thing" exercise, you're trying to triangulate some sort of meaning using the three coordinate points to illuminate a more exact/specific idea or story. With any poem, really. But in the three thing exercise I think that's especially true.
Now write your piece! Include at least 2 items from each list, one being very important and the other not as much.
6) The time machine is set to May 24th, 2016 for this "Three Things" exercise, since we've gotten started with the 3 things theme. The things are named and an example of how they might interact. Pitter patter. Try to write your first draft in fifteen minutes—that means no dawdling! Think on it for a couple minutes then write first thought best thought.
