Poetry Challenge #117-Celebrate!
Every day is a special day. If a day dawns in need of an excuse to celebrate I make a quick search. I delight in finding calendars that telling what each day is special for—more than 365 reasons to make a ruckus!
Today, April 15th is according to nationaldaycalendar.com, is Purple Up Day! Rubber Eraser Day! and Take a Wild Guess Day!
And, if that’s not enough to get you blowing those weird paper roll-up horns, it’s the 30th Anniversary of National Poetry Month!
Poetry Challenge #117
A Month of Holidays
As the inimitable fashion of Kool and the Gang:
Celebration time…Come on!
No matter what day it is, find something to celebrate. (If only it’s not having to listen to me singing along…because you know I am.)
Choose something to celebrate. Erasers maybe, or purple, or the neighbor’s irritatingly loud wind chimes. (At least they haven’t blown off into my yard or through a window…YET!)
Write a celebratory poem.
Jazz your poem up with some celebratory words: Clap, cheer, rejoice, glitter, shine, hallelujah!
And if you need some mood music, click and listen to Kool and the Gang singing Celebration!
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
Start writing!
And when you’re finished…CELEBRATE!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge over 3500 days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. (This one is Cindy’s.) If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #116-Prompt Time
Contrary to popular believe, there is a sure fire cure for writer’s Brain Freeze.
At first you might baulk. Complain. Resist ala Baby in Dirty Dancing. But it works . . .
Poetry Challenge #116
Prompt Time
Writing from a prompt pushes you to write fast and helps you free your mind. Get your notebook or computer ready and set your timer. Below is a one-line prompt.
No one tells me what to do…
You use the prompt as your first line of a poem, your last line, or a line in the middle. Read it and then write as fast as you can.
Ready . . .
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
Start writing!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge over eight years ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. (This one is Cindy’s.) If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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What Inspires Me #3-Out of the Box Ideas!
Today I posted the last 7-Minute Poetry Prompt!
(If you were relieved to read that, then the joke is on me.)
Speaking of jokes, while clicking around for some prank I could play today (that wasn’t cruel or difficult), I came upon these definitely sound like pranks, but are they???
For now, though, let’s set “Velveeta” hair color aside (as if we could), and focus on my news. (Hopefully you’ll find it inspiring?)…
My latest book RAINBOW KITE is flying! Catch it!
It is perfect for spring as it’s about a kid who
finds a kite.
And it’s kite flying season.
And, words aside, it has delightful art by K.M. Brown.
You’ll find more about K.M. and how she creates are in the Interview posted here.
RAINBOW KITE could really, really, really use your help (and so could I). If you are willing to write a review and post in on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, etc. I’ll send you a digital copy of the book to review. Send me a note!
And now, the answer to the big question of the day: Are those products fake or real?
I had absolutely nothing to do with these products*, finding them or gather the info—it’s from a post by Ariana Losch published in Sporked “Out to Be Real” (And the joke seems to be on me as the image on my screen isn’t showing the whole article excerpt.) I Hope it is on yours. But if not, click to read the article.
*I did a quick search for the Doctor Pepper TicTacs, they are available on line.
Spring, and out-of-the-box ideas, and Kites—That’s Inspiring!
Poetry Challenge #115-Knit Wits
Can you name the book?
Think “knitting” and an image of the “quiet old lady whispering ‘hush’” springs to many a mind. But that’s bunk. All sort of folks knit. All ages and stages. And it’s not just about yarn (although yarns are told.)
Knitting is such a useful word. In the same way yarn becomes sweaters, wounds knit back together. Families are closely knit. Brows knit in consternation or contemplation. Thoughts knit together become ideas, just as words knit together can be poetry.
In Merriam-Webster speak, knitting is “a series of connected loops,” so that’s where we’ll begin.
Classic Knit-One, Purl-Two pattern
Poetry Challenge #115
Knit Wits
Close your eyes and write down the first word that pops into your mind. One word. That word will be the title of your poem.
Next, quickly list words that you associate with your word. From that list, choose the best five.
Take a moment to reorder those five words into a sort of pattern that makes sense to you.
Let’s use our wits to knit those words together to create a poem.
For our first effort, we’ll use a simple knit one, purl two pattern. Consider those five words to be your “knit” stitches. The “purl” part of our poem will be modifiers. Let’s get knitting!
Write your first “knit” word. Below it “purl” two modifiers. Below that purl, write your next “knit” word, then “purl” two; continue in this knit one-purl two pattern until you come to the end of your word list. Just like that you’ve knitted a 10-line poem.
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
Start writing!
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than eight years ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #114-User Error
User Error is such a useful term. At one and the same time it blames and forgives:
“Yes, I did it, but it wasn’t my fault.”
Poetry Challenge #114
User Error
Think back on a time when you’ve had a system malfunction? A SNAFU? A mess up? A day, event, moment when you dropped the ball: BONG BONG BONG (If you haven’t ever had one on those times, make one up.)
Take a moment to dreg up all the miserable, embarrassing, nauseating, gut-wrenching details. Allow yourself to wallow in the misery for one more minute.
Write a poem about that time. Try not to rhyme. Not to spell correctly. Not to sound pleasant. Let it be harsh and raw—try breaking the lines in odd places. It other words: write a lousy poem.
End it with those two huge words: USER ERROR!
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
Start writing!
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge….dang, I forget how long ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #113-One Must Ask Children and Birds
“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today . . . “
J. Wellington Whimpy, as any Popeye fan knows, would do just about anything for a hamburger. Parisians rioted over the lack of break, likewise so did Starbuck fans during a recent run on Pumpkin Latte (not really), but, I imagine they would. Cindy’s weakness is lobster. Mine (in case you’re gifting) is salted caramel. What’s your favorite food?
Poetry Challenge #113
One Must Ask Children and Birds
“One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste”— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Pick a food that begins with a consonant (not a, e, i, o, or u). Can you think of other foods that begin with the same letter? List 5-10 foods that begin with the same letter. Next, list 3-10 foods that end with that letter. Then, list 3-10 foods that have that letter in the middle. Finally, list 3 verbs and 3 adjectives that have to do with food and contain your letter.
The repetition of a consonant sound is called alliteration. Many times tongue twisters are made from these repeated sounds. Use words from all your lists to write an alliterative list poem. Read it aloud and see if it trips your tongue.
“I will not eat them here or there. I will not eat them anywhere.
I do not eat green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”
Set your mind to channel FOOD
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
Start writing!
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge way too many meals ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #112-Bend it like Adolphe . . . Sax that is!
When we were about twelve, my friend Theresa and I closed ourselves in a music room at CSULB (where my mom was working on her Master’s Degree) and played over and over and over—her on sax, me on piano—the opening phrases of the song Ruthann Friedman song Windy. You know the one:
Whose peekin’ out from under a stairway/ callin’ a name that’s lighter than air?/ whose bending down to give me a rainbow? /everyone knows it’s Windy./ Whose trippin’ down the streets . . .
over and over . . . Theresa and I only stopped when the guy in the next room knocked.
Turned out, he too played a sax. We only wished we could. . .
Said to emote a sound reminiscent of “the echo of an echo” . . . a resonance “situated at the edge of silence,” the saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s (patented in 1846.) Sax only received a 15-year patent for the sax (immediately others began copying his design). Sax’s sax however was the first.
Poetry Challenge #112
Bend it like Adolphe . . . Sax that is!
In honor of Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone and several other sax-ish instruments (saxhorn, saxotromba, saxtuba). His saxophone is often described as being “the closest instrumental match to the human voice.” An instrument whose tone (and I write “whose” purposefully) can, in talented hands, mimic human voice inflection.
In preparation for this prompt, Listen to a Saxophone play. This post highlights “The 20 Greatest Saxophonists of All Times” with clippings of each playing.
Adolphe Sax
And now for the poem:
Let your mind wander as you listen. Where does the music take you? How does it make you feel? What does it make you feel?
Or, look at the saxophone itself, it’s shape. And ask yourself, if a saxophone were an animal, which animal would it be?
Draw on these saxophone images and feelings to write a Saxophonic poem.
Set your mind on “Cool”
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
FYI: The child of Belgian instrument makers, Adolphe Sax is credited with having, by the age of 14, invented at least invented about 9 instruments. For more on Adolphe Sax, including why he was nicknamed “Little Sax, the ghost,” read on:
“Sometimes serious, sometimes calm, sometimes impassioned, dreamy or melancholic, or vague, like the weakened echo of an echo, like the indistinct plaintiff moans of the breeze in the woods and, even better, like the mysterious vibrations of a bell, long after it has been struck; there does not exist another musical instrument that I know of that possesses this strange resonance, which is situated at the edge of silence.”
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge so many solos ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #111-One Dark and Stormy . . . Yikes!
Back in my sleep-over camp-out nights, with the campfire crackling and tossing spooky shadows, the wind howling and tree branches scraping on the tent, we used to make scary spookier still with a game called
Yikes!
Things that go bump in the night. . . Scary, right?
Scary how a simple bump sound—in the right setting at the right time—sends tingles, quivers, hair-raising heebie-jeebies shivers chasing up our spines.
Oooooohhhhh CREAK
SCRATCH EEK
EEK YOWL
HOWL
Mwahaha
SCREECH SCRITCH
WHAT’S THAT NOISE . . .
Thump THWACK
thwaaaaaaaaaa
It is said that everyone fears the same thing—the Unknown. Thus, the secret to writing scary is not what you write—but what you leave out.
“Readers will imagine the rest, filling in the gaps with whatever scares them most,” noted Nocturium in a post**.
Which takes me right back to those spine-tingling sounds. Let’s give it a Gooo—GH!
Poetry Challenge #111
One Dark and Storm . . . YIKES!
Write a scary poem.
Now, make it even scarier still by replacing specifics with sounds words.
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Don’t think about it too much;
See if you can scare yourself silly!
**For more spooky stuff here’s a great post: How to Write a Scary Story on the Nocturim
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge a terrifying number of days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.