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PoetryBones blog offers generative writing sessions to boost your writing practice in poetry, creative nonfiction, memoir, even personal development. See  ABOUT for more information on this writing practice.  CONTACT PoetryBones to inquire about joining a live writing session via Zoom; new cohort groups are forming.  ​ 

PoetryBones is still here!

3/7/2022

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Gif by ColossalBean "Heavy, California" be dancin, Yass!

​Hello Writing Friends!  WE ARE STILL ALIVE AND KICKIN!
Even though I have taken a break from posting on the blog, the live writing sessions continue! 

​Thank you for your great emails, writing samples, and inquiries to join a live writing group in recent months.  If you have not heard from me yet, you will soon! Or feel free to send off another email, using the CONTACT link above.  In the meantime, I hope you were able to find something inspiring or motivating in the archives to keep your writing practice moving.  Don't forget the ARTchives, too! 

It's time to look back and take stock of the work we've done. Tell me, what your top 5 favorite posts/writing prompts are on PoetryBones.com?  Let us know in the comments section.  Or  share via email by clicking CONTACT.  To help you dig into the archives, here are a few of my personal favorites -- so hard to choose, and if you asked me again next week, I'd have a whole different five!
  1. "Life Lessons from Math Class"  If you know me personally, you might be surprised by this choice from February 2020 (even though my GRE exam scores were higher in the analytical section than in the language section). The names of the various math principles are what intrigued me.  Write to them like math don't matter, that only the word choice does!    How about that  principle of the "excluded third?"  What do I do with the "pigeonhole principle?"
  2. Tarot Writing is from our first year of writing together, November 2019, and features artwork by illustrator Cristi Lopez.  Her work was in the art banner that month, but you'll also find tarot prompts and the challenge to create tarot concepts from two of her illustrations. ​Which reminds me, the tarot post was preceded by How to Write a Poem in 15 Minutes!  and  "This is How You . . . "  writing challenge!
  3. A Bird I Have Known was inspired by the closing week of #WriteOut 2019 , nature poets Mary Oliver and Ted Hughes, and the 453 newly released images of  John James Audubon's BIRDS OF AMERICA, made available by the National Audubon Society. They are simply stunning, and I had forgotten what an amazing gift that whole collection of images, body of research, and narration is.  
  4. Poems Chosen by High School Students  Student performers in 2021, not writers, chose these poems for a beginning acting class.  The text in red is their thoughts about the poems they chose. I love their directness. I love the way their minds work.  I know you'll find something that resonates with you to prompt some original writing.
  5. 10 Poetry Prompts about Love and Hate in February is a powerful session.  I posted a video from Motionpoems featuring the poem "Boy Saint" by Peter LaBerge.  The video is by Tom Speers, and it highlights the complex mix of young male physicality and potential for violence that seems met with equal tenderness.   I don't know how to say it better than this-- both the poem and the short film capture a time of confusion around body and love that somehow survives the moments of personal questioning.  It spurred many writing topics; hope you'll find one that speaks to you.

Okay, it's your turn. Share with us!  Which posts have you enjoyed reading or writing to?  Tell us all about it in the comments.   Until next time, keep on keepin on!
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7 Writing Prompts about Back to School Memories

8/25/2021

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1st Mentor Poem

Gathering Leaves in Grade School
JUDITH HARRIS
 
They were smooth ovals,   
and some the shade of potatoes—   
some had been moth-eaten   
or spotted, the maples   
were starched, and crackled   
like campfire.   
 
We put them under tracing paper   
and rubbed our crayons   
over them, X-raying   
the spread of their bones   
and black, veined catacombs.   
 
We colored them green and brown   
and orange, and   
cut them out along the edges,   
labeling them deciduous   
or evergreen.   
 
All day, in the stuffy air of the classroom,   
with its cockeyed globe,   
and nautical maps of ocean floors,   
I watched those leaves   
 
lost in their own worlds   
flap on the pins of the bulletin boards:   
without branches or roots,   
or even a sky to hold on to.
 
Poem copyright © 2007 by Judith Harris, whose most recent collection of poems is The Bad Secret from Louisiana State University Press (2006). Appeared in the Literary Review, Spring 2009. Source: 

Writing Prompts:

Pick a back to school topic and write – a grade school memory, bulletin boards in the classroom or hallway, art projects, nap time, arriving and leaving, lunch, class pets, etc. Write for 15 minutes!
​

2nd Mentor Poem

Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School
JANE KENYON
​

 The others bent their heads and started in.
Confused, I asked my neighbor
to explain—a sturdy, bright-cheeked girl
who brought raw milk to school from her family’s
herd of Holsteins. Ann had a blue bookmark,
and on it Christ revealed his beating heart,
holding the flesh back with His wounded hand.
Ann understood division. . . .
 
Miss Moran sprang from her monumental desk
and led me roughly through the class
without a word. My shame was radical
as she propelled me past the cloakroom
to the furnace closet, where only the boys
were put, only the older ones at that.
The door swung briskly shut.
 
The warmth, the gloom, the smell
of sweeping compound clinging to the broom
soothed me. I found a bucket, turned it
upside down, and sat, hugging my knees.
I hummed a theme from Haydn that I knew
from my piano lessons. . . .
and hardened my heart against authority.
And then I heard her steps, her fingers
on the latch. She led me, blinking
and changed, back to the class.
 
Jane Kenyon, "Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School" from Collected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2005) Copyright © 2005 by the Estate of Jane Kenyon.  Source: Poetry Foundation

Writing Prompts:

  • How has your education changed you?
  • How do you keep learning? Does it feel like school?
  • What are your fall, back-to-school memories for yourself or your children or as a teacher?
  • Make a list of questions you would like to ask a former teacher/professor/classmate/cafeteria lady/janitor/coach. Expand on any of them.
  • Write about being disciplined, others who were disciplined.  Was just, humane, shameful, constructive?
  • Write about when you came back "blinking and changed."
Write for 15 min

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Warm-Up Writes & Bad Decisions? Prompt

8/4/2021

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Order this pop art piece at Needlepoint for Fun!

Warm-Up Write #1

The following are titles of poetry collections from 2019, but posted here simply as phrases.  Scan the list and start to write about a phrase that resonates with you.  Write for 7 minutes.
our weather our sea
soft science
careen
a fortune for your disaster
grief sequence
advantages of being evergreen
near, at
deaf republic
magical negro
dunce
all that beauty
casting deep shade
a piece of good news
invasive species
meet me there: normal sex & home in three days, don’t wash
PoetryBones writers did a similar experiment with mathematical theories and principles in Life Lessons From Math Class, treating the titles as phrases, and wrote, perhaps an imagined theory, or simply wrote in response to what the phrase triggered.  Give it a try, too!
​

Warm-Up Write #2

​Here are three more titles of poetry collections from 2019, but these use a conjuction.
  • Nouns & Verbs
  • Days & Days
  • Mosses and Lichens
Using the _____ & _____ format, what would the title of your year be?  Tell me about the year. Write for at least 10 min.
​

Mentor Poem

The Whole Shebang Up for Debate
KARI GUNER-SEYMOUR
 
Today I gave a guy a ride, 
caught in a cloudburst 
jogging down East Mill Street.  
Skinny, backpacked, newspaper 
a makeshift shield, unsafe 
under any circumstances.
I don’t know what possessed me.
 
I make bad decisions, am forgetful, 
cling to structure and routine
like static electricity to polyester,                 
a predicament of living under 
the facade I always add to myself.
 
Said he needed to catch a GoBus,
shaking off droplets before climbing in. 
He gabbed about Thanksgiving plans,
his mom’s cider-basted turkey, 
grandma’s pecan-crusted pumpkin pie.
 
It was a quick, masked ride.
Bless you, he said, unfolding himself
from the car. No awkward goodbyes, 
no what do I owe you? Just Bless you
and a backward wave. 
 
At the stop sign, my fingers stroked 
the dampness where he sat minutes before. 
Sometimes life embraces you 
so unconditionally, it shifts 
your body from shadow 
into a full-flung lotus of light.
 
—from Rattle #72, Summer 2021
Tribute to Appalachian Poets


Writing Prompt

  • Tell me about a bad, mediocre, or questionable decision.
  • If you want to try a suggested structure, describe the decision -- how it played out -- your reflection on it now.
​
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Try Writing Ekphrastic Poetry (Part 1)

7/28/2021

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What is Ekphrastic Poetry?

Ekphrastic poetry explores art. Using a rhetorical device known as ekphrasis, the poet engages with a painting, drawing, sculpture, or other form of visual art. Poetry about music and dance might also be considered a type of ekphrastic writing.

​The term ekphrastic (also spelled ecphrastic) originates from a Greek expression for description. The earliest ekphrastic poems were vivid accounts of real or imagined scenes. Through effusive use of details, writers in ancient Greece aspired to transform the visual into the verbal. Later poets moved beyond description to reflect on deeper meanings. Today, the word ekphrastic can refer to any literary response to a non-literary work. 

SOURCE: Jackie Craven, for ThoughtCo.com, Feb. 2021
​

Techniques for Writing an Ekphrastic Poem

  • Write about the scene you see in the artwork.
  • Think about what the subjects did after the painting or sculpture. Did they move from that spot? Where did they go?
  • Write a conversation between the characters in the piece.
  • If you're in a gallery or museum, write dialogue between two pieces facing each other.
  • Write about your experience of looking at the artwork.
  • Write a monologue from the point of view of a character or object in the artwork.  Or write what you think they want to say to you.
  • Compare the artwork to something else.
  • Imagine a story about the creation of the artwork.  OR, write in the assumed voice of the artist.
  • Is there anything in the artwork that is a metaphor for something in your own life?  Write about that.


​Now, You Try It  #1

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New York Movie (1939) by Edward Hopper

​As you look at the artwork, pay attention to how it makes you feel. Take notes about any sensory impressions it gives you or memories it triggers.  Write for 10-15 minutes.

IF YOU WANT MORE ON THIS PAINTING:
  • Listen to a 3 minute audio from two curators at MoMA, discussing movies in 1939 in New York city.  This entertaining excerpt is from the “Made in New York” exhibit.
  • Read  Joseph Stanton's ekphrastic poem "Edward Hopper's 'New York Movie' " here.​
​All we can see on our side / of the room is one man and one woman— / as neat, respectable, and distinct / as the empty chairs that come / between them . . . Here we are an accidental / 
fellowship, sheltering from the city's / obscure bereavements to face a screened, / imaginary living, / as if it were a destination / we were moving toward. 
​
  • Enjoy MoMA security officer José Colón's close look at Edward Hopper’s painting, noting that the painting’s "lush detail  simultaneously captures an intimate moment and triggers a longing for the shared moviegoing experiences of the past -- and hopefully the future."


You Try It  #2

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Alexander Calder, Rouge Triomphant (Triumphant Red), 1959–63

​As you look at the artwork, pay attention to how it makes you feel. Take notes about any sensory impressions it gives you or memories it triggers.  
Write for 10-15 minutes.

IF YOU WANT MORE ON THIS ARTWORK: 

Under a Calder Mobile, August 1959
JACKIE CRAVEN
 
A bird was missing, or maybe
a boomerang, but a blue one
fallen off the wire
so the others hung crookedly,
twirling and colliding
when the window fan blew strong.
Their shadows wobbled
over the spoon-shaped chairs
and the sofa where I drowsed,
a child adrift in the summer heat.
Dipping and swerving, the shadows
became my father’s Thunderbird
vanishing over a hill, then turned
into a swirl of phantom birds--
             Sofa to chair to beyond,
             sofa to chair and gone--
except for the heavy one
that smothered me with the scent
of cocktails and cigarettes. I woke
beneath the damp weight of my mother,
rocking as she moaned--
             Do you love me?
             Do you love me more than him?
 
SOURCE: Originally published April 15, 2020 AgniOnline
https://agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/under-a-calder-mobile-august-1959


​You Try It  #3

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Family Portrait, II is an oil on canvas painting created by Florine Stettheimer in 1933.

​Listen to this wonderful (1:44) audio clip from curator, Anne Umland at the MoMA.
 Now, go on to write a “family portrait.”
  • How would you represent yourself?
  • Who all is in your portrait?
  • What objects (like the flowers) would you enlarge?
  • What “ghostly images” would you write for the background?
  • What are you “known for?”
  • Who comes to see you; who comes to your parties?
  • Of course, these are suggesions, branch off in any way that has energy.
Drop a note in the comment section, telling us about your experience with Ekphrastic Poetry or in writing your family "portrait." 
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Full Moon Writing Prompts & The Antonym Poem

7/21/2021

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Two still pics from the video poem "The Opposites Game." See below.

Introduction

Fair Warning: This week is a hodgepodge!  With a warmup, an antonym experiment, and a poem write challenge, writing practice will be a bit of an obstacle course today!  
Nature does not care that you are comfortable, only that you evolve. ~ Harville Hendrix

1.  Writing Warm-Up

From a list of adjectives for describing a beach, we randomly selected three for a unique writing warm-up!  Write for five minutes to each topic. Tell me about . . .
  • a FARAWAY beach
  • an ANCIENT or HIDDEN beach
  • a TURBULENT beach
​

2.  "Moon" Writing Prompt 

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According to The Old Farmer's Almanac this Friday (7-23-2021) is July's Full Moon.  It is called the Buck Moon because the antlers of male deer (bucks) are in full-growth mode at this time. Bucks shed and regrow their antlers each year, producing a larger and more impressive set as the years go by.
  • Several other names for this month’s Moon reference ANIMALS: Feather Moulting Moon (Cree) and Salmon Moon, a Tlingit term indicating when fish returned to the area and were ready to be harvested.
  • PLANTS are also featured in July’s Moon names: Berry Moon (Anishinaabe), Moon When the Chokecherries are Ripe (Dakota), Month of the Ripe Corn Moon (Cherokee), and Raspberry Moon (Algonquin, Ojibwe).
  • WEATHER & SUMMER SEASON names: Thunder Moon (Western Abenaki) and Halfway Summer Moon (Anishinaabe) 

WRITING TOPICS:  
  • Knowing Native names for the full moon are based on what is happening during that full moon month in different regions, write a poem about what kind of season it has been for you. How will you title this full moon?
  • Write a poem that will manifest the kind of moon season you are about to have, or the one you want to have.
​

3. Antonym Poem

Ah, his poem.         
This short film. 
If you do nothing else this week, watch this film. 

If you're ready to think and write, take a line of text or a whole poem and write the opposite or antonym for each word.  Try this for a few lines, and see if a poem appears.  OR  Let the lines be the impetus for some other kind of poem. Don’t worry about being too perfect or too correct in conjuring the opposite words. Remember it is a writing challenge not a scientific study.  Use the same Dickinson poem in the video to get started.

Film by Anna Samo + Lisa LaBracio
A poem by Brendan Constantine
Poem performed by Brendan Constantine


The Opposites Game
BRENDAN CONSTANTINE
                              for Patricia Maisch

This day my students and I play the Opposites Game
with a line from Emily Dickinson. My life had stood
a loaded gun
, it goes and I write it on the board,
pausing so they can call out the antonyms –

My                 Your
Life                Death
Had stood ?   Will sit

A                   Many
Loaded                     Empty
Gun ?

Gun.
For a moment, very much like the one between
lightning and it’s sound, the children just stare at me,
and then it comes, a flurry, a hail storm of answers –

Flower, says one. No, Book, says another. That's stupid,
cries a third, the opposite of a gun is a pillow. Or maybe
a hug, but not a book, no way is it a book. With this,
the others gather their thoughts

and suddenly it’s a shouting match. No one can agree,
for every student there’s a final answer. It's a song,
a prayer, I mean a promise, like a wedding ring, and
later a baby. Or what’s that person who delivers babies?

A midwife? Yes, a midwife. No, that’s wrong. You're so
wrong you’ll never be right again. It's a whisper, a star,
it's saying I love you into your hand and then touching
someone's ear. Are you crazy? Are you the president

of Stupid-land? You should be, When's the election?
It’s a teddy bear, a sword, a perfect, perfect peach.
Go back to the first one, it's a flower, a white rose.
When the bell rings, I reach for an eraser but a girl

snatches it from my hand. Nothing's decided, she says,
We’re not done here. I leave all the answers
on the board. The next day some of them have
stopped talking to each other, they’ve taken sides.

There's a Flower club. And a Kitten club. And two boys
calling themselves The Snowballs. The rest have stuck
with the original game, which was to try to write
something like poetry.

It's a diamond, it's a dance,
the opposite of a gun is a museum in France.
It's the moon, it's a mirror,
it's the sound of a bell and the hearer.


The arguing starts again, more shouting, and finally
a new club. For the first time I dare to push them.
Maybe all of you are right, I say.

Well, maybe. Maybe it's everything we said. Maybe it’s
everything we didn't say. It's words and the spaces for words.
They're looking at each other now. It's everything in this room
and outside this room and down the street and in the sky.

It's everyone on campus and at the mall, and all the people
waiting at the hospital. And at the post office. And, yeah,
it's a flower, too. All the flowers. The whole garden.
The opposite of a gun is wherever you point it.

Don’t write that on the board, they say. Just say poem.
Your death will sit through many empty poems.


Source: The American Journal of Poetry

Tell us a word for which you had the hardest time
​coming up with the antonym, an opposite.
​
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    Christine curates the POETRY BONES blog and hosts the weekly live writing practice. Contact her with inquiries.

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