 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!
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! 
2 Comments
 1st Mentor Poem
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
Writing Prompts:
 Order this pop art piece at Needlepoint for Fun! Warm-Up Write #1The 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.
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 #2Here are three more titles of poetry collections from 2019, but these use a conjuction.
Mentor Poem
Writing Prompt
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
|
| |
| | |
| 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 |
 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. |
|
| 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 |
March 2022
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
RSS Feed
