Apr 28
MeredithPoetry, Writing Clare Greene, Juicy Love, national poetry month, poetry out of nothing challenge, yay poems!
Juicy Love
My fingernails dig into its pocked skin
and tear apart its rubbery flesh.
We always hurt the ones we love.
I pull a sinewy pod from out of
this juicy ball
that drips its insides
all over its outsides.
Sticky clutter clings to my hands
and sweet love – about to burst -
sits atop my tongue.
Patiently, it waits to explode.
My teeth sink down -
deep, cutting, irreparable.
Skin rips and juice spills
as taste happens.
My eyes widen
and my face lightens
and I remember why the color
Orange
tastes so delicious
Apr 28
MeredithPoetry, Writing Ashley Dixon, national poetry month, poetry out of nothing challenge, Texture, yay poems!
Texture
His lips met my thoughts
when he kissed me on my forehead
I can still smell the stench
from his cigarettes
linger through my senses
He ran his manly, black hands
through my course, texture hair
I think of it as a sign to
show he cares
His shadow is in my thoughts
when his body is away.
Apr 28
MeredithPoetry, Writing Jessica Taylor, Marriage and a Proposal, national poetry month, poetry out of nothing challenge, yay poems!
Marriage and a Proposal
To give your heart and own up
We grew like magic
He had already decided
He wants to marry me
Me to carry his name have our kids make
Me happy
Grow old, have a family
Infinity with locked ties and marriage vows
I cherished the weak, soft indulgent selfless
Emotions and feelings through words
We have exchanged
If he’s willing to take that big step
I’m willing to say yes.
Apr 28
MeredithPoetry, Writing folding laundry, Jenny O'Grady, national poetry month, poetry out of nothing challenge, yay poems!
Folding Laundry
Think of how smart I’d be
if I didn’t know the inside of every
shirt you own.
That I can choose a ball of fabric
from the basket and know,
like some weight-guessing carnie,
its proper pile on the floor, simply
from the ridges and tags and
thinning cotton spots,
is obscene.
I once kept equations,
Promising math and poetic riddles,
Answers and details and
Cleverness beyond bound.
Now, each synapse
snaps to attention, at
the wrinkle of your
collar. Memory
recalls
proper care
instructions,
indelible as a
Sharpie stain.
Apr 28
MeredithPoetry, Writing national poetry month, poetry out of nothing challenge, sara abbott, wishing on numbers, yay poems!
Wishing on Numbers
Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish
How many pieces do you wish?
Rainbow
How is that a number?
Red orange yellow
green and blue
don’t forget there’s purple two
rainbow colors for me and you.
But those are colors, not numbers.
Do you have to be so literal? Fine. Seven.
Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish
How many pieces do you wish?
Sky
Really? How do I count the sky
Start with the clouds, then add the birds
and don’t forget the bugs and bees
Let me know when you have finished.
Apr 28
MeredithPoetry, Writing jon thrower, Learning to Die in the Theater, national poetry month, poetry out of nothing challenge, yay poems!
Learning to Die in the Theater
the way a poem learns to die is that way she broke up with me:
throwing someone’s sister into the fender of an S-10 Chevy
and turning to kick me tween the nuts with those pointy shoe’s
bizarre popularity in 2006. While said sister’s hair covered a zoysia
swath near the oak’s cloistered Natty can’s conference I just
laid out stiff in the rainbow iris and wildflower patch by the porch
hoping for death. In the morning, Talley shook me awake saying,
“Dude, let’s get a beer.” My hand across the rasp of his shaved
head was soothed by a Bud bottle at the Sandlot where a guy named
Foreskin illustrated, in perfect algorithms, the double-bank.
Apr 25
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Uncategorized, Writing Dayna Carpenter, guest blogger, national poetry month, painting, reverse ekphrasis, sisarhpke, the kind of thing that makes your day, water color
Today’s guest blogger is Dayna Carpenter, a dear friend of mine. She’s amazing in her job at UMBC, which is how we met, but she’s also an incredibly talented artist. It is appropriate then, that her post for today is, at its core, visual. She’s chosen to take a look at poetry and narrative, and when she agreed to guest blog, she told me she thought she’d respond to a poem with a painting. I was entirely surprised, honored, and humbled to find out today that she chose one of my poems. I move beyond my typical guest intro with this next statement, but it must be said: Dayna, thank you. I am so moved by your work and completely honored that you found in my poem not only something worth reading but something that inspired your own art.
Click on the image to see it full size.
Trying To Remember Daddy
Girl, small, clomps
across the room
in scuffed steel-
toed boots
while he sleeps
in his favorite arm
chair.
– Meredith Purvis
I’ve always been captivated by poems that can stir up memories and feelings. This one, in particular, reminds me of well-oiled Redwing boots that my father always owned as I was growing up. Every year, it would be a new pair – with their fresh leather smell and pristinely smooth surfaces. Later, you would find them well-worn and creased sitting beside his reclining chair.
Dayna's father, Bryan, and her brother, Andy.
Apr 23
MeredithPoetry, Reading, Writing building a poem, cento, danielle pafunda, national poetry month, poetry as architecture, poets and writers, writing poetry
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been following The Academy of American Poets 30 Poets 30 Days Twitter project. They’ve had some great poets guest tweeting for them. One of them, Danielle Pafunda, is hosting a cento (poems composed from the lines of other poets) contest. Throughout her day as guest Twitter-er, she tweeted 75 lines from different poems, then asked followers to compose a cento from those lines in about a day and a half.
I was loving the lines she’d chosen, so I decided to try my own. I’ve never really done this before, but it was an interesting experiment in composition, in order, in arrangement. The spirit of the cento is something new from something old, and so I was free from the stress of the words themselves–I didn’t find myself trapped in the cycle of type, delete, type, delete. Instead I was free to focus my energy on how the poem came together as a whole.
I’m sharing an excerpt from my poem below (you can see it in full here), and I encourage you to check out all the entries over at the official competition blog. There are some pretty amazing poems, and it’s interesting to see all the different ways people worked with the same initial stock of lines and even words. Thanks to Danielle Pafunda for an awesome contest idea, and for picking such great poems to work with.
For six months I arranged museum dioramas;
now I am safe in the deep V of a weekday.
Sewing up the kinks in this film, I’m
sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair,
sleepily indifferent, because the continent
was clothed in trees, just jars of buttons spilled.
Once you’re done checking out all those awesome poems, get to work on your entry for the Poetry Out of Nothing Challenge. The deadline’s coming up on April 27, but you still have plenty of time. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors! And don’t forget about the cool prizes!
Apr 21
MeredithPoetry, Writing I love deadlines and especially that wooshing sound, national p, national poetry month, Poetry out, poetry out of nothing challenge, the most splendiferous poetry ever, tips and tricks for writing
Since April 27th is practically upon us, I thought it might be a good time to see how things are going. Are you taking me up on the Poetry Out of Nothing Challenge? Have you been working on your poems? If you have, a hearty huzzah for you! If this is your first time writing poetry, or even if you’ve published ten books of poems, you deserve a cheerleader. Facing down the blank page is never easy, no matter how often you do it.
With that in mind, I thought I’d try to offer up a few helpful hints and exercises for you as you work on the challenge:
- Before you do anything, I want you to stare down that idea of Poetry (with a capital “P”) say, “I am not afraid of you!” It will feel silly, but there’s something to be said for creating your own truth. (I give myself writer’s block all the time because I get nervous that I can’t possible write a good poem. Giving myself a stern talking to has done wonders.)
- Don’t just write one poem, try writing a couple–it will give you a chance to flex your muscles a bit and take some of the pressure off because you’ll have a few to choose from.
- Grab your rhyming dictionary. Or don’t. (i.e., do what feels right for you).
- If you’re struggling for subject matter, try one of these awesome exercises:
- Think of something you do every day–something you could do in your sleep. Write out instructions for it. Make it thorough. Then break it apart into lines and stanzas–you may find a poem there.
- If lines and stanzas aren’t your thing, give prose poetry a try. Write your thoughts out in paragraph form, then just work on editing that more familiar form into something you love.
- Pick a few words or phrases. Write them down over and over and over again, until they begin to look strange to you. It’s a great way to find the rhythm and sound you might otherwise take for granted.
- Madlib your poem. Find an existing poem and pull out the nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. Fill the holes with your own words.
- Make a list of your favorite words. Then grab a thesaurus and look up some synonyms for them. Try to build a few sentences using those words you love so much and the new ones you’ve learned.
- Collect words and phrases from things you come across during the day–ads, menus, books, emails–and then jumble them all together to make your own found poem. Take liberties with your materials.
But most importantly, remember that it’s a poem because you say it’s a poem, not because it meets some invisible and complex set of rules and standards. Happy writing!
Do you have any writing tips or tricks you use when you need help getting started? Then share them here–I’d love to hear them, and so would your companions in this challenge!
***Feeling fuzzy on the Poetry Out of Nothing Challenge details? Find out more here.******
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