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Wild and Mysterious Poetry

This week I talked about being unpinnable, the violence of language, and survival, so I was drawn to my Sasquatch poetry kit (assoc link). Sasquatch Sijo by Maria L. Berg 2024 The Prompts NaPoWriMo: Write a sijo. “This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #magnetic poetry #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry forms #poetry immersion #portable MFA #prompts #sasquatch poetry kit #sijo #writers #writing

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XLIV Pushcart Prize Collection

On the page across from the editor’s note in the May/June 2020 Poets&Writers Magazine, there’s a full page ad for the 2020 Pushcart Prize XLIV Best of the Small Presses edited by Bill Henderson. The X in this number is ten subtracted from the L after it, as the I is one subtracted from the V after it, so we end up with forty-four. P&W Collage #23 – Wedge There’s a quote from Jane Hirshfield on…

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#American Sonnet #April challenges #April PAD Challenge #blogging #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry immersion #Poetry Portable MFA #poets #prompts

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Poetry as a Wedge

In the Q&A with Cathy Park Hong called “Double Doors Open” by Dana Isokawa in the May/June 2020 Poets&Writers Magazine, the word “wedge” is used three times in three different ways. P&W Collage #23 – Wedge Dana Isokawa writes, “I spot Hong’s three poetry titles on a top shelf, wedged between Homer’s Odyssey and Garrett Hongo’s Coral Road.” In answer to a question, Cathy Park Hong says, “I had…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #blogging #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry immersion #Poetry Non-stop #poets #prompts

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The Violence of Poetry

In the Q&A with Natalie Diaz called “Energy” by Jacqueline Woodson in the March/April 2020 Poets&Writers Magazine, Natalie Diaz said, “I have lived many lives. I have tried and failed at many things. I have won and lost much. I don’t know much, but I believe language lasts. In all its violence and tenderness, it lasts and lasts.” P&W Collage #22 – Violence She continues, “You and I are here…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #blogging #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #dVerse #dVerse poets #homonyms #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry immersion #poets #prompts

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Unpinnable Poetry

In the Q&A with Natalie Diaz called “Energy” by Jacqueline Woodson in the March/April 2020 Poets&Writers Magazine, Natalie Diaz surprised me with the word, “unpinnable.” She saidd, “I learned quickly that myth is what makes me dangerous—the ability to make a rock weep for its creator, a way to say the river runs through my body, a way to say you are my eye. When America says myth, they mean we’re…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry immersion #poets #prompts #writers #writing

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A Poem as Time

Time also came up a lot in the special section of the Jan/Feb 2020 Poets&Writers Magazine. Keith S. Wilson who wrote Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (assoc link) his writer’s block remedy is: “Time. They say time heals all wounds, which is a lie, but it is true that no wound healed without time. I hope that given enough time, I will come to an epiphany or someone will happen to teach me just the…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #novelty #poetry immersion #poets #prompts #triolet #writers #writing

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Poetry as Survival

In the Special Section “Inspiration” in the Jan/Feb 2020 Poets&Writers Magazine, several of the poets used the word “survival” when talking about how their collection began. P&W Collage #19 – Survival Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes who wrote The Inheritance of Haunting (assoc link) said, “This book emerged as a result of poetry as a mode of survival and healing at the intersections of my own…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry #poetry forms #poetry immersion #portable MFA #prompts #writers #writing

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Music Lover Poetry

This week I couldn’t resist the Music Lover magnetic poetry kit. Here’s a poem I wrote with it. Musician’s Prayer by Maria L. Berg 2024 The Prompts NaPoWriMo: write a poem that focuses on a single color PAD Challenge: write a trope poem Today’s Poem Bad Guys Who Can’t Aim How do you know whothe bad guy is when they’re all wearing black?Who is the villainin the dead of nightor when…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #magnetic poetry #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poems #poetry immersion #portable MFA #prompts #writers #writing

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The Reach of Poetry

In the Reactions section of the Nov/Dec 2019 Poets&Writers Magazine, I read, “Much of the advice and coaching I offer to undergraduate students who are contemplating MFA programs is to take some time to think about what they actually want out of it, to reach out to people who teach at certain programs or those who may have attended,” in a letter from a reader. In another letter I read, “I was a…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry immersion #prompts #writers #writing

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A Poem Ponders a Question

The word “question” comes up often in the Nov/Dec 2019 Poets&Writers Magazine. The editor’s note starts with a question, “What is the future of independent publishing?” He writes, “That was the question I asked the eight industry leaders whose answer-essays are featured in this issue’s special section. It was, of course, a rhetorical question. . . .” There’s a Q&A with Reginald Dwayne Betts who…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry immersion #prompts #writers #writing

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Poetry's Power of Perspective & a Pantoum

In The Literary Life section of the Sept/Oct 2019 Poets&Writers Magazine, Steve Almond wrote an article called “Manuals for Living: What Our Favorite Novels Teach Us About Ourselves. He says he rereads Stoner (assoc link) by John Williams (1965) “an alarming percentage of his time.” In the article he writes, “And so I read the novel as a study in human conflict, the ways in which Stoner…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #Pantoum #poetry immersion #prompts #writers #writing

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Poetry as Ordinary Observations of Opposites

After yesterday’s discussion of novelty, the word “ordinary” stood out to me in the Sept/Oct 2019 Poets&Writers Magazine. In The Literary Life section article “Historical Fiction: Th Pleasures and Perls of Writing About Other Eras” by Christina Baker Kline and Lisa Gornick. Kline mentions a New Yorker piece in which Jill Lepore writes, “Fiction can do what history doesn’t but should. It can tell…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #novelty #poetry immersion #prompts #writers #writing

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Poems as Novelty Detectors

In the Editor’s Note of the July/August 2019 Poets&Writers Magazine, Kevin Latimer wrote, “. . . it made me appreciate how easily the human ear can block out background noise. (It’s a built in function of the brain, specifically the “novelty detector” neurons, which store information about patterns of sound and stop firing if a sound or pattern is repeated).” According to this article…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #novelty #poetry immersion #prompts #writers #writing

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Quadrille Monday

Whimzygizmo’s prompt for today’s Quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words) at dVerse Poets Pub is “Friday.” For an extra challenge, I used my new The Artist Magnetic Poetry Kit (assoc link). I added the word Friday with part of a label sticker on one of the magnets. It was a very different Quadrille experience. Forty-four words is a lot when you’ve only got two hundred to choose from and you’re…

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#dVerse #dVerse Poets Pub #fun #magnetic poetry #new poem #Quadrille

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Poetry's Music

Music was mentioned several times in the July/August 2019 Poets&Writers Magazine. In the Note from the editor, he writes, “So when you’re having that engaging conversation in a crowded restaurant, the babel of other voices, the music, the clatter all recede into the background. . . . In the poetry prompt, “Happy Babbling,” it says, “Language is a living being. . . .a kind of happy babbling for…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #music #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poetry immersion #prompts #writers #writing

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Art Poetry

After my week went terribly wrong and I was feeling very down, I bought myself: (assoc. links) the Schylling Marblescope Kaleidoscope, and the The Artist Magnetic Poetry Kit, but in my haste to get it as soon as I could, I didn’t check the address, and sent it to my house instead of where I was staying. But now I’m home, and to my surprise no porch pirates had come my way, so I’m enjoying my new…

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#April challenges #April PAD Challenge #ekphrastic poetry #Jan Pypers #magnetic poetry #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poems #poetry immersion #prompts #writers #writing

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Poets Listen in Libraries

In another article in the News and Trends section of the May/June 2019 Poets&Writers Magazine, called “Sharing Poetry Chapbooks Online,” I discovered a fabulous resource library and place to listen to poets reading. Poets House has been digitizing rare chapbooks of the “Mimeo Revolution” a period stretching from the early 1960s through the mid-1980s when small-press publishing proliferated. I…

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#SoCS #April challenges #April PAD Challenge #Blogging A to Z Challenge #collage #free kaleidoscope programs online #kaleidoscopes #NaPoWriMo #National Poetry Month #new poem #poems #poetry immersion #prompts #writers #writing