For National Poetry Month, I’m writing poems inspired by words, images, and ideas in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. It seems fitting that the last poem of the month is a celebration of writing a diary. I chose to revisit the elevenie, a form I enjoyed playing with earlier in the month. Day #30: Diary diarycuriosity containerhold…

For National Poetry Month, I’m writing poems inspired by words, ideas, and images in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. Today I worked from a line I’d copied into my notebook earlier in the month: At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials. Day #29: Time for Essentials a room with a viewquiet space…

For National Poetry Month, I’m writing poems inspired by words, ideas, and images in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. I’ve found myself quite amused by the amount of complaining Woolf does about all her guests and visitors. She longs for solitude and quiet, yet every day is a seemingly endless round of social obligation. It’s exhausting just…

For National Poetry Month, I’m writing poems inspired by words, ideas, and images in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. As Woolf continues to try to grapple with The Waves, she notes: my mind works in idleness. To do nothing is often my most profitable way. I decided to try another etheree, a ten-line poem that adds a…

For National Poetry Month, I’m writing poems inspired by words, ideas, and images in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. Today I took a playful approach to writing poetry and explored the Poem Generator site. It’s a bit like a Mad Libs: you supply nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and then the Poem Generator does its work and…

For National Poetry Month, I’m writing poems inspired by words, ideas, and images in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. Today I needed a rest and happened to realize that a line I’d copied into my notebook was, with line breaks, a perfect kimo. A kimo is an Israeli form of three lines with syllable counts of 10-7-6.…

For National Poetry Month, I’m writing poems inspired by words, ideas, and images in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. Is the ukiah/reverse haiku really a thing? Do people write them on purpose? I don’t know, but I wrote one today, borrowing a line from the Diary: we have been at Rodmell–a wet, windy day again; but on…

For National Poetry Month, I am writing poems inspired by words, ideas, and images in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. The working title for the novel that would eventually become The Waves was The Moths, and for many pages of the Diary, that’s how Woolf refers to it. As she contemplates beginning to write the novel, she…

For National Poetry Month, I’m writing poems inspired by words, ideas, and images in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. I decided to try to answer the question Woolf asks in this passage as she grapples with the prospect of beginning to write a new novel (which would become The Waves): Now about this book, The Moths. How…

For National Poetry Month, I am writing poems inspired by words, ideas, and images in Virginia Woolf’s Diary. Today I decided to try a Pablo Neruda style ode, inspired by this passage in the Diary: This is written, as many pages in the past used to be written, to try a new pen; for I…