A poem needs companions The words of writers Who traveled this path before A poem needs a question Curiosity Wonderings and discovery A poem needs space The distant view out windows Fields to wander in A poem needs light Sunshine to balance the dark Of difficult things A poem needs time A quiet introspection…
Notes: This poem came from an exercise Stephen Dunning and William Stafford’s Getting the Knack. The process is simple: cut out 50-100 words from newspaper titles, then arrange the words into something interesting. I used headlines and advertisements from a couple of old issues of The New Yorker. Dunning and Stafford advise poets to encourage…
Girl in a library So many books A little salvation Wide open grassland No horizon is so far where rivers change direction Lost in the sun Where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs Peace is every step Two or Three Things I Know For Sure: You are here You learn by living If…
Practice a p act i act ac e a r t Practice a pact i act ace art Notes: This week, I read Bob Raczka’s delightful children’s poetry book, Lemonade and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word. Raczka uses only the letters in the word he’s chosen to create the poem and then arranges…
I have sat on your keyboard and erased the message which you had spent twenty minutes writing Forgive me the keyboard felt so warm on my cold paws. ************ I woke you at four a.m. with piteous cries and yowls when you were planning to sleep until seven Forgive me it was so dark and…
1. Find a metaphor: percolating, steeping, fermenting. 2. Consult your horoscope: “Your sixth sense is right on target, Cancer, so trust your instincts today. Stay close to those things that resonate strongly with your morals. The answer is in front of you; you don’t have to search too far afield in order to find it.”…
Who can say cats aren’t holy? Spirit incarnate living poem sacred offering modern totem or maybe the god of love himself come to earth. Notes: My favorite cat, Chipotle, inspired this poem. There he is in the photo! I have been trying and failing to write an acrostic poem for days now. I know,…
