Writing Workshop

i honestly forgot i was running this community.

now that i've remembered, i'm thinking of starting it back up again. anyone interested?

happy new year, yo. this has been quiet for awhile, so I figured I'd post my ten-minute scribbling over vacation.



my father has stopped sleeping.
he is awake by dawn,
memorizing the contellations he has shown me all my life:
"Orion," he says, aligning my hand to his.
"The Seven Sisters."

my father has stopped sleeping
at midnight he reads Steinbeck
on the living room couch;
by one o'clock he sits in the dark at the table,
his head angled in shadow.
he watches me from a doorway, sometimes,
warm eyes in a smooth blank face.

my father has stopped sleeping:
I come home to his quiet humming on the patio
over the constant cadence of the ocean
his time metered out by the passing cars.

My next assignment is very simple.

Since it is finals week for those of us in school and it is still a stressful time of year for those who aren't, all I'm asking is that you stay rested and healthy.

And if you get a free moment, look back through here and post some feedback on at least one of the lovely poems that have been posted, preferably one that you haven't given feedback on before.

*DUH*
Okay, I friends only my posts, right, but duh katie, only people on MY friends list can see them, so I'm friending all of in the community I haven't yet. Just a warning.

hi folks - I just joined, at rainy_kate's invitation, so I thought I'd poke my head up and say hi. I don't write nearly as much as I used to & want to, but getting and giving feedback is wonderful impetus. for starters, I'm just going to offer up the last thing I wrote, sometime last week, which needs lots of work but I haven't yet seen wholly fit to trash.



the color of red wine
staining a tabletop
reflected in the light of passing cars
and a muted television.
nobody is here;
i am not here:
only a fly buzzing from corner to corner.

yesterday a homeless man
asked me for a cigarette.
he held my hand as i talked with him
watching the pale smooth skin of my fingertips
and wished me a good night.

a mushroom rots in the kitchen sink,
and the smell of stale smoke clings to the bedsheets;
the telephone rings, rings, and falls silent.

Hello ladies, and Rick, those whose gender I'm currently unaware of, and those whose gender falls somehere in between (Should have covered all my bases with that one!)

My friend intercat would like to join our wee little writing community. I personally vouch for her at least pretending to live with high levels of debauchery and procrastination. And, she's talented.

So, I say, if she applies, let her in.

Or there will be increasingly more difficult assignments... muhahahahah!

i will continue to post prompts, more or less for the hell of it, so when you see one you like feel free to take advantage.

that goes without saying anyone else can post prompts as they are inspired to, or poems.

kate, dear, i am still working on the form poem. will be up certainly by tomorrow!

With most poets today, there is a tendency to write "free verse", in the sense that meter, rhythm and form tend to be abandoned, or afterthoughts. Part of this, I feel, has to do with the perception of form as difficult (although I understand that it springs from very different origins), but using form often stretches your artistic muscles, as you must work within a series of limitations to make a good poem - and we all know that it can be done, centuries of poetry prove that. My assignment is to write a poem in a very specific form, on any topic you see fit. Please specify the form in your post. (After using the form to write, you can lose it in revision, if you like). The trick is to try to be creative with your form as well: I once wrote a sonnet where I translated the rhyme scheme into a color scheme.


This seems to be a useful resource on defining forms.

hey! will anyone volunteer to post a prompt for today?

also: my poem will be up monday. you guys have a great weekend! and, don't forget that kate posted hers already, so go back and comment.

Landscapes

“This architecture insults your landscape –
Are the only one who can’t see that?”
It’s only a tattoo, I thought.
He explored the flatness of the desert floor
Where my secrets had fallen.

I let my lips graze that sticky sweaty kissing face,
A face without the taste it used to have.

(The things he’d waited for consisted of
A progression into misunderstandings
In bed, and silences among cigarette smoke.

He couldn’t admit how he’d worn out my newness.)

I am not afraid to admit
How all of my clichés
Slid down chutes,
Dropped into another man’s
Ocean, where they circled
The corroded drain until midnight.