On Color, a writing exercise

I don't know if I have already mentioned this, but I started going to a writing group that meets twice a month.  It is a pretty informal affair, and the group is mostly made of 40+ aged novelists.  What happens at this group is we free write for about 20-30 minutes, and then do 1-2 min short writing prompts and share our creations (good and bad!)--- and this goes on for about an hour.

It is a good way to get comfortable with yourself and writing, get a little bit of feedback/support, and just practice using your imagination.  And it is usually fun and delightful to hear what hilariously bad or surprisingly good thing you and others can come up with.

Anyways, I wanted to share one of the more promising things I've produced during writing group so far.  I sometimes feel silly at the group because tonally and stylistically my stuff can be a little weird, especially when compared with the very normal, narrative-oriented, novel-esque scenes, dialogue, and prose the other writers came up with.  I often feel like I cheat on the prompt because I feel like I don't really do what it asks.

The last time I was at the group, I think the prompt was something like "Describe a color to someone who has never seen it before."  For some reason I started thinking about the colors of yellow and yellows in nature.  There are so many different colors that fall into the category of yellow.  And all those colors exist in millions of places all over the world, meaning different and the same thing in all those millions of places and contexts and experiences.  And even as those colors exist in those places and context, things change and those colors bleed into and become other colors, and even become inseparable from the other senses like smell, heat, movement etc. . . . .  so on that subject, this is what I wrote on color.

Poem: Spring, for some people

I am trying trying trying to do more writing. I ordered myself to write one poem this weekend. So of course, ever the contrarian, my brain actually made some significant progress in two story ideas I am developing for screenplays.

But I did manage to do a little poetry experiment and come up with this poem, based off of the best words from page 131 of Lucky magazine's 2014 March issue. 

Poem: sky & hill

Preface: I wanted to experiment with a sort of weird surrealism, and telling more of a concrete narrative in my poems.  (I also can't think of what to call this. I originally was going to call it by the first line, but then though that would ruin the punch of the first line.  I don't want to call it "sky & hill" because it sounds like its some sort of myth/origin story about the sky and hills.)

"sky & hill"

Hilltop death

the closest place to the sky

pours over the globe

in its thick, blue paint.

I can taste the acrylic

like salt on my lips.

Only the breeze under my lashes

and the great, blue, nothing

And one small shape.

Far away,

a smoky flaw in the horizon.

In buttercups and star-shaped bells

time passes

the creaks of insect legs

and grass falling

under the kissing blue

My shape has become a palm,

pushing toward me out of that blue

soaring close

over great space 

A thick, wallpaper arm

molton, blue, bending

into a shoulder

a neck

a torso

Pulling the sky to the hill 

in an endless skin.

blue jewel lips part

opening its huge mouth

and engulf my face, then my head like a diadem,

swallowing,

leaving me at last with only the

recollection of the bristling wolf-hair on its shoulders.

Poem: the moon walks

Preface: I seem to be developing a thing for the moon.

"the moon walks"

the moon 

cut into the canopy

by the teeth of the gods

audacious it soldiers above us

daring to soar

sail boats

over our blue eyelids

and down the gleam on our hair

combed down backs of heads

it hums brazen

a laughing stamp of hope

walk

moon-proud

alive as rock

turn turn turn

and it is an etching

watching the

paper yellow trees
shine

sing

joy

and

crawl

Poem: tailgater

I do a lot of mental writing when I am driving.  Sometimes its the landscape or the 'alone-time' but mostly when I am driving, I know I have a captive chunk of time when it's ok to let my mind wander.  If I'm driving and musing and playing with words, I'm not procrastinating! I'm commuting!  I find it hard to make time to do creative things when I'm home because all I can think about is all the OTHER things I'm meant to be doing with my time instead.  So I'm learning to really embrace the bouts of creativity I experience when driving (although writing things down can get tricky, and pretty sloppy).

Here is a piece I put together from a bunch of recent-ish snippets I came up with while driving.  While it is a poem about driving, I don't put that all down to the fact that I was driving when I was throwing these phrases and stanzas around--- in general, I really gravitate towards stories and metaphors that pivot around images and sensations of driving, journeying, escaping or being 'in transit' versus traveling or heading to a destination.  So many of my random story/scene ideas seem to be about people driving, but not necessarily going anyplace of any particular relevance. Or are they?

Anyways: Here's "Tailgater."  It doesn't flow well and lacks focus right now.  I'm thinking of changing the title to something like: Ballad of a Tailgater or Message from a Tailgater, but I haven't found on the right combination that matches the mood of the poem.


"Tailgater"

Tailgater shines
headlight teeth.
A light at the end of the tunnel.
bright, dead destiny. wall.

I’m driving home to keep off someone’s loneliness.
That’s all I am.

I think:
he wants me to kill myself
I’m here to make way for his meaningless need
it eats up the black tunnel of space
--- cancerous mouth.

I plunge through the cake batter.
Feathers of ghost shadows scattering before me.
In the mirrors I hear the slap of handprints against the windows.
For around their feet,
the landscape bleeds into the canyon road,
as it must.

Perhaps the only way to live was to die.

And the only moon is the red stoplight.
It is in the pinholes in my windshield.
cars stand like gravestones
shells with eyes of even empty light

Meanwhile I live in cages for my time on earth
    sucking in the yellow from the sandpaper on my skin
    breathing the rough diamonds of dream pieces.

My only moon is the clock.  Patience.

I want to talk handsfree
    and drive too

And I’ve got no lover to take me places.

All along the highway
I see men throwing ropes
holding bricks of stars in their eyes.

Feel the weight in the air. in my hand.
against the metal of the motor.

Breathe in our night air that
    hovers in the morning
    mist: eat the fog with your teeth.

I turn the wiper blades off to see
if I can survive behind a
glitter mask
in my safe ice cube

I can see the halo of my lashes
falling from my face in the light of that gleaming smile.

ahead
cars hurrying crash in the night
bringing an end to those desires.

Photogsnazzy: A Tree, No More

Trees are very beautiful.

Even without their leaves in the beginning of winter this year, I keep on being surprised by how beautiful the trees are in the early morning, late at night, during sunset, in the rain, in the fog, all the time!  I find myself writing poetry about trees many times a week as I drive to work.

Sadly (or perhaps happily) by the time I actually get to work and can write my musings down, I've forgotten them.

My parents cut down two of the trees in our yard this summer.  As relieved as we all were not to have to worry about them falling on our house/cars during the Hurricane, I will miss them, especially the one outside my window.

No more will I be able to watch its bright leaves rolling back and forth in the breeze or being flattened in a windy gale or dancing against a backdrop of tumultuous dark thunder clouds.

I took this picture of the tree from my window last autumn, not knowing it would be our last together.

Travelling the Ode: Exercise 2

I've always wanted to read more poetry than I have: Keats, Plath, Mitlon, Byron, Poe, to name a few. I recently got Plath's Ariel from the library. But I feel like I could get a lot more out of poetry, if I knew a little more about it. I'd really like to read and write more poems, but understand the structures and forms of poetry better before I do.

I've never really learned anything really foundational about poetry, except in a crazy 2-week poetry-cramming session after the AP English exam junior year in high school, and then it was summer and I forgot everything, and let's face it, I only really read Ulysses and The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson anyway.

So I've turned to any learner's best friend, the erudite Stephen Fry and his super accessible, friendly and very educational book, The Ode Less Travelled. It's all about understanding poetry in order to enjoy poetry, and is written in an humorous yet earnest tone by an author who makes you feel right at home, making the same observations you are: about how pretentious pretentious snobs are, how seemingly arbitrary prosodic jargon can be, and how mediocre/silly his own poetry is.

Another great thing about the book is that Fry provides exercises for the reader to do, in order to better understand the concept he's just explained---- and he is constantly begging the reader to slow down and actually do the assignment, actually get a pencil and mark up the book. After a while you just feel deceitful not doing the exercises and not doing them properly. Although I started the book last year and balked at the first exercise (marking iambic pentameter and reading it over and over again outloud) I decided to try harder this time. I actually followed the instructions, and what do you know! It really helped! I am understanding iambic pentameter a lot better now, and can read it out loud much better than before.

The second exercise set me the task of writing my own 10 lines of iambic pentameter. It neednt be good, lofty, profound or anything like that, repeated Fry over and over again. Just practice writing iambic pentameter, trying to use more than just monosyllabic words, and trying to do a few paired lines. And do it all in 10 min so you don't obsess over everything: you are just practicing the meter! (He even does the exercise himself to demonstrate that it is possible and to keep the stakes low.)

Here's what I came up with. It's not very good, but it sure is in iambic pentameter. Or at least I hope so:

1.
I should obey the hateful clock alarm.

2.
My mother's shoes, those hammers split the floor

3.
I killed a man today with just a blink.

4&5.
How can you know how I experience
a sunless Spring, a birdsong scraping snow?

6.
A dancer's body never lasts for long.

7.
I see your apple sure is ruby-red.

8&9.
If worlds would shut I'd stay alone with you
blockade the din, the eyes, and hold your hand.

10.
My tea was bad and nearly cost my health.

Fry says to practice writing a few lines everyday. So perhaps more bad iambic pentameter coming soon!

Poem: Whalebones

Whalebones

Whalebones sing.

To some they summon a world

soft tones, soft looks,

dances of love words.

Bones tinkle together

like kissing chimes

strings of crystals

wineglass stems

arranged flowers.

They are magic wands of a fairyland,

gilt in the faded shades of picture books.

But those bones displace mine,

I feel my body crushed.

My own ribs bend inward,

shudder, split, splinter,

pierce my lungs

I can’t breathe, I say.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t move. I can’t run.

I can’t scream. I can’t sing.

Someone must help me.

The bone merchant does.

Poem: The Oyster

Poems are a frequent product of my attempts to write anything else.

In the spring, I had the great opportunity to hear poet Marie Howe speak and read when she visited Rutgers University. She said that it usually took her several years to complete one book of poetry. I was astonished, as like most novices, I think every word is golden in a first draft. But as I continue to write I am coming to understand her more and more.

This poem has been through probably eight drafts. I was hung up on the word "bauble" for a while, and have recently excised it satisfactorily. It probably still needs many more drafts, as most of the time when I make a change, I know it makes the poem better, but I don't always know why. And actually, between writing this sentence and the previous sentence, I wrote two more drafts, and I am still experiencing some ambivalence regarding the third stanza and the final line. But nonetheless, here it is.


The Oyster

I once dreamed of pearls.

Until I saw them carving my headstone in chalk.


Jewel-painted,

I am grown, nurtured---cultivated.

I am

loved?


Then,

they shatter me.

Shovel-handed, they scrape, scoop, tear---

pittances from the flesh.

The husk, they throw away:

shards of shell, to grind to dust


or sometimes,

to be picked up by some slow, quiet girl

who will say

‘These were pretty once.’

and lay the pieces together.


But some will be missing.

Avatar: the poem

About the author: The author wrote this poem in the midst of distress over the film Avatar winning best picture at the 67th annual Golden Globes award of 2010. As James Cameron accepted the award and was generally self-important, the author wrote these words:

Avatar
I died inside tonight.
Stop your speeches
wannabes
I have No Faith anymore.
We don't need you to give us
meaning.
No applause.
I will sleep in denial.

Poem: Telemachus

Telemachus
(based on 'Ulysses' by Tennyson)

It profits little that a seasoned youth
In this moldering place, amid these sterile walls,
Does fret and idle his childhood away
Knotted in the snare of troubled lives,
which pass, and stare, and sit, and feel not me.
I will not cease my vifor; I will be
All that I will be. All things I have known
Quickly, have tired quickly, both with those
Living my life, and not; in truth, and in
Dreamy visions in thoughtless eyes looking
Away from here. I will be become a name;
For always empty for a noble cause
For much I have hungered; a weakened heart,
And substance, firmness, essence, presence
Myself amid, and dissolved in it all.
I am apart from all I have known;
And all future is a space aloft as
There through shines an unforeseen world, that shrinks
Infinitesimal, lost as I reach
How sad it is to die
To crumble untested, and never freed!
As though to sigh were breath! Sigh blowing sigh
Were all nothing, and still nothing to me
Releases breath; but every moment saves
From that eternal graveyard some lost life,
For I have not yet what I will becomes
in life past by, that which I'm not I will be:
One pulsing for of solitary will,
Kept weak by youth and age, but alive in heart
to live, to stretch, to fly, and not to fail.