Just One Last Word: Imagine

Strawberry Fields in Central Park, NYC

Here’s to years of imagining together in the Garden! Love.

Weekend Mini-Challenge: 13 Poetic Bits of Kerry

I haven’t always cared for poetry. In fact, a handful of years ago, those of you who have known me for a bit probably had the displeasure of reading my rants about how much I hated poetry (and how Shakespeare was very likely a frilly ruff-wearing sadist). Then illness (and the fact that the idea of not writing on a regular basis was rather painful) not-so-gently nudged me to give poetry writing a try. That’s how I stumbled into the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, how I ended up falling in love with Kerry O’Connor’s poetry (and with the delight of poetry writing).

So, for my last prompt, before our Garden closes its active doors, I wish you to celebrate Kerry’s poetry with me. Joining the celebration is easy, just select 1 of the 13 lines below (which I harvested out of 13 of Kerry’s poems), and write a new poem. The words in your chosen line must remain exactly as they are—consecutive and unaltered (other than capitalization)—and you must use every word in the line you choose. Line breaks are fine. For example, if you choose the first line, “A nightmare is mere fodder” can be line 1, as long as “for poetry” is (or starts) line 2.

13 poetic bits of Kerry, for today’s prompt (somewhere in your post, maybe at the end, show us the Kerry Bit you chose and give Kerry credit. And if you are feeling extra giving, also let us know why you chose that particular line):  

1. A nightmare is mere fodder for poetry

2. But, oh, how high you fly on the trapeze. No nets

3. Crushing fragments of yesterday

4. Does it burn, my dear? Does it trouble you

5. This flesh is mine, it has bled, and shed

6. The future arrives just as water

7. The nights are not dark enough

8. I am the embodiment of smoke

9. I have been halved and cored

10. I will love you in the darkness of soul

11. Our hearts are naked

12. Permit yourself to pause

13. The (right) words to undo the wrong
* To read the poem a line belongs to, just click the number.

Visit @skyloverpoetry, Skywriter, and Skylover to enjoy more of Kerry’s words.

My sweetest Kerry, thank you so much for letting me offer your poetry as inspiration, and for allowing me some growing space in the Imaginary Garden. You rocketh very mucho… and you are sooo loved.

Dear Toads, add the direct link to your new poem to Mr. Linky. Do visit other pond dwellers. As always, share your thoughts on the ink-flowers blooming in their Imaginary Garden. And please, please, please… be kind.

Weekend Mini Challenge: The Uncertainty of the Poet

Welcome to the Weekend Mini Challenge with Kim from Writing in North Norfolk.

I can't believe this is my last prompt as a Toad! I'm going to miss the Imaginary Garden and all who write in it. I'm so glad we have a while until we say goodbye - but we will undoubtedly see each other in the blogosphere.

At the last school where I was an English teacher, we had an annual festival, to which we invited writers, poets, rappers and artists to perform and host workshops. One year we included something for the adults: we invited the poet Wendy Cope for a reading. I had the pleasure of drinking coffee and chatting with her prior to the performance, as well as overseeing an interview by two students who worked with me on the school magazine.

I recently read one of her poems again and thought it was an excellent model for a weekend mini challenge. The poem is ‘The Uncertainty of the Poet’, which was written in response to a 1913 painting by Giorgio de Chirico.

Image found on tate.org.uk

I would like you to read the poem via the link above, study the structure and word patterns, and then write a similar poem, choosing your own words to noodle around with, restricting yourself to those words and trying them out in different combinations in couplets. It’s a good idea to choose words that you like the sound of, but not all to do with the same thing. This is a challenge with which you can have a lot of fun!

Join in by clicking on Mister Linky and filling in your name and url – not forgetting to tick the small ‘data’ box. And please remember to read and comment on other toads’ poems.

Just One Word: Burnished

burnished

By Jean-Jacques MILAN 00:27, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14364

WEEKEND MINI-CHALLENGE: ON WONDER

On the mountain tonight the full moon
faces the full sun. Now could be the moment
when we fall apart or we become whole.
Our time seems to be up—I think I even hear it stopping.
Then why have we kept up the singing for so long?
Because that’s the sort of determined creature we are.
Before us, our first task is to astonish,
and then, harder by far, to be astonished.

              - from the poem “Astonishment”,  by Galway Kinnell

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

― Albert Einstein

Humpbacks breeching in Alaska

source @Scott Methvin

In Galway Kinnell’s wonderful poem, Astonishment,  time slows as we grasp the concept of how - big! - this life really is. For me, it is not hard at all to be astonished – I am constantly amazed by the wonders of nature. There isn’t a day when I am not astonished by something large or small.

Every day reminds us of the goodness of humans. We are bathed in sunrises and sunsets beautiful enough to break your heart. How trees hold hands under the forest floor, that male seahorses give birth, how many colourful starfish cling to the rocky cliffs at the shore – the fact that we wake up in the morning, able to see, to stand, to walk – all of it is an amazement to me. Life’s beauty can bring me to my knees, with the ache of how transient and fleeting it all is, this beautiful  life.

For our challenge, let’s contemplate these topics : awe, amazement, astonishment, wonder. 

Give us a moment, small or large, full of wonder.  Employ whatever form you wish, and use as many or few lines as you need to take us there. 

Just One Word: Dynamite

* dynamite *

Weekend Mini Challenge: Maladroit

Welcome to the Weekend Mini Challenge with Kim from Writing in North Norfolk.

Often when I'm reading, I come across a word that I would love to use in a poem and make a note of it for future reference. I recently wrote down ‘maladroit’, a word I have seen before, but this was the first time it made an impression on me - it may have been the context or my mood on the day I wrote it down.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines ‘maladroit’ as an adjective meaning awkward in movement or unskilled in behaviour or action (clumsy) with the following example sentence:

‘She can be a little maladroit in social situations.’

Image found on theguardian.com

Like many of the more interesting words in the English language, ‘maladroit’ comes from Old and Middle French: ‘mal’ meaning bad and ‘a droit’ meaning right, direct, straight or properly.

Charles Baudelaire used the term in the second stanza of his poem ‘L’albatros’ (he Albatross) from his collection Fleurs du mal (Flowers of evil), which you can read in French, together with various English translations, here: https://fleursdumal.org/poem/200

I found a great poem on Poem Hunter by Rebecca Kingswell, entitled ‘Maladroit Mechanisms’, which you can read here: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/maladroit-mechanisms/

This weekend, I would like you to write a new poem with the title ’Maladroit’ which conveys clumsiness, awkwardness and anything associated with that condition or feeling.

Here's a song from the Maladroit album by Weezer:

Join in by clicking on Mister Linky and filling in your name and url – not forgetting to tick the small ‘data’ box. And please remember to read and comment on other toads’ poems.

WEEKEND MINI-CHALLENGE: GRANDMA'S KITCHEN

source

For your weekend mini-challenge, re-visit your grandmother’s kitchen. Was it your safe place? Is there one item that stands out for you, when you remember being in that warm, bright room?

Tell us about it, any form, any length. Take us back there. Make us see it. How did you feel, as a child, back then, in your grandmother’s kitchen?

source

Wordy Weekend Mini-Challege: Messages in Water

The world is full of wonder and amazement.  I am sure many of you have heard about Masaru Emoto, who, in 1994, froze drops of water from various sources, then examined them through a microscope. He noted that there were no good results from tap water, or water sources near cities. But he saw beautiful crystals, each one different, from pristine living water sources.

Investigating further, he noted changes in the crystals depending on what words, pictures, music or energy was directed at it. The crystals responded in beautiful designs when he showed them words such as "Thank You", "kindness", and "love". They reacted with  disgust and disfigurement when shown negative angry words or images.

source

"You disgust me"

source

source

Right now, we are bombarded by negative angry energy and discord every time we turn on the news. We see how rhetoric spreads like dark clouds. I can't help but wonder what would happen  if several billion of us projected light, positivity, kindness and appreciation out into the world? Surely, we would shift the global consciousness?

source

For your challenge, fellow Toads, write about water, in any way you wish

or

write about energy, good or bad, and how it affects everyone and everything around it. I look forward to reading your responses.

source: Masaru Emoto website

Just One Word: Halved

* halved *

photo by Marian Kent

(Calm down, everyone. This is an eggplant.)

Art FLASH / 55

For this weekend's art collaboration, I am introducing an illustrator in mixed media ink, Quincy Washington, from Portland, Oregon, USA. He has kindly given permission for us to use his gold-embellished, 'Emperor of the Dawn', for our poetic inspiration. This picture is part of a his Zodiac Series: Royal Talens Collection - Leo.

Emperor of the Dawn
Quincy Washington
Used with Permission

If you repost the image on your blog, please give attribution to Quincy, using the following link: https://www.instagram.com/albanusdesign/

Feel free to pay him a visit on Instagram, where more of his Dark Art pieces are to be viewed, but not used for this prompt.

If you post your poem on Instagram, using Quincy's image, please tag @albanusdesign and mention him as the collaborating artist in your post.

There are no restrictions placed on this challenge: Let the image speak to you and respond in a poetic or prose form of your choosing: Literal! Figurative! Reflective! Narrative! Symbolic!

As an alternative, you may write a Flash 55 inspired by the art, or on a subject of your choice, in memory of Galen, who first imagined this challenge.

I wish to remind all participants that this linky does not expire and the post remains open and at the top of the page all weekend. If you link early, please return to read other poems linked up after your own.

Weekend Mini Challenge: Let Evening Come

Welcome to the Weekend Mini Challenge with Kim from Writing in North Norfolk.

I own a copy of the Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, entitled The Making of a Poem, to which I sometimes refer. In the third section, it devotes a chapter to the elegy, the pastoral and the ode, each with an overview and a great range of examples. I was flicking through to find a poem that would spark a prompt and came across a beautiful poem in the pastoral section.

The pastoral became popular in the sixteenth century. “On the surface, it appeared to be about an ornamental and sometimes fictional view of the rural and bucolic life. But huge questions lurked below that clear surface. In the pastoral mode poets could experiment with these questions.Was man made for nature or nature for man? Was the natural world to enter the poem as a realistic object or as a fictive projection of inner feelings?”

The pastoral poem developed from “shepherdesses and tidy rural constructs… both an escape and an idea” through the unrest of the Industrial Revolution into the “wounded pastoral”, which became a place to “mourn for and celebrate rural life”.  In the twentieth century, it lamented urban intrusion, celebrated urban hubris, speculated the future and developed into eco-poetry.

Image found on Goodreads

I have chosen a poem by Jane Kenyon, ‘Let Evening Come’, to inspire your pastoral poems this weekend:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46431/let-evening-come

What I love about this poem is that, on the surface, it is indeed a pastoral poem with imagery taken from a typical rural scene: the light in the barn, the cricket, the fox and the woman getting ready to knit, all moving towards evening and then night, gently and quietly. But when you discover that the poem alludes to the creeping cancer that took the life of the poet’s friend, and find out also that the poet was bipolar, it takes on new meanings.

Image found on Shutterstock

This weekend, I would like you to write a new pastoral poem about evening, the shift from late afternoon through twilight to the black shed of night, following the format of Jane Kenyon’s poem, but no more than six tercets.

N.B. All quotations in this prompt come from The Making of a Poem.

Join in by clicking on Mister Linky and filling in your name and url – not forgetting to tick the small ‘data’ box. And please remember to read and comment on other toads’ poems.

Weekend Mini-Challenge: Pick 2 Prompts, Any Prompts! then Senryū or Elfchen or Cherita

If you’ve read me once or thrice, you probably already know that I love merging prompts and writing very short poetry. So, when the time came for me to say goodbye to my Imaginary Garden with Real Toads hosting days (for now, at least *cough*), a last prompt that merges two prompts to create a very short poem feels just right.

Keeping that wee bit in mind… for today’s prompt, I invite everyone to take two prompts, any prompts, and merge the two topics to create a new senryū, or elfchen, or cherita poem. Your chosen prompts can come from anywhere or any-when, just make sure to include the link to both prompts. Only one poem per poet.

 

Senryū: “three lines with 17 morae (or “on”, often translated as syllables…). Senryū tend to be about human foibles… and are often cynical or darkly humorous.” ~ Wikipedia

Elfchen: “a short poem with a given pattern. It contains eleven words which are arranged in a specified order over five rows. Each row has a requirement that can vary: 1^st line (1 word), a thought, an object, a color, a smell or the like; 2^nd line (2 words) what does the word from the first row do? 3^rd line (3 words) where or how is the word of row 1? 4^th line (4 words) what do you mean? 5^th line (1 word) conclusion: What results from all this? What is the outcome?” ~ Wikipedia

Cherita: “the Malay word for story or tale… consists of a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse.” ~ CHERITA [1--2--3]

There you have it, dear Toads. Choose 2 prompts, any prompts! and birth a new poem out of them (a senryū, or elfchen, or cherita). Add the direct link to your new poem to Mr. Linky. Visit other poets.

Thanks a million for letting me host poetry prompts these last few years

You rocketh very mucho (and then some).

Really, I know these things.