After weeding my gardens this morning I wrote down these words.
Breezy
Earthy
Petal whites
Lady’s Mantle
Chartreuse
Hoe
Tools – clipper, spade, rake
Wheelbarrow
Vetch
Grasses
And then I wrote this poem:
A breezy morning ruffles
whites – peony and tulip. I gear up
with my tools, take on the weediness
of June.
A hoe uproots invaders.
I yank up chickweed and purple vetch,
clip dead leaves, passed blossoms,
and dead branches.
Slowly
the chartreuse of Lady’s Mantle is set off
by dark earthy compost, and zebra grasses
stand proud.
A wheelbarrow fills
with the detritus. What is taken away
and what treasured. How to know.
Having worked with many, many poetry prompts, I understand that surprising yourself into writing you didn’t know that you knew is part of the satisfying effort to say something fresh in a poem.
A prompt is an excellent thing. And yes, it’s just a beginning, but it pushes your mind around a little so that the new words you write down are also a new stream of thoughts getting unloosed. Those words want to find a space on the page, they demand that you will look at them, read them again and again, and finally decide whether or not they will survive.
All that from taking 10 random words and jamming them together.
I do the same thing with making art. I challenge myself with a prompt – perhaps a close-up photograph of patterns, or colors in nature. I experiment making those colors in paint and finding papers to receive them. I paint papers – solid, patterned, printed – and cut them up to say something fresh.
On July 9 – come to The Art of Poetry and the Poetry of Art: A Day of Exploration, with Ellen Goldsmith and me, you will do all of this! We have poems and prompts, papers and glue. We are so excited to experiment along with you as we look at some of the organizational tools of both poetry and art, and let them learn from one another.
Join us! It will be a great day!
