Poetry Prompts

Wisdom from the Stone Mother

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

It’s just the first third of the sestina.  I pooped out and watched Chinatown with Jon this evening instead of finishing the poem.

It’s all one big pool.
One fountain, one single source.
Only take what’s yours for today.
Connect yourself to Earth and Sky and spread your wings.
Listen through the words, for the word that gets overlooked;
that one word could hold the whole story.

You are the Teller of your own story.
Don’t be afraid to dive into the pool,
but remember not to leap before you’ve looked
and swim against the current, to your source
where you will rise from the waters, find your wings
and fly into the dawning of the day.

Prompt for Saturday
. . .is to finish the sestina, of course.  I’m making my own rules this month, and so I’ll give myself two days for the sestina.  Seems reasonable to me!

Gratitude List:

1.  Quetzal and Panther
2.  Finding the wings
3.  Smoked Sea Salt
4.  Motherhood–learning to hold on, learning to let go
5.  Water

May we walk in beauty.

All That I Have Ever Been Redux

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Back to that phrase that came into my brain in a dream last week, in a rondel, and in a single crazy twisting sentence.

All that I have ever been
is compounded by what I am now,
by all I can avow or disavow
and by all that I have ever seen,

the fields of past folded upward by the plow
of Time into this moment, between
all that I have ever been–
compounded by what I am now–

into the turning future, which will allow
this interweaving, scene to scene,
the colors shifting: red to gold to green,
all times overlaid as one, somehow
a part of all that I have ever been.

 

Friday Prompt
Becky and Dakota White suggested a sestina.  Even though today was a form experiment, I am going to try a sestina tomorrow because this excites me, and because the rondel was fun and satisfying.  Care to join me?  Here’s the Sestina Form description from poets.org.

 

Gratitude List

1.  Suzy was not badly hurt in the accident today.  Hold your friends close.
2.  The thrill of writing in a poetic form.
3.  That tasty wild blueberry granola from Miller’s.
4.  Reading with the kids.
5.  Hawks along the highway and gulls on the lights of the old bridge.

May we walk in Beauty.

Anger, Thursday Prompt, Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

A Word on Anger

You know the burning fury,
when a line of silence
as loud as a scream
begins to work its way upward
from your shoulders
over your ears.
The red waves
behind your eyes
begin to pulse forward.
Time stops.
Your hands turn to claws.

Feel it,
feel the cold grip,
the white-hot brands,
and step lightly to the side.
Look at that anger,
I’ll say to myself,
like the saint in Be Here Now.
What an interesting anger!
What a shape!  What a color!
Oh, notice, notice,
notice how the red begins to blur
the edges of your vision.
Notice how the sounds
are seared into silence.
No one else has an anger quite like this one.
This one is mine, all mine.

A New Prompt
Mmm.  This is getting hard, coming up with my own prompts each day.  I think am going to try a rondel.  Here are Robert Brewer’s directions for rondel.    I’m not sure I’ll be too careful about syllable count–I might blow that off entirely.  I might go to that random phrase generator to start myself off!
Gratitude List

1.  Bright red
2.  Tea and cookies and Marie’s wondrous Christmas tree!
3.  Every night right now, I am incredibly grateful for the coming of sleep.
4.  Post-Christmas de-cluttering.
5.  The poetry of Rumi.

May we walk in beauty.

List Poem, Wednesday Prompt, Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Never Not Broken

Three red stripes of sunrise through torn clouds.
A cat-claw scar down the center of my nose.
The broken spot in my Rumi anthology that always opens
to the one about the moon dropping her clothes in the street.
The crispy pin-feathers on the head of a moulting hen.
The little moon-shaped chip in my cobalt bowl.
The sleeves of that old brown sweater, tattered just so.
The dent in the rear door of Roxanne Buick, from the ice storm
that broke the limbs off the maple at the old blue house on Main.
The welt of a scar across my belly, where my children first breathed air.

Poetry Prompt for Wednesday
What shall it be?  I have been thinking about writing about anger.  A poem about something that makes me angry?  Want to join me?  If you have a good idea for shaping an angry poetry prompt, please help me out!

Gratitude List

1.  Catching my stride again
2.  Collaboration
3.  The women I work with at Radiance
4.  Blue lace agate
5.  Warm sweaters

May we walk in beauty.

Jan. 7 Poem, Jan. 8 Prompt, and a Gratitude List:

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

I am not planning to make a habit of waiting until the next morning to post.  But here you have it.  I am coming to terms with how much daily events and needs can take over the poetic process, even when I am managing some personal writing time each day.  I do not mean this as a complaint, just an observation–I feel pulled lately between the extreme neediness of a three-year-old and the writing of the poem.  My heart and soul are bound up in figuring out how to meet his deeper needs beyond the moment-to-moment challenges, and so what is left for poetry is my head.  Here’s the glosa from yesterday:

Be Melting Snow
“Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
A white flower grows in the quietness.
Let your tongue become that flower.”  –Rumi

To pursue the path of the poet
apprentice your soul to nature.
Mark how she moves, moment to moment
dance her wheeling rhythms
follow the pathways of water
wander down to the meadow
taste the nectar of the poppy
listen for the scree of the hawk above you
stand silent in the shadow of the crow.
Be melting snow.

Be the thrust of the thaw
the clashing of ice on the river
the flow and the flood
the bursting of seed, the forces of growth
the blood: vitality, fertility, health.
Be the fire at the heart of the sun
the raging, whirling winds of summer.
Become the heartbeat of the Earth Herself.
Wash yourself of yourself.

Then let it go.
Be wide and open as the ocean.
Let the sky unfurl within you.
Be the whine of the mosquito
the whisper of an owl’s wing.
Be patient, forceful, fearless.
Be the dream of the trees
the secret hope of the sparrow.
Go into the stillness.
A white flower opens in the quietness.

Hold that perfect form
within your soul’s eye.
Unhitch the horse of your brain.
See it with your heart
with your hopes.
Feel the bud’s birthing power.
Long for its blooming.
Feel it quiver with wakefulness.
Begin to open, hour upon hour.
Let your tongue become that flower.

 

Prompt

Today I am going to write a list poem.  I like lists, and I like the stacking together of images to see what sort of house they make.  Care to join me?

 

Gratitude List

1.  Grandparents–the kids get a day to re-set after almost two weeks of quarantine and crankies.
2.  Spiders
3.  Stretching and yawning
4.  Radiance–what a marvelous place to spend a day!
5.  Sunrise.

May we walk in beauty.

Jan. 6 Poem, Jan. 7 Prompt, and a Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

I found a Random Word Generator online that spit out eight words for me to choose from in my Ten-Minute Spill. It gave me
hat
cooling
classic
jived
avast
spitefully
motel
thwart

Fine Kettle
Avast! That’s a fine kettle of kale,
she jived, tipping her hat with a wink.

It’s a classic twist on an old saw,
an artful attempt at redirection.

You’ve no idea–
absolutely no idea–
how I have worked to thwart
your bumbling good intentions,
she added spitefully.

And now–
where have you gotten us?
Here in this kettle of kale,
this stew. This mess of fish,
if you will.

Work your way out, if you can,
with your words–
forkful by forkful.

Add sea salt and sesame oil.
Braise until bright green.

And here’s a poem from 1997-1998, the first time I ran across this prompt:

Chasing Chickens

I’ve counted my chickens.
A dozen times or more they’ve dashed–
Dashed, I tell you–
Into blackberry canes,
Wings whirring.

White clouds of dust engulf me.
Their voices chuckle
from the cliff’s edge.

Don’t tell me about chickens.
I’m green, baby. Green.
And I don’t know how
I’m getting home from here.

Prompt for Tomorrow
I am feeling like my poems this round are fluffier and more slapdash than the batch I worked in November. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been sick. Perhaps it’s because the prompts were from outside myself. Perhaps. . .  Anyway, I am going to try a glosa tomorrow. Here are the rules, if you choose to play with me: Choose four consecutive lines of poetry and use that as the epigraph of your poem, crediting the poet. Then write four 10-line stanzas of poetry. The four lines of the epigraph provide the final lines of the stanzas of the poems, consecutively. And the 6th, 9th, and 10th lines of each stanza rhyme. Here is my example from November:  Song for a Change of Heart.  It’s not nearly as difficult as it first appears.  If you’re intrigued, give it a try!

Gratitude List:
1.  Gratitude Lists, to keep me working and processing even when I am tired and cranky.
2.  Clean laundry
3.  The NYT Sunday Crossword is back in the paper this week.
4.  Chapstick
5.  Anticipating busting this cabin fever tomorrow.

May we walk in beauty.

Tanka, Prompt and Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Into the Blue
Sparkling winter day:
a flock of one hundred gulls
will catch a kettle
to spiral over the ridge
and wink out into the blue.

Prompt for Jan. 6
Here’s “Ten-Minute Spill” by Rita Dove, from The Practice of Poetry by Robin Behn and Chase Twitchell:

“Write a ten-line poem. The poem must include a proverb, adage, or familiar phrase (examples: she’s a brick house, between the devil and the deep blue sea, one foot in the grave, a stitch in time saves nine, don’t count your chickens before they hatch, someday my prince will come, the whole nine yards, a needle in a haystack) that you have changed in some way, as well as five of the following words:

cliff
needle
voice
whir
blackberry
cloud
mother
lick

You have ten minutes.”

Because I wrote one of these a few years ago, I think I will try to select another random eight words to choose from before tomorrow (unless someone posts a list for me before morning). I will also post “Chasing Chickens,” my first Ten-Minute Spill poem–one of mine that I am most fond of.

Gratitude List
1. Those gulls wheeling in the blue above the fields.
2. The beginnings of a fort around the two weed trees in the brushy area beside the Dancing Green.
3. Sarah’s Herbal Vapor Rub.
4. Google Earth
5. Naps.
May we walk in Beauty.

Jan. 4 Poem, Jan. 5 Prompt, Gratitude List

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

The Poem
Here is yesterday’s (Jan. 4) post. This is a pernicious flu. It hits you like a Mac truck, then watches in the rear-view mirror until you pick yourself up and start to dust off, then it guns into reverse and knocks you down again. I think I heard it laugh diabolically yesterday as it ran me down.

Here is yesterday’s found poem, a little slapdash. I took it from page 179 of Starhawk’s Truth or Dare. I really want to do more found poems, but they’ll have to be on healthier days for me! This one feels unsatisfactory, but it at least fulfills the exercise.

New Dimension
to be silenced is to be
i s o l a t e d

telling our stories
telling and hearing our stories

create intimacy
support

when we speak our experiences
we make contact

real selves:
seen, mirrored, affirmed
we can know we are valued

our lives take on a pattern
and new dimension of meaning.

Today’s Prompt
I need to rest today. Today’s poem will be a tanka, a syllable count poem. Five lines of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables. If I am inspired, I may write several. Please join me! Post here in the comments or on the FB thread.

Gratitude List
1. Looking in the window of the Bookbindery on the corner of Grant and Water and seeing a light shining on the hands of the bookbinder as he tenderly restored the cover of an old book.
2. Memories of Aunt Lizzie repairing books just as lovingly.
3. 12 hours of sleep–all four of us!
4. Elderberries
5. Memories of my father-in-law, Ellis Kreider, who died 4 years ago on Epiphany.
May we walk in beauty.

Song of the Joyful Beads

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

A poem, again, and another prompt, and a gratitude list.
Song of the Joyful Beads
for Susan and Mara and Nicki and Suzy

“Toss me your words right over the bridge,
I’ll string them like beads,
not jewels, but amulets emitting joy,
and one of the beads will spell peace,
and one will spell joy, and one,
oh, no, I dropped one out near the garden
and a migratory bird carried it back to you.
The word was gratitude.” –Susan Mull

I keep remembering your beads strung up
like bright birds on a fence,
like dewdrops sparkling on a blade of grass

and that last, lost bead
coming in my open window
on the bill of a tiny hummingbird.

I keep remembering the joy, the hope, the joy,
I keep remembering my heart, how the doors hung open,
how the sun poured in, a blinding light.

I keep remembering how the golden scales of her arms
twinkled in the dappled sunlight of the creek
as you opened your hand and a garnet, blood-red,
tumbled into the waters. How it settled there,
gently, the shadow of a pearl, in her hands.

I keep remembering the envelope you handed to me
that golden day in December.
On the card, in green pen,
you had written my name.

I keep remembering what is compounded
in this present moment, how the past
yearns to break free within the now.
I keep remembering tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s Prompt–for January 4
Tomorrow, I will write a found poem. Join me in any way you choose, but I will follow the guidelines in William Stafford’s book Getting the Knack, in which you choose a compelling text or several, of 50-100 words. Examine it carefully, find the words that must be there and excise the ones that don’t belong. Shift and tidy. Make sure to credit sources. You can post in the comments here or on my FB page, if you want!

Gratitude List
1. Angels of mercy on a trip bringing soup and lunch to the sick-house. Thank you, Mimi and Pawpaw!
2. I am going to work tomorrow, getting out of Dodge.
3. Jon’s newly tidy basement play-space for the children.
4. Grey hair.
5. The ways words weave us together.
May we walk in beauty.

Ooops
Yesterday, I said Winky was dramatizing a T.S. Eliot poem. I was wrong. It was W.B. Yeats’ “Second Coming,” about the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.

A Poem, A Prompt and a Picture (with a Gratitude List)

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Poem
First, the poem.  Today’s prompt was to begin with “All that I have ever been. . .”  My own chosen prompt, and I really struggled with this one.  I realized as soon as I started working with it that I set it up to be too navel-gazingly self-referential.  Ah, well.  Here’s an attempt:

All that I have ever been
meets in this moment
with all that I will ever be.

Yesterday I will be different
than I was tomorrow and yet the same.

Do we grow backwards into time
as well as forwards?

Time, we know, is no fixed line.
Perhaps it is a plane,
a blank surface which we cover
like a collage.
We slide across the surfaces
laying down colors,
images, and text.

Tomorrow’s Poetry Prompt:
Last month I wrote a poem that opened itself up to some really fun collaboration.  It began “I keep Forgetting. . .”  Tomorrow I am going to finish the “I keep Remembering” poem that I began shortly thereafter.  Join me?  Write one or the other, or both!

Photo:

Rough Beast

And now for Winky’s annual re-enactment of a famous literary quotation.  Any guesses about the T.S. Eliot poem she is thinking of?

(Joss was looking at the nativity scene today and explained to me very carefully how our set is missing the pony with wings.)

Gratitude List:

1.  Easy-open citrus
2.  Fun crafting time with the kids today
3.  We will get well again
4.  Every day brings more light
5.  Really heavy antique quilts

May we walk in beauty.