Author: Debi

Experiment: “Extra! Extra! Read All About It!”

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This week’s experimental writing assignment consisted of creating several word banks and then using the resulting lists of words/phrases and “creating something fantastical out of reality, hiding fact behind mystery.”

We needed to:

  1. Pick something we have some expertise in and then use its specialized language (I chose Charlotte Mason educational philosophies)
  2. List words and phrases related to a town or city where we live, grew up, or are well acquainted with (I chose Auburn, Washington)
  3. Write a dream in exactly 7 words in only 90 seconds.

I used the 7-word dreams as titles/headings, and then used the word lists as word banks to create something true/false and “fantastical.”

 

“EXTRA! EXTRA!  READ ALL ABOUT IT!”

Giant black widow spider in the kitchen—

A giant black widow spider was spotted in the kitchen of a mobile home near the library. This proved to be an opportune circumstance for casual nature study.  The students carefully observed the handicraft of the web.  Appreciated the artistry of the wildlife.

But is the spider an illegal?  Where are its papers?

Others see the black widow in the housing projects.  The country club set in this small town is welcoming to the herons.  But not to the crows. Or to the panhandlers, the homeless, or the black widows.

Crime!  Gambling!  Graffiti!  Mexicans!

This composition is no longer in keeping with the healthy historic hometown habitat of the highbrow Presbyterians and Methodists concentrated on Main Street.  Where are the Baptists when we need them?

Call the police.

Pair of barrels fell on their heads—

While working in the Safeway warehouse on the other side of the tracks, a pair of barrels fell on their heads.  The gangs claimed responsibility which was more than the mayor imagined.

In the English countryside, the gardens don’t grow low-income teenage pregnancies.  But here, the casino, racetrack, and Bingo hall breeds crime and community colleges.

The Dream Center does outreach along the White River and under the rocks where the homeless encamp.

Flooding in the riverbed assists the slaughter of the Japanese farmers who began growing strawberries, hops, horses, parks, pajamas, cottonwood trees, trains, and outlet stores.

City Hall is proud of their community.

Poem: Dragging the river

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by Debi

Dragging the river of memory—

In search of her younger self

It’s already too late.

Her life was her torture.

She was capable of imagining

a life outside of housework.

That sense of youth and immortality disappeared

in the destruction of the old familiar.

The river hurtled toward the sea

Inevitable

Don’t look back

or you lose her forever

 

An email to CA Conrad

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Dear CA …

To have friends you can trust with your own creations
would be, could be, will be, is gonna be—
priceless.

What does it mean to live poetry?

What is the price we pay to be a poet?
We love, we suffer, we die, we cry
This seems a high price to extract
from ourselves
for the privilege of creating
and revealing
all within.

What lessons are we learning in everyday everything?
Have we become so habituated to the habitual
that we are unable to see
the soma in the somatic?

~Debi

Playing Around with Shakespeare: “But soft!” – Antonyms

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Playing around with Shakespeare …

Antonym Substitutions – “But soft!” Monologue

But stonelike! What duskiness through nearby doorway restores?
It is the West, and Juliet is the moon!
Lie down, mediocre moon, and enliven the undesiring star.
Who is not healthy and dark with joy
That thou her gentleman aren’t less ugly than she.

Poem: Innocence Lost

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by Debi

Once upon a time there was a girl …

An older friend
A friendly hand
Shhhhh.
Keep still.   Our secret.

Once upon a time there was a girl …

Let’s play.
Striptease. Doctor.
Sexy Barbies.
The childhood games of victims.

Once upon a time there was a girl …

Scoot closer. Where I can reach.
Always reaching.
Shhhhhh …
Don’t tell. Don’t ever tell.

Once upon a time there was a girl …

A tiny child.
Robbed of
Innocence.
Before she even knew the word.

Experiment: [Soma]tic Experience ala CA Conrad

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[Soma]tic Experience (inspired by CA Conrad)

by Debi

INSTRUCTIONS:

I will not brush my hair.  I will not put on make-up.  I will not wear shoes.  I will spend 15 minutes of quiet, uninterrupted time sitting on my living room couch while holding—one at a time—five of my pets (3 cats, 2 bunnies).  Each pet will get 15 minutes alone with me, so this will be about an hour and an half of sitting on the couch with animals.

I will alternate cat/bunny/cat/bunny/cat, and will quietly take notes on my laptop while doing nothing else but appreciating/petting/noticing whichever animal is currently in my lap.  Notes will be whatever random thoughts or observations I have while holding the animal.

I will leave the notes for at least 10 hours, then return to the notes, reread them carefully, see if any ideas take shape, and then compose a poem(s) or prose from any resulting inspiration.

RESULT:

 

“YOU and ME vs. HE and SHE”

US —

Curious loving relaxed trusting tender sensitive soft beautiful

THEM –

Ferocious cold wild glaring green-eyed impatient jealous demanding dangerous

THEN –

Painful needy vulnerable desperate blue

NOW –

Perceptive protective depth security strong fearless alert

FUTURE –

No fear of the hunter / no longer the hunted

THOUGHTS:

Hm.  Interesting experiment.  The resulting “poem” is weird but actually quite meaningful to me … although I’m certain it makes little (if any sense) to anyone else outside of my head.  It also has nothing whatsoever to do with cats and bunnies. 😉

Prompt: Imaginary Conversation

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Writing Prompt: Imagine a person sitting in a chair across from you and have a conversation (or two).

First Imaginary Meeting with Mom:

Long ago …

You sit in a chair in our old house
then you crawl onto the floor
to sit with me on my level.
We both use the coffee table
as a rest for our elbows.
You are very young now,
the youngest memory I have of you.
Your cat’s eye glasses perch on your nose.
You smile and lean over to tweak my nose.
You mouth words I struggle to hear,

“I love you.
I did the best I could.”

Second Imaginary Meeting with Mom:

Much later …

You sit in a chair across from me
hunched and shriveled.
The effect of two strokes still visible
on your face and body.
I want to hold you, my tiny mother.
To cradle your joints
from the hard plastic chair.
To shield your eyes
from the overhead light.

To see you like this
makes my heart ache, Mommy.

Poems: A Photographic Tanka Journey

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I’m still messing around with the Walks and trying to decide how to format them, write them, etc.  Should they be recorded in a diary-style?  Or prose?  Poetry?  A series of tankas?  Free-form poems?  Or should I just give it all up?  😉

So this is the latest incarnation of Walk #1 and a complete experiment. I’ve never written tankas before.  A tanka is usually a five line Japanese poem with the syllable count of 5-7-5-7-7.  The idea to try my hand at tankas written about walks in city parks was inspired by reading Urban Tumbleweeds: Notes from a Tanka Diary by Harryette Mullen.

Walking Roegner Park:  A Photographic Tanka Journey

by Debi

Sun barely risen

Empty, cold I start to walk

Well-trodden concrete

Right or left, is the question,

To take the trail less traveled?

river with sun (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choose the river path

Sound of crows, footfalls, river

Soggy from night’s rain

The wind is quiet today

Grasses bent from prior storms

trees with a crow (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crows are still scolding

Following me as I walk

Same crows or others

Passing their scolding to friends?

In the distance, train whistling

train on bridge (3)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sound of cars, river

The train’s crossing the bridge now

Graffiti’d roadway

A city park, not country

Impervious surfaces

grafitti (3)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A pair of mallards

Sun is beginning to shine

White puffy berry

Too wet to pop, it went squish

An albino cranberry

White_Berries_by_dsimple (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I notice more birds

Sparrows, chickadees, finches

A flock of flickers

A pilated woodpecker

Gaggle of south-flying geese

geese (3)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abandoned playground

In the midst of a puddle

Surface reflects sky

The mud sucks at my new shoes

Vanity wins, I move on

playground (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing detectives

Lots of mem’ries at this park

Kids playing ‘gators

Stop!  Don’t touch the hot lava!

Nearly twenty years ago

toy and footprints in mud (3)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do people ride here?

A rail for tying horses

Park coming alive

Dog walkers, German shepherds

Hello car, time to go home

horse rail (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.slideshare.net/debihough1/slideshelf

Poem: Artful

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Short poem in response to Ali Smith’s book, Artful.

Artful

We lived together, her and I

Our bookshelves melded, too.

The scholar and the arborist,

Introduction days were through.

A world of sorrow at her loss.

Moving chairs to better see

My books, my rugs, my furniture.

Time heals, but not for me.