Counting Dead Chickens

I applied to an advanced workshop at The Writer's Center. Most classes you pay for and you're in, as long as space is available. However, for this class you needed to submit a suite of poems and the instructor selects you for the class.

The class description included a required text, called The Practice of Poetry, which I ordered online assuming - and you know what they say about that - I would be accepted. I wasn't. The book apparently didn't get the memo and arrived anyway.

Flipping through a few of the exercises, I noticed one by Rita Dove and stopped flipping to try it. Might as well, right? For her prompt, you had to write a ten lined poem in ten minutes. The poem had to incorporate a familiar phrase along with five words from a list.

Familiar phrase: when it rains, it pours
Words: voice, needle, blackberry, cloud, mother

* * * * * * *

the clouds darken
like blackberries
inviting the rain's
nagging voice -
different from
your mother's voice
but just as persistent -
sorrows pour over you
like rusty needles
searching for severed seams

* * * * * * *

What does that have to do with dead chickens? Nothing really, but it was one of the other familiar phrases I was going to use and modify...the one that says "don't count your chickens before they hatch." Since I ordered the book before hand, without being accepted in the class, my chickens didn't hatch.

#52Poetry Update

This month I was able to read four more poetry collections.

1. Head Off & Split by Nikky Finney
2. Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove
3. Sweethearts of Rhythm by Marilyn Nelson
4. The Firefly Letters by Margarita Engle

Last Day?

Today was the last day of my writer's workshop with Reuben Jackson. I wrote a cento using lines from Audre Lorde. Some people didn't know Audre Lorde or what a cento was. I was more than happy to share what I knew. Why? I'm a poetry nerd. I love learning about new forms and learning from other poets and being around folks who share that same love.

The same workshop is being offered in spring and I want to take it again. Lemme just check my bank account to see if I can.

Writing Challenge

I need to participate in a writing challenge. I always write more during a writing challenge. Perhaps I should have said, I write more on my blog, because I haven't stopped writing offline. There's an April PAD (I think) coming around the corner. Count me in.

Tanka Thursday

Joi – my character –
is speaking to me. Wowzers!
It’s been great because
I’ve been able to write three
poems for her. Keep talking.

Blowing off the dust

*twiddles thumbs*

I haven't abandoned you blog. The bulk of my writing has been nestling inside my current composition book. As a matter of fact, I only have three pages left in that composition book to fill.

The poetry workshop I'm taking at The Writer's Center has been productive. I have a handful of new poems, I'm getting feedback that is useful, and I've met an instructor that I could (potentially) ask for a letter of recommendation for an MFA program. If my instructor plans to have a spring class - and I hear he is - I intend to sign up. If I can pull enough chips together, I'd like to take two classes. Very unlikely, but maybe I'll get a nice tax return.

I perused University of Pittsburgh's MFA program online today...