the angle of sunlight the pressure, waiting for noon for now to come for you to be here the angle of your arm, the tilt of your head my breath in your hair the taste of your cheek
Thank you. And yes, it's wonderful. I want to write to them and tell them, and even send them a donation. It's been a wonderful prime for my poetry pump these last two days. I put it in my daily bookmarks, and plan to do it every day. Maybe I'll actually come up with a poem I can take somewhere one day.
Maybe I'll actually come up with a poem I can take somewhere one day.
I wouldn't be surprised. I like the results so far.
Sadly, I have yet to be able to shut out my internal editor enough to complete the exercise. My ability to write poetry mostly disappeared at some time I can't pinpoint, and hasn't come back.
Basically, it all broke loose in a writing class where the teacher would pick a topic (usually a story from the day's paper or a finish-the-sentence thing) and force us to write for five minutes without stopping our pens. If we couldn't think of anything to write, we weren't allowed to write "I can't think of anything to write," or something like that -- we had to write "Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing..." (Thank you, Beth Sherman, wherever you are.)
The point (typo: poing) of this exercise, and it worked for me, was to get us to write crap, and then get over ourselves. What she said was that about 90% of what every writer writes is crap -- the task in front of us is to write such a huge volume of stuff that the 10% of decent writing adds up to something.
So I went looking for books with either freewriting exercises like the one in that class, or writing prompts I could use. Here are the two that ended up mattering to me:
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0877733759-2) -- all about freewriting. Goldberg recommends writing three pages every morning. These "morning pages" made a HUGE world of difference to me.
and
In the Palm of Your Hand: A Poet's Portable Workshop: A Lively and Illuminating Guide for the Practicing Poet, by Steve Kowit (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0884481492-9) -- Kowit was my teacher in college. He is amazing, but even more amazing is his handbook. The first three poems I wrote from exercises in this book were my first three published poems. I like it because I don't have to think too hard -- he gives guidelines and asks questions, and then I can just write without overthinking, at least on the first draft.
Anyway, I have never had writer's block since (I have, however, had periods of time in which I don't write at all because I don't have the desire to do so -- I think of that as something other than writer's block. When I feel blocked, I just pick up the latter book, or write three pages of crap, and the blockage is cleared completely).
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 11:12 am (UTC)I wouldn't be surprised. I like the results so far.
Sadly, I have yet to be able to shut out my internal editor enough to complete the exercise. My ability to write poetry mostly disappeared at some time I can't pinpoint, and hasn't come back.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 11:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 11:30 am (UTC)The point (typo: poing) of this exercise, and it worked for me, was to get us to write crap, and then get over ourselves. What she said was that about 90% of what every writer writes is crap -- the task in front of us is to write such a huge volume of stuff that the 10% of decent writing adds up to something.
So I went looking for books with either freewriting exercises like the one in that class, or writing prompts I could use. Here are the two that ended up mattering to me:
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0877733759-2) -- all about freewriting. Goldberg recommends writing three pages every morning. These "morning pages" made a HUGE world of difference to me.
and
In the Palm of Your Hand: A Poet's Portable Workshop: A Lively and Illuminating Guide for the Practicing Poet, by Steve Kowit (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0884481492-9) -- Kowit was my teacher in college. He is amazing, but even more amazing is his handbook. The first three poems I wrote from exercises in this book were my first three published poems. I like it because I don't have to think too hard -- he gives guidelines and asks questions, and then I can just write without overthinking, at least on the first draft.
Anyway, I have never had writer's block since (I have, however, had periods of time in which I don't write at all because I don't have the desire to do so -- I think of that as something other than writer's block. When I feel blocked, I just pick up the latter book, or write three pages of crap, and the blockage is cleared completely).