sharing a poetic LIFELINE with the world

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Make Visible: By Art Inspired

 Art sometimes inspires me to write poetry. Below are two paintings and the poems they inspired. Please read Lin’s post A New Way of Looking: Ekphrasis for an introduction to this idea. It is often not enough to just see a painting and write; sometimes research into the subject or the artist is helpful.  I researched James Joyce for the poem, “Joyce.”  The painting was incorrectly titled “Joyce in the City” on another website, where I was inspired to write the poem.  The correct name for the painting is Paris Street, Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte, 1877.

Paris Street, Rainy Day

Joyce

Plotting out your novel
in the rain,
or so I imagine.
I struggled with Ulysses,
didn’t get past the first five pages
to be honest.

You wouldn’t kneel
at your mother’s bedside,
standing up against Catholicism
even in death.

Your get rich quick schemes
failed, until you acquired a patron.
Still you squandered the money
every chance
on wine.

We’ll never know much about
your daughter,
the letters burned
by an overzealous relative.

Many eye surgeries later,
Joyce and an umbrella,
woman on his arm,
in the rain.

The second painting, The Little Deer by Frida Kahlo, 1946, also inspired a poem.  I dug a little deeper into the research for this painting.  The surrealism of the painting is reflected in this poem, “A Painting.”

The Little Deer

A Painting

You let your guard down
Didn’t see the hunter’s orange vest
Or didn’t care
Can the mute speak?
Still you run through the woods
You should be dead
A stag with the face of a woman
countenance as mysterious as the Mona Lisa’s
Run, deer, run
As if the plague were after you
As if followed by Roman soldiers
Aching to martyr.

What can you take away from this?  If you need inspiration, look online for paintings to inspire your writing.  They can be modern art, classical, fine art, or even photographs.  You don’t have to research the subject of the painting or photograph or the artist, but  it adds depth to the final work.

 

 

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Inspiration Shared

As promised, today’s post is a poem written by Eileen Peterson, entered in our recent “Favorite Poet / Poem / and Why?” contest.

My Dream House

(after the style of Don Blanding)

By Eileen Dawson Peterson

Word pictures draw the shape before my eyes
of a “Vagabond’s House” in some far paradise.

And wistfully I see that dream take shape
with every beam, and chair and drape.

My dream house could not be as bold
though just as dear as Drifter’s Gold.

Mine would instead be clean and low and bright,
a cottage built of clapboard boards of white.

With a roof  that’s neither flat nor peaked high,
of rough-hewn wooden shakes to signify

the country, cottage-look that I hold dear,
with a broad front porch, and another in the rear.

Columns wound with roses red as wine
and vibrant as rubies on a valentine.

A porch swing swaying in the breeze
invites my weary body take its ease.

All round the cottage, growing lushly there
clematis vines and roses everywhere

and peonies, iris and rhododendrons bloom,
that in the sun will execute perfume

as sweet and heady as any tropic flower
you’ll find in any south seas bower.

Just room enough for me and for
occasionally a warmly welcomed visitor.

I’ll have a bit of grass, just big enough
for Grandkids to play, though not too rough,

perhaps to kick a soccer ball or roll and play
or simply laze a whole sweet day away.

In my backyard I’ll have a special place,
a little corner just for my embrace.

There I’ll place a chair that’s comfortable and low,
where only ferns and shade flowers grow.

Oh, yes!  A gazing ball, right there, within my view
where lilacs, lilies and Shasta daisies, too

embower my special spot of privacy
There I’ll sit and sip a steaming cup of tea

and fall in love each day once more
with this house of my dreams that I adore

In my living room, open and bright,
with a large bay window to let in the light

I’ll have a fireplace of old red brick,
and carpets soft, and warm, and thick.

On the hearth there’ll be a spot I’ll save
for the cat my precious Grandsons gave.

Mico Cara, “monkey face”, a silly name
which, beautiful thing, he overcame.

And a room prepared so guests can come
where they will always feel at home.

So come, dear friends, sit on my porch with me
and share my lovely sun-filled reverie.

My favorite poem is “Vagabond’s House” by Don Blanding.  I was introduced to Blanding’s work by my High School Creative Writing teacher, Juliette Gibson, in 1952. His work is lyrical and so descriptive that I feel transported to his settings. “Vagabond’s House” particularly grabs me for it’s rhythm and it’s marvelous detail. It makes me want to live in that house. I can smell it’s exotic scents, feel it’s power, see the crowded fullness of it’s rooms, sense the sensuality of Blanding. So, when I bought my first very own house after my divorce, I wrote a poem about it after the style of “Vagabond’s House.” Thanks for this contest! Eileen Dawson Peterson

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Persona Poems

English: Gwendolyn Brooks, Miami Book Fair Int...

Gwendolyn Brooks

Persona Poems

Persona poems are poems that are written in a voice other than that of the author, where the author pretends to be someone else. The first one I wrote was in response to a poetry writing exercise. The next one that I recall writing ended up in “Lifelines.” Since then, I’ve created two imaginary poets as part of the science fiction novels I’m writing, and written at least 30 poems by each of them.

Writing a persona poems involves getting inside the head of the narrator (or in my case, the supposed author of the poems). It’s kind of like acting a part in a play, except that the writer is creating their own dialogue.

One thing that surprised me in creating the two poets and writing in their voices was the ease with which I slipped inside their heads. The first poet I created, Raketh Namar, namesake of the main character in my novel Relocated, which will be available from MuseItUp publishing this coming July, was supposed to live and write 5,000 years before the action in the novel, and was the author of one of the most sacred texts of my aliens, the Aleynis. I don’t usually write prayers or write about spiritual subjects, yet I found myself writing them without difficulty.  This past November I created another poet, Constance Trusdatter, a very political poet who lives and writes about 100 years before the action of my current work in progress, another science fiction novel with some of the same characters as the first. I don’t usually write much about politics, yet a good number of Constance’s poems are strongly worded poems about this very subject.

Here is a persona poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, one of my favorite poets.The young girl’s voice, her longing, and her desire to be  bad come through so clearly.

Notice the pattern of two unrhymed lines followed by two lines with end rhymes, and how in the final stanza both pairs of lines rhyme.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172082

a song in the front yard

By Gwendolyn Brooks
I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

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Congratulations to Edward Harsen

When we decided to hold a contest about your favorite poet, poem, and the reasons you chose what you did, we knew we’d get some interesting responses. What an amazing breadth of ideas, selection of poetry, and challenge!

We found your poets, and your poems, then reviewed the comments several times. Lewis Carroll to Sylvia Plath. Ogden Nash to Czeslaw Milosz. Ted Koosier’s stark sketch to Shakespeare’s sonnets. Keats to Seamus Heaney. Don Blanding inspired one responder to write her own poem, she was so moved by his “Vagabond’s House”.* Not to mention our own favorites scattered through the stack.

After much discussion, Edward Harsen’s choice and explanation of the “pig poem” by Douglas “Woody” Woodson climbed to the top. Here’s the poem and what Edward said:

Fourteener 279
(Please help me get this pig, dear Lord, into my truck)

Please help me get this pig, dear Lord, into my truck.
Like Jesus, he senses the coming end; unlike Him,
The pig’s exhausted us both with flailing. My hands bleed
From the scrap-wood ramp and sides of the truck bed.
The rope leash burns my flesh. My plan, God, was food
For family and fold, the head and feet for the poor. But Satan,
It seems, is breathing hot stink at me. The pig braces,
Digs four hooves in, and stares. I’d gotten him half way up,
Tied him, then put my shoulder to him. He kicked my tooth
Loose, Lord. My eyes watered. Blasphemy had its way
With me. Now, covered with muck, almost broken, I pray:
Help those who suffer most first. I’ll wait, catch my breath.
Then, please forgive me, and grant one small miracle
Father: Get this pig in my truck to take to slaughter.

Douglas ‘Woody’ Woodsum

– Why?
This is such a meaningful prayer, such an aspiration. There is humor and desperation in the sense, there is a compelling voice, the necessary economy and brilliant execution. This poem clearly needs to be said, the speaker needs to be heard. Nothing is missing from the recitation, and the music is beautiful. The familiarity of the matter and the clarity of the form make this poem ring like a single bell. I would want everything I write to be this sufficient.

We asked Edward for a bit about himself, and were equally delighted with what he said and how he said it:
First, thank you, and the Muselings, for the honor of being named the winner of this contest – what a great treat to receive on my birthday!

I have been writing poetry and prose since school, and worked as associate editor for Street Press and Magazine during the late ’70s and early ’80s. I have published poems in Long Island Press, Wood Coin, Shrub Oak and Street Press, and most recently in analogpress.net.  Two chapbooks of my poems have also been published: RENT, 1977; Surf Club, 1982.  After marrying my wife Jeanine and while raising John and Sebastian, our sons, writing took a back seat to most of everything else life provided. It has been only in the last five or so years that I have been writing poetry again, sending poems to publishers, polishing a manuscript.

My wife Jeanine is a singer and songwriter, a marvelous talent and inspiration to me. Music is central to the way I hear language, and her ability to compose and arrange is both mystifying and beautiful to me.  She also writes in rhyme, which produces a lyric quality that is different to my poems.  Ours is a magical partnership.

In my professional life, I work in Facilities and Property Management.  Since 2001, I have been researching business relationship methods, supply chain management and commercial competitiveness. I have written white papers and employee training programs for the territories I manage.  I find that a well-written email can be a piece of persuasive exposition, or a format for precision delivery of technical or difficult information.  Grammar, sentence structure, timing, format, and sense of audience: the pegboard-hung tools of the creative and technical writer.  

I am pleased that the older poems are immature and playful; pleased, too, that these recent poems are more clear and easier to say.  Encouraged by Apollo’s Lyre and other magazines, I have put together a manuscript of sixty-some-odd pieces called, “Three Sisters,” and will be shopping that around this year.

Best wishes to you for the new year.

Edward Harsen

Thank you, Edward, and the rest of you hearty souls who shared your thoughts and favorites with us. We greatly appreciate your participation, and hop you found it a fun process, too.

* We loved Eileen Peterson’s poem, “Dream House,” and will share that with you in a couple of weeks, as we talk more about “inspiration” — until then, keep writing and reading, and happy new year to all.

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A New Way of Looking: Ekphrasis

I learned a new word  recently, courtesy of a friend and Wiki:

Ekphrasis or ecphrasis is the graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art. In ancient times it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis, ‘out’ and ‘speak’ respectively, verb ekphrazein, to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name.

Nowadays it might be a snapshot of a scene, a work of art, or any creation that puts you in the head of the participants or an object and tell’s you what is actually happening within it.

So I thought, why not pick one of my collages as a prompt and write about it?

The one I chose is called “La Fleur” and here it is:

La Fleur

©2008 Lin Neiswender

Here is my poem about the collage:

The Photograph

Rose Pink my Papa calls me, his little blossom
I smile inside but not for the photograph
The buttons on my shoes are too tight and pinch my toes

My little dogs are lucky, they can run free with bare paws
On the fresh green grass, and rush into the house
When they are tired, heads out the window
Listening to the bird sing

But even they are dressed too fine for comfort
Tight bows of Mama’s fine silk ribbon tied
Around their necks, choking them as does
My lace collar choke me

Still a little girl’s first love
Is her Papa, and so I endure
The scratching of the lace,
The tightness of the shoes

All so Papa can take his photograph
Of his La Fleur Rose

©2012 Lin Neiswender

 

 

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Creative Writing, Ekphrasis, Inspiration, Lines by Lin, Poetry, Uncategorized

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What DO YOU think?

Christmas, Hanukkah, or other holiday memories — sights, sounds, smells,  textures, stories you remember  (or have heard so often that you think they might be your own ) — share them in snatches of verse.

We’ve given you ideas in the past few posts and would love more of what makes up your world at this time of year. It’s also time to think about your New Year’s Writing Resolutions. Ready to share them, too?

We’ll announce the winner of our “Favorite poet / favorite poem” contest very soon. We must say, it’ s not been an easy decision. Our deepest thanks go to the brave souls who shared their thoughts.

 

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Joplin, MO, Six Months Later

what the wind destroyed
the town cleared to rebuild as
Mother Nature smiled 

Six months ago, “the tornado,” as it’s referred to by residents, hit Joplin, MO. My cousin and her extended family were there.

One of her sons and his family were in Wal-Mart when the roof blew away; they were saved by overturned shelving, and dug out with scrapes and bruises.

Her brother-in-law and his three kids couldn’t get to a storm shelter, and sought refuge in a convenience store when the windows blew out. All fifteen people got into the cooler, which was then crushed down to a height of three feet. Layered like sardines, they got out alive.

Her grandson, his mother and step-father were home when it hit. They put a football helmet on the boy, put him in the bathtub, Mom next, hugging him, then step-dad threw a mattress over her and climbed on top. The mattress and dad were sucked out when the house blew away. He survived with a badly mangled arm that required emergency surgery. Grandson’s helmet was shattered when the wooden toilet seat ripped off and hit him in the head. Mom was injured, but all survived.

St. John’s hospital, where my cousin worked for over thirty years, was blown off its foundation. And this is just the top layer of what happened to one person’s family. My cousin had thirty-plus people staying in her storm cellar that week.

The horror and chaos of the time brought out the very best in open hearts, minds, and wallets from around the world. The next day, people  brought out grills and fixed food — whatever was available, for whoever needed it. Veterinarians provided free boarding for pets. Churches, as expected, set up shelters, babysitting, and food. Trucks began arriving from all over the country, and kept coming for weeks. People dug in and began doing what they could wherever it was needed.

Fast forward to this week, the six month anniversary.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition built 6 homes in town — one going to my cousin’s grandson and his family. The show will air in January 2012.

Habitat for Humanity built 10 homes; families got the keys to them last week.  Businesses are coming back, slowly, but surely.

The city council last week approved plans for a brand new state-of-the-art replacement hospital. Ground breaking is Jan., 2012 with completion planned for Jan., 2014.

Throughout all of this my extended family displayed grace, courage, resilience, and an abiding faith in themselves, their religion, their town, and their future. I’m awed by them, and my heart has been singing poetry ever since I got this update.

Perhaps this is a psalm of thanksgiving, crudely writ, but from the heart. There are too many hearts here, I know, but this story is about many, many hearts.

Where is the poetry in sorrow and destruction?
In the hurting heart, as always.
Where is the joy in the aftermath?
In that same heart, as healing grabs an edge.

How does it work, this healing?
With loving actions to repair the mosaic shards.
Will it ever be the same?
No, fractures form a stronger bond.
And then?
We give thanks, and promise to love even more.

How will I know?
 Shhh. Your heart beats the answer.

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Kristen’s Post – a story to consider

Whale Song

If you love a good heart-warming story, you’ll enjoy this story about Sarah Richardson’s life. Eleven-year-old Sarah moves to Bamfield, Canada from Wyoming, when her dad gets a new job as a marine biologist. When she moves there, she encounters a harrowing life–she’s bullied, since she’s new and “white” in an Indian-dominant town, she has a crush on Adam, and she experiences her mom’s illness of PPH, all in part one.

In part two, her mom passed away, and her dad’s charged with her murder, when she doesn’t remember what happened that fateful day. When her dad goes to prison, she moves and lives with her Italian grandparents to Vancouver, and at eighteen, she lives alone and starts a new life.

In part three, she has an estranged relationship with her father between the visits and years go by, as she tries to remember what happened, when she’s an adult. In the end, she reunites with Goldie, her best friend, Adam her crush and new love, and her dad, when she remembers what happened and moves on. Also, it’s so informative on marine life and whales, that’s so touching and perfect for the story of forgiveness, love, loss and life. Bring your tissues!

Kristen

(posted by Michele for Kristen)

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Make Visible

“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.”
~ Robert Bresson, French Film Director

This, to me is the essence of creativity, to bring forth what might have remained hidden. This gets me to write, to embroider, to do art and craft projects. There is a whole world of ideas, forms, visions and voices that have yet to be expressed. Even our poetry book, Lifelines has the word “Express!” on the cover. It’s up to us, the creative ones (and by that I include potentially everyone) to share what’s in our hearts and minds. It’s up to us to create and bring forth our truth and beauty.

By sharing what’s inside us we connect to the rest of the world. So many times I’ve heard, “I feel exactly the same way,” after a friend has read one of my poems. We are all unique and see the world differently. Go write, take pictures, craft, dance, sing, paint. Who are you to deny the world your vision?

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