Reading and Writing...

Reading always has been one of my favorite activities so I'm happy that Elissa Field chose reading and its relationship to writing as the final prompt for the Wordsmith Studio's 3rd Anniversary Blog Hop. Thanks again, Elissa, for all of the work you've done on the blog hop.

What are you reading?

I have just finished or am in the process of reading A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver, Later Poems: Selected and New by Adrienne Rich and The Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman.

The first to relate to the genre in which I write and the third to my favorite genre to read.

What is your favorite genre?

My favorite genre is mystery. It all started with Sherlock Holmes. I can take my interest in him back to the age of 11 so I think I qualify as a lifelong fan. I'm not a snob, though. I enjoy reading non-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories involving Holmes and Watson. I like to see what other authors do with the classic characters.

A couple of years ago, I was introduced to the book Mystery Muses edited by Jim Huang and Austin Lugar. The editors asked 100 mystery writers to write about an author/book that inspired them to write mysteries. It's a great resource for classic and contemporary mysteries, both of which I enjoy.

Do you also have an alternate genre?

Biography or more broadly, non-fiction. If I was studying something in school or just took an interest in a person or subject, I would read as much as I could about them/it.

Are there alternative forms of writing or art that you have found inspiring or even dabbled in?

After I began writing poetry regularly, I found myself spending more and more time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park. I wrote a poem inspired by one of the sculptures and found out a few months later that a poem inspired by visual art is called an Ekphrastic poem. Eventually, I began taking my own photographs and combining them with original poetry to create visual art pieces.

What music inspires your writing?

In 2010, I took a jazz poetry workshop and I was hooked by the end of it. I'm fortunate to live in an area that played a significant role in jazz history and to have the fabulous American Jazz Museum as a resource.

Do you have a favorite book, article or magazine for writing advice?

One of my favorites is Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. A favorite quote from the book is:

If  you read a great poem aloud--for example, “To a Skylark” by Percy Bysshe Shelley--and read it the way he set it up and punctuated it, what you are doing is breathing his inspired breath at the moment he wrote that poem. That breath was so powerful it still can be awakened in us over 150 years later.

What do you like to read? How does your reading enhance your writing?

Links

The Crystal Field Scholarship Reading

Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day

Author Page

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Being a Guest

Today I have a guest post on Julia Tomiak's Diary of a Word Nerd blog. It talks about Jazz Poetry and some of my experience with it. Click the following link to visit the blog:

http://www.juliatomiak.com/2014/04/what-is-jazz-poetry/

Julia is a member of the online community Wordsmith Studio. She is a self-proclaimed word nerd who likes to help people learn new words and find good books to read. She also writes fiction.

Thank you, Julia, for giving me the opportunity to do my first guest post.

PAD Week Three-Weary Poetry

Well, I finally fell behind in the 2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge on Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides blog. I'm optimistic that I'll be able to catch up by the end of this weekend.

 

We had a really interesting prompt on Day 18--the glosa. This form was used by poets of the Spanish court in the 14 and 15 centuries. Start with four lines from another poem. Write four 10-line stanzas. Line 10 of each stanza is one of the four lines from the epigram. Lines 6, 9 and 10 rhyme.

 

This was really a challenge for me because short poetry is my niche. For me, this form was like writing about 4-6 poems. It didn't come naturally to me, but I got through it. In the end, I enjoyed this prompt.

 

 

And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed.
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.

-Langston Hughes, “The Weary Blues”

The man was weary, but couldn’t rest.
He knew what brought on the restlessness,
but he didn’t know how to still it, how to chill it.
Instead, he went along with it, let it lead the way.
He ventured out into a cold, crisp night,
thinking his journey would end fairly soon.
His pace matched his state, quick and jumpy.
Suddenly, the air carried music to his ears.
The notes seemed to come with their own wound   
And far into the night he crooned that tune.

Although the song was weary, too,
it gave him a rhythm with which to move.
He walked through the streets to the new beat.
Now, he couldn’t seem to still his feet.
He traveled farther then he had planned and
realized his senses hadn’t been atuned
to the passage of time, the distance he covered.
He made his return in the dead of night
and wished for the speed of a character in a cartoon.
The stars went out and so did the moon.

 

The music remained his companion
as he headed home that night.
He found the music soothing
even though it was a lament.
He found the words came easily
as he snapped his fingers with each tread.
Before he knew it, he was unlocking the door.
He had left his restlessness in the streets
and his soul had been well feed.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed.

 

So, what had he accomplished
by wandering in the dark?
His circumstances hadn’t changed.
His problems still existed.
Yet, he had found something
 that could help him shed
the anxiety that had stalked him.
As he drifted off to sleep, he let
his new found peacefulness spread
while the Weary Blues echoed through his head.

 

Related Posts

 

The Weary Blues

 

Langston Hughes

Wordsmith Studio's Weekly Photo Prompt

 

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