Lewis Carroll Square Stanza Writing Prompt

It's been a while since I've written or tried to write poetry, so I felt the need to devour some good poems both old and new to get me in the right mood. I never considered myself a poet, or at least not a purposeful one. Poems come to me if they feel like it, otherwise I don't bother them.

Here's one fantastic poem I read in the July/August issue of Poetry magazine.

The Labyrinth

by Robert P. Baird 

Torn turned and tattered

Bowed burned and battered

I took untensed time by the teeth

And bade it bear me banking

Out over the walled welter

                                           cities and the sea

Through the lightsmocked birdpocked cloudcocked sky

To leave me light on a lilting planetesimal.

The stone walls wailed and whimpered

The bold stars paled and dimpled

Godgone time gathered to a grunt

And bore me bled and breaking

On past parted palisades

                                           windrows and the trees

Over a windcloaked nightsoaked starpoked sea

To drop me where? Deep in a decadent’s dream

Wow wow wow wow wow! Can I add one more wow?
The alliteration, the inner rhyme, the whimsical, sensual made-up words, the quiet imagery and unassuming flow of narration-God, how I wish I wrote this poem. Seriously!


As for the Lewis Carroll Square Stanza... I couldn't figure it out for the life at me how that man did it! I mean I could see the pattern, but it wasn't as simple as sticking words in a repeating fashion. I was sitting on the lightrail with my journal and I was scribbling, scribbling away lost in thought of how to tackle this Rubik's cube like poem. But here is my attempt. I'm not sure if it really works and the content was definitely sacrificed to fit the gimmick....

he              stays           with           me         often

stays           for            such           precious  time

with          such         eagerness      so           and 

me            precious        so               i             feel

often           time           and           feel           love

Anyways, the next prompt shall be taken from a cool feature in Writer's Digest Magazine called Reject a Hit. What harsh rejection letters might the authors of some of our favorite hit books have had to endure? In 300 words or fewer, reject a hit and send it in to wdsubmissions@fwmedia.com with “InkWell: Reject a Hit” in the subject line.

Oh this sounds fun muahahaha.

In a Travelling Mood

"Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations"

-Albert Einstein

So I've left London and am now in Stockholm and the sadness I felt leaving is still with me now. Why does time have to go by so fast? Why is it never enough to satisfy me?

Missing London and my awesome family inspired a rather melodramatic little ditty I wrote while on the balcony of my grandma's apartment here in Sweden in order to escape the unusual suppressive heatwave. I left Arizona for a reason...sighh...

i never knew that longing could hurt

a feeling so real that it can convert

a passionate kiss and triumphant bliss

to convulsions of woe and hysterical fits

sleep interrupted; food has no use

mental strength weakened

until soft and loose

i wish the sun still comforted the same

but all i see is nature's cruel cruel game

absence make the heart grow fonder

but also makes the mind go wander

hmm it's a jumble of emotions in that right there so i'll leave it for you all to mull over.

Graphic Poetry

"I dream a lot. I do more painting when I'm not painting. It's in the subconscious."

-Diego Rivera

I found this great site through StumbleUpon (seriously best creation ever!) that combines poetry and art together in a effortless visual manner. The site is www.graphicpoetry.net.

The poet has this written in his bio: "i'm a 29 year old hardcore pinko vegan pacifist metalhead loner blue-oyster-cult-worshipping computer nerd and sometimes revolutionist.  you know, one of those."

After reading several of his poems, I wish I could be one of those too. It really inspired me to try putting my words with pictures and challenging myself to do the three-frame poem that Mr. Pelon uses.

Here's one of my favorites:

Hopefully I won't get in trouble for posting this poem here. All credit is due to the amazingness of Mr. Pelon and I only want to share his awesome work with the world on my humble little blog and encourage you all to check out the rest of his poetry on his site. 

It's  much easier to read the poem straight across as it appears on the Graphic Poetry website, but it shows up weird on here as stacked pictures. Read it left to right though and it will make sense.

Anywho, I'd really like to try this new medium next and see where it takes me. I'll upload my attempts as soon as inspiration hits. Which I hope is sooner or later. Maybe I'll write about the disgusting heat wave I'm forced to endure for the next few days until I leave the country...

Summer Dissonance

"To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee."
-Emily Dickinson

I'm back from a crazy three and a half week trip to Hungary and Romania with my scholarship group and I'm ashamed to admit my writing production was extremely low. Other than keeping a journal of the day's activities and taking notes at lectures and presentations, I wrote one measly poem during an exercise about Hungarian poetry. 


 This is the poem I wrote up in literally 10 minutes from a list of 8 words that we were given to include. (I've highlighted them)


advice to a tourist


wake up in the city or the town
listen to the never ending sound
of people playing in the cool lake
or sighing after bites of sweet cake
shake off you sleepy slumber my dear
open your eyes there is nothing to fear
with luck and a map, you can fake your way through
make a trip on the metro so you
can travel as far as the city limits
or at least as long as time permits
rake the leaves off the trees in the park
but for goodness sake don't stay after dark
enjoy yourself when you travel abroad
now i'm done with this poem, thank god




...yeah, I know, extremely lame, but I was pressed for time and couldn't figure out how to use rake and sake :(


My creativity was somehow zapped in terms of writing and instead played out with photography. I got a new digital camera and had so much fun capturing the beautiful landmarks and people and food of Central Europe. The picture above was taken by yours truly in the amazing city of Budapest:) If only my memory card hadn't filled up, I would have definitely experimented more and shot way more pictures, but between all of us in the group, we have thousands upon thousands to look through so it's not too bad.


With all the free time I have this summer, I really need to organize and prioritize what stories I want to work on. I have several potentials as I talked about in my previous post and they're all incredibly interesting but as soon as I start trying to dig deeper into any of them, I get frustrated by plot holes and just the magnitude of figuring out all the characters and background.  


I think I'm going to call this the summer of short stories and train myself to do short distance and once I have enough endurance to last me, then I can move on to the big league: the novel. I would love to write a small book of short stories if I could find a collective theme. I originally thought about just doing a short story collection about the American Muslim teenage experience since I'm having such a hard time writing just one book on it. But maybe there are other experiences and emotions I want to explore as well. 


I'm just going to be free and open and soak up anything that comes my way. I think I'm ready for a sizzling summer fling with a fictional premise.