Looks can be deceiving. Can you guess who did what?
Can you match these poets: Alan Bern, Anthony Doyle, Ellis Elliot, Gabby Gilliam, Morgan Golloway, Nadja Maril, with the correct fun fact?
A. This writer/poet has a secret fantasy to be part of a singing flash mob.
B. This writer/poet was so afraid of sharks, they conquered their fears by participating in a White Shark Cage Dive.
C. At a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader audition, this writer/poet taught the choreography.
D. In high school and college, this writer/poet had a following as a fortune teller. Their specialty was reading tarot cards.
E. This writer/poet was so embarrassed by their first attempt to bake an angel food cake, they buried the “cake” in their mother’s garden.
F. This writer/ poet fervently played the clarinet in their youth with hopes that the instruments vibrations would enhance the quality of their hair.
G. This writer/poet made a project of collecting all the dead ladybugs where they were working and lining them up on the top of their office cubicle walls.
AND THE ANSWERS ARE:
A. Gabby Gilliam secretly or not so secretly likes to be in the limelight. The many talented writer/ poet who by day works as a teacher, sometimes fantasizes about being part of a flash singing mob.
B. Poet and writer Anthony Doyle loves to swim. But he didn’t always feel safe in the water because he worried about being attacked by sharks. So in order to conquer his fears he allowed himself to be locked inside a protective cage and submerged in deep water, a White Shark Cage Dive in Gaansbai, South Africa, so he could confront his terror close up and now scuba dives as a hobby.
C. Poet/writer Ellis Elliot once taught ballet and was a dance choreographer too. So, once upon a time she taught choreography at a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader audition. Here’s a professional photo of her dancing.
D. In High School, Nadja Maril was fascinated by the occult: astrology, numerology, time travel and fortune telling. Her talent to predict the future in college, with the aid of a battered deck of Tarot cards had fellow students lined up outside her dorm room door. Eventually, she packed the cards away. “While influences, opportunities and obstacles can be predicted,” she says, “We make our own destiny.”
E. Writer, poet and artist Morgan Golladay is not afraid to tell the world her first attempt at baking an Angel Food Cake was such an embarrassment, she hid the evidence by burying it in her mother’s garden. Often the work of creating something “just right” takes multiple tries.
F. Allan Bern shares this wonderful photo of him in his youth when long full hair was “a thing” and he was convinced, if he kept practicing his clarinet, the vibrations of his instrument would enhance his hair growth. “Here I am in Napoli in 1966, ” says Alan. “My friend Umberto and I played the Clarinet, and he claimed the practicing made your head vibrate and, perhaps, helped your hair grow like this.”
E. Writer/Poet Janet Uchendu thought it odd that an inordinate amount of ladybugs were turning up dead inside the office where she worked. Like most writers, she is a keen observer. Perhaps it was the end of their lifecycle, but why inside that particular office? So she stacked them up on the top edge. of her cubicle. But much to her surprise, no one else noticed.
Thank you for playing the game. Don’t forget to follow this blog for news and announcements. It’s free. Just sign up. Coming up is the October 15th deadline to the Coold Turkey issue of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine. Prose submissions this time must be approximately less than 500 words and no more than two poems, if you are submitting in the poetry category.
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