Tag: writing

Romance vs Reality in the Writing Life: 9 Tips to Help Tackle Reality

Published on by Ellis ElliottLeave a comment
I have a trove of old New Yorker cartoons I’ve saved in a folder since forever. The premise of this one (from the fabulous cartoonist Roz Chast) is the romanticized version of Thoreau’s life vs. the reality. My argument was always “of course he can simplify. He has no kids, no partner, and his mom does his laundry.”

I think we also can hold that same romanticized ideal for writing.

“I WON’T BE COMING IN TODAY.
I’M JUST NOT FEELING IT”

…was the text my friend received, canceling their appointment together 15 minutes before it was to start. What bravado, I thought. What mixture of honesty, courage, chutzpah, and downright rudeness is this?

And how many times have I felt like saying the exact same thing? Especially when it came to staying motivated to finish, organize, edit, submit separate poems, and find a publisher for my poetry collection. Not today. I’m just not feelin’ it.

The option is to feel it. Even when you really, really don’t want to. There are so many other demands on our time, and I am easily overwhelmed if I only look at the long game. I have to break it all down into bite-size “feelable” pieces.

What that looks like for me is:

1.    I can sit here for 10 minutes and freewrite with one of the 500 prompts I find and keep and never do anything with. 

2.    I can spend 10 minutes on the website Duotrope to find 5 more places to submit my poems. 

3.    I can print out all these poems, spread them out on the bed, and figure out how they make sense together. 

4.    I can spend 5 minutes on an email to “make the ask” of a trusted someone to read my work. 

5.    I can take a break from it all and not beat myself up about it.

6.    I can “manage the myth” that my work is valuable and someone, somewhere will love it, until it becomes the truth. 

7.    I can submit the poetry collection to contests of all shapes and sizes.

8.    I can make an effort to forge connections in the writing world. I can join writing groups, create writing groups, take classes and workshops, reach out for help, or join a collective. You never know when you might meet the right person that could lead to your book publication (like I did!). 

9.    I can endure countless rejections, knowing the subjectiveness inherent in the game, and know to never take anything personally. 

10.  Do it again and again. Hang in there, until what’s foreign becomes familiar and the stars align, because you kept at it. And as for the end result, sometimes knowing whatever you have done is enough.

And what a divine feeling that is, indeed.

By Ellis Elliott—Thanks for Reading! Join me at https://bewildernesswriting.com/ Find my poetry collection, Break in the Field, from Old Scratch Press, on Amazon. My new cozy mystery fiction novel, Fire Circle Mysteries: A Witch Awakens will be available in Spring 2025.

Making Moments Count

Published on by gilliampoetLeave a comment

One of the things I like best about poetry is its ability to capture the beauty of a single moment, even if it’s not something that would normally be seen as beautiful. At its heart, poetry is emotional storytelling. A moment becomes significant when it is infused with feeling—joy, sorrow, nostalgia, or wonder

Last year, I edited an issue of Instant Noodles with the theme of ‘instant.’ I was looking for poems that captured that exact essence of poetry that appeals so much to me. I wanted the beauty of the grief or the joy of a single moment captured in a poem. It’s probably my favorite issue of Instant Noodles that I’ve edited to date. I think the poems we published in that issue were the kind that will resonate long after reading them because every reader shares that moment with the poet.

That issue of Instant Noodles can be read for free here . I highly recommend giving it a look.

Life is filled with fleeting moments—those golden, mundane, or bittersweet slices of time that often pass unnoticed. But poetry has the unique ability to crystallize these moments, transforming them into something timeless and profound. Capturing moments in poetry is about taking the ephemeral and making it eternal.

Here’s a poem of mine that captures the moment when I held my son for the first time. It appeared in the Instant issue of Instant Noodles.

Contraction

After hours of flesh seizing 
muscles finally relaxed 
and I cradled a fresh universe 
in my arms, puckered face 
already rooting for food. 

My world imploded, contracting 
until nothing existed but this 
one tiny fist raised at the audacity 

of the air to be so dry 
the lights so bright 
the scream that replaced the rhythm 
of my familiar heartbeat 

and I traced constellations 
across freckled skin as I eased
into a new center of gravity.

The Power of Specificity

Great poetry thrives on specificity. Think of a single red leaf falling on a crisp autumn afternoon or the smell of fresh bread wafting through an open window. These details evoke emotions and anchor the reader in the poet’s world. Poetry doesn’t need grand metaphors to capture the essence of a moment. Sometimes, a simple, honest line is more powerful than elaborate language.

Share Your Moments

Because life is poetry, everyone is a poet. You can write about your own moments and shape your memories into poems. Then, you’re sharing that moment with others. Your words let them feel what you felt and maybe even remind them of their own special memories.

Poetry helps us slow down and notice what’s around us. It takes the little things that we might normally ignore and makes them important. So grab a notebook, start noticing the world, and turn your moments into poems that last forever.

The Sounds of Home: A Writer’s Connection to the Beach

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

By Nadja Maril, a Founding member of Old Scratch Writing Collective

The dog is digging a hole in the sand. After chasing and fetching her ball numerous times, she has decided to bury it. It’s a game of make it disappear and find it again, a game she can play all by herself while I sit and listen to the waves slapping against the shore. I love this sound. It doesn’t matter where I am, if I’m near water coastline I’ll find a beach. The sounds of water soothe me. And I’m not alone in craving water sounds. A babbling brook, the torrent of a waterfall, the crash of ocean waves: are sounds that both inspire and invigorate.

Of the five senses—sight, smell, touch, sound, taste— one of the five will often be more prominently experienced than the other four. And this can change, depending on the situation. I find, when I tap into my memory bank, that sound is most frequently my touchstone. I think of a scene and I hear it. The rise and fall of the voices, crickets chirping, the sputter of an outboard motor, heavy breathing.

WRITING PROMPT

A classic writing exercise is to describe the place you call home.  If you are truly honest with yourself, the exercise will force you to select the place you long for, if you’re not already living there.  In order to describe it, you’ll be choosing the details that pop out in your mind.  The exercise provides a short cut, so to speak, to grasp what you value most.

Flash Fiction writers, you can use this prompt to channel you directly into the characters you create. Where do they feel most secure? It can tell you a lot about a person.

For me, home is the beach. It’s a happy place where I can walk for miles, build sand castles, swim in the waves and float on my back with the sun in my face. During childhood it was the Provincetown beach at the end of Kendall Lane. Today it is Cornhill beach in Truro a few miles away. The first glimpse of water and sand, the sound of the waves pushing into the shore, the smells of salt and seaweed, the wind against my face; I am home. From both beaches, if I look eastward I see the very tip of the Cape Cod peninsula curving around, creating a sheltered harbor. Out across the bay is Long Point Light Station.

When following a writing prompt or exercise, allow your thoughts to freely flow. Do not self-censor while writing. Once, you’re finished you can cut words, sentences or entire paragraphs. But if you analyze every word you select, you won’t get very far.

The subsequent step after spending twenty to thirty minutes writing a description of “home” is to read what you’ve written and look for patterns. Does one sense, such as smell, dominate the prose. Are there duplications of the same idea that cloud the focus? Challenge yourself to deepen the scene by adding action or dialogue.

Whenever I’m “stuck” and looking for a fresh something to write about. I challenge myself by creating a prompt or borrowing a prompt idea from another writer. The ideas are out there, you just need to make the time and have fun with what you create.

THANK YOU for reading. Have fun. And please, if you like my writing, you can support my efforts by buying a copy of my chapbook RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN– Poetry, Flash CNF and Short Essays (Old Scratch Press Sept. 2024) a great gift to yourself and for friends at $8.95. My chapbook is just one of the many fine books published by the imprint Old Scratch Press.

Secrets to Publishing Your First Creative Work

Published on by wyn001100Leave a comment

Founding member Robert Fleming share his insights on How to be successful at publishing your first creative writing work

You’ve put it on your bucket list to be a published author. Well done. Who are you doing this for: yourself, others, or both?

Yours truly, without even knowing, wanted to be published. In 1973, at age ten, I published text on the bathroom brick wall of Roslyn Elementary School in Westmount, Montreal, Quebec. My work looked like the work following but also had curse words and genitalia graffiti.

Bathroom Wall Poem

This talented toilet author made choices: what topic to write about (poo poo), what language to use (English), where to publish (on the bathroom on brick), who the publisher is (self), what genre (poetry), what poetry devices to use (rhyme, humor, 5-lines), and to not disclose the author name (anonymous).

Where you target your publication is guided by your confidence (courageous or timidity) about having other human see and judge your work. If you are feeling timid like the Cowardly Lion, publish your writing in your personal diary. Be sure to select a diary with a lock and attach the key to your necklace that you wear even when you shower.

Cowardly Lion from movie Wizard of Oz

If you get a little courage, self-publish your work on social media (Facebook), like I did in the following work.
On Facebook, other humans will see your work, but you will not experience the review/selection of a judge who accepts or rejects your work.

https://fourfeatherspress.blogspot.com/2024/09/40-poets-being-published-in-doors-of.html

If you find the courage of Joan of Arc, send your work to a publication where work is selected by an editor.

Joan of Arc

Tips for setting yourself up for your best chance of publication acceptance
• For your first publication, select a publication that has a fifty-percent or greater acceptance rate like vanity press where you will have to buy a book that could cost $50, an organization newsletter like a religious one you are a member of or a school you are an alumni of.
• Read the target publication and only submit to them if they publish work similar to yours (genre: poetry, theme: love)
• Read the submission directions and follow them: sometimes there is a theme like love. When there is a theme only submit work that is the theme requested.

Ready? Take a bid breath in, hold three seconds, exhale. What is your publication confidence: timid or courageous. Go forth.

 
Yours Truly is:

Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press.

Who published an Amazon best seller visual poetry book: White Noir.

an editor of the digital magazine Instant Noodles

and the creator of an upcoming magazine cover for Tell-Tale Inklings #7, to be released Autumn, 2024. Visit Tell-Tale Chapbooks on Facebook.

Exploring the Intersection of Sports and Poetry

Published on by rdfauthorLeave a comment

October is a sports lover’s dream. Most of the major leagues are in full swing, from the NBA, NFL to the NHL. There are college football games every weekend, and even the crisp Fall air makes it feel like football weather.

So what does this have to do with poetry?

There are some cases, perhaps uncommon, where sports and poetry intersect. While in school, I was introduced to the excellent baseball-related poem “Casey at the Bat” by the poet Ernest Lawrence Thayer. From the roar of the crowd to the “Strike!” being called by the umpire, Thayer does a remarkable job of transporting the reader to that fateful match in Mudville. The poem culminates with perhaps its most famous line: “But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.”

In college my friends and I would play pickup basketball on the courts on campus. These were disorganized gatherings with teams hastily assembled at the last moment, but these were some of my favorite memories from my college years.

My poem below is an attempt to recapture some of those moments. Unlike “Casey at the Bat”, there was much joy to be found in College Park during those amateur games.

This was written during my college years, and I don’t know if I could write this today, or even should write something like this today, as this poem is full of rough edges and not overflowing with beautiful language.

However, that is what I think I love about it. Much like our simple attempts at basketball all those years ago, the poem is pure and raw, even somewhat unfinished. Ah, the folly of youth!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

So without further introduction, I hope you enjoy my poem “Hoops”.

Hoops

It wasn’t the easy, fluid style of play you see on TV,
It was the jerky, nervous style of amateurs
played on asphalt several feet away from where I was sitting.
My shorts had ripped horrendously down the back during the last game,
but that really didn’t matter in the big scheme of things,
and besides, the jocky guy Chris would have never
picked me to play after screwing up the last game so badly.
An observer watched the game from the other side of the court, grinning to himself secretly.
Perhaps he was happy to see the different bodies working so well together, Van, the Vietnamese guy; Joy, the Indian; Greg the African American and Danny the Anglo; or perhaps that was just what I wanted to see.

Chris the jock made a three-pointer, and murmurs of approval such as, “Good shot, man” or “Nice one, Chris” fill the air, replacing the sound of the tennis shoes against the pavement.
I never questioned Chris’ basketball prowess.
It was his attitude that puzzled me.
I wanted to shake him and say, “Hey, Chris! Listen to what I’m saying, man! You’re just a pebble in the stream, man! Just a lowly grain of salt! This shot won’t change the world, dig?”
But you can’t tell a guy like Chris something that big.
He would just laugh it off and call you a stinkin’ liberal hippie, and go about his business of shooting politically correct jump shots, while I would go about my business of trying to change the things that couldn’t be changed.

-R. David Fulcher, OSP Founding Member

5 Reasons Every Book Lover Should Attend a Book Festival

Published on by gilliampoetLeave a comment

For book lovers, there’s nothing quite like the magic of a book festival. These vibrant events bring readers, authors, and publishers together in a celebration of storytelling, creativity, and community. If you’ve never been to one, here are five great reasons to mark your calendar for the next book festival near you.

1. Meet Your Favorite Authors

Imagine having a face-to-face conversation with the authors behind your favorite stories. Book festivals often feature a wide array of authors—from bestsellers to emerging voices. You can attend book signings, hear authors speak on panels, and even ask questions during Q&A sessions. It’s a great chance to connect with the creative minds shaping today’s literary landscape.

2. Discover New Books

Browsing through endless stalls at a book festival can feel like stepping into a treasure trove. You’ll have access to books you may not find at your local store, including limited editions, indie publications, and advanced releases. Plus, many vendors offer special discounts, so it’s the perfect time to stock up on fresh reads.

3. Participate in Workshops and Panels

Book festivals aren’t just for browsing and buying; they’re also educational. Many events feature workshops, panel discussions, and lectures that cover topics ranging from writing techniques to industry trends. Book festivals are usually free to attend which gives you the chance to attend these workshops for free! Whether you’re an aspiring writer or just curious about the publishing process, these sessions offer valuable insights.

4. Connect with Fellow Book Lovers

If you’re passionate about reading, there’s nothing quite like bonding with others who share your enthusiasm. Book festivals provide a space for literary conversations, allowing you to swap recommendations, discuss your favorite genres, and maybe even join a book club. It’s a community experience that extends beyond the event itself.

5. Support Local and Independent Authors

Book festivals often highlight local talent and independent authors (like me!) who might not have the same platform as big-name writers. Attending a festival gives you a chance to support these creators, discover hidden gems, and diversify your reading list with unique, lesser-known voices.

From meeting your favorite authors to discovering new books and making connections with fellow readers, book festivals are a must for anyone passionate about literature. Whether you’re a casual reader or a die-hard bibliophile, attending one can enhance your love of books in unexpected ways. So, find the next book festival near you, grab your tote bag, and dive into the literary world!

The Legacy of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

By Nadja Maril

As a writer and a poet, I do a lot of reading. Sometimes I read a poem that resonates with me so strongly, I read it several times. Sometimes I commit a poem or favorite passage to memory to make it easier to revisit. One of those poems is

“Recuerdo”

by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

(February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950)

It starts out

We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—

But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,

Composed of three stanzas, each containing three couplets, you can read the rest of the poem courtesy of the Poetry Foundation here.

Maybe it’s the rhythm, that mirrors for me the rocking of a ferry boat, the repetition of the line “We were very tired, we were very merry” that begins each stanza or the way she captures the exuberance of youth and the generous spirit of the poet and her companions, but I’ve always loved that particular poem.

Surprising, is how many people are unfamiliar with the name Edna St. Vincent Millay. The very first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry (1923), she was one of the most famous and successful American writers of the mid 20th century. Millay broke sales records and was a cultural celebrity who traveled across the United States giving captivating poetry readings to sold-out crowds.

A feminist, who openly loved both women and men, she was a prominent member of the literary community writing plays, publishing an opera libretto, as well as magazine articles under a pseudonym as well as publishing more than one dozen poetry collections. Her prize-winning poem “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver” was dedicated to her mother. The poem tells a story of a penniless, self-sacrificing mother who spends Christmas Eve weaving for her son “wonderful things” on the strings of a harp, “the clothes of a king’s son.”

Raised in Maine by a single mother who elected to leave her husband during an era when divorce was not widely accepted, Millay was the eldest of three girls who largely had to take care of themselves while their mother would be absent from the house working as a homecare nurse. Surrounded by poetry, music and literature, Millay began writing her own poems at a young age.

WHERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

To learn more about her complicated life, I highly recommend Nancy Milford’s biography, Savage Beauty; The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Over 500 pages in length, it was comprehensively researched with the cooperation of Millay’s sister Norma, sole heir to the Edna St. Vincent Millay estate. and contains excerpts of Millay’s letters and poetry.

Here are two more poems to whet your appetite for Millay’s poetry.

“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why”

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.

Vanity Fair 1920

“I shall go back again to the bleak shore”

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I shall go back again to the bleak shore

And build a little shanty on the sand,

In such a way that the extremest band

Of brittle seaweed will escape my door

But by a yard or two; and nevermore

Shall I return to take you by the hand;

I shall be gone to what I understand,

And happier than I ever was before.

The love that stood a moment in your eyes,

The words that lay a moment on your tongue,

Are one with all that in a moment dies,

A little under-said and over-sung.

But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies

Unchanged from what they were when I was young.

To learn more about her life and times, information is available from the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society. https://millay.org/

The author of this blogpost, Nadja Maril, has been published in dozens of publications including, Defunkt Magazine), Lunch Ticket, The Compressed Journal of Creative Arts, BarBar and Across the Margin. A former journalist and magazine editor, Nadja has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine. She recently published a collection of

poems and short essays: RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN– (Old Scratch Press Sept. 2024) a great gift to yourself and for friends at $8.95. To learn more about Nadja’s writing visit Nadjamaril.com

The Healing Power of Poetry

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

By Virginia Watts

Poetry is an old art form dating back to ancient Greece. Why has it been with mankind so long? For one thing, writing and reading poetry is good for us. It allows us to manage our emotions which in today’s complicated and divided world can be an overwhelming task. During the recent pandemic many literary journals called for submissions about their experiences during the pandemic. Many poets answered the call, and no doubt felt better for it.

During the months of lockdown, people all over the world lost many things. We were suffering. Some of us lost loved ones, some of us were very ill ourselves. We all lost our normal sense of community, isolated as we were. Humans aren’t meant for isolation. Many people were lonely. Things we enjoyed such as travel, comradery in an office or school setting, had to be put on hold. Writing poetry and sharing poems created a bond among people when it was sorely needed.

 As it turns out, poetry can be a powerful healer. Rhythmic language is soothing. Think of a lullaby. Poetry also helps us contemplate and reflect our lives back to us. Through poetry, we learn about different cultures and histories which helps us to stop focusing on ourselves and leads to a better understanding among peoples.

 Through poetry we can stop to appreciate and experience what is beautiful in our world or share a poet’s experience with something we are also struggling with. This improves our mood. Poetry is often read to hospitalized children to reduce their fears and worries. Additionally, reading poetry out loud has been shown to slow breathing and help a person relax.

            So, three cheers for all the healthy things poetry does for the human body and spirit. During the pandemic I remember reading this famous poem by Maggie Smith. It has stayed with me.

Maggie Smith, poet

Good Bones

By Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

Copyright Credit:
Maggie Smith, “Good Bones” from Waxwing.  Copyright © 2016 by Maggie Smith.  Reprinted by permission of Waxwing magazine
 

Source: Waxwing magazine (Issue IX, Summer 2016) (2016)

To learn more about the writer/poet Virginia Watts, check out her short story collection https://www.amazon.com/Echoes-Hocker-House-Virginia-Watts/dp/1957224177/

Some Odes to Autumn

Published on by rdfauthorLeave a comment

By R. David Fulcher

Autumn has always held a special magic for me, a season in which the poet John Keats aptly described as “a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.”

Indeed, if there is an hour for magic, it strikes in the crisp dawn of an early Fall day. And further, if magic has a language, surely its language is poetry.

So I find this an appropriate time to post some of my own verse (hopefully imbued with magic itself) for your reading pleasure.

The first poem is “Ode to the Night”, and it hints at the darker aspects of this time of year, a time when pumpkins cast you crooked smiles and ghosts and goblins are generally free to roam:

Ode to the Night

To the Night, the Night, the dark delight,

The children sleep soundly in gentle white,

Breathing in time with the Raven’s flight.

To the Night, the Night, the waxen moon,

Audience of one to the witches’ croon,

Driving the tides for the sailors’ doom.

To the Night, the Night, its starlit fires,

Which guide the ghosts from funeral pyres,

Which soften the Harpy to play the lyre.

I hope you enjoyed “Ode to the Night”, and at a minimum it puts you into the Halloween spirit!

My second poem is “Melinda”, a story of lost love, and although not directly a tribute to the season was nonetheless designed to evoke a haunted mood:

Melinda

Sometimes in the lonely hours

I would walk the hill

Leaving the clamor and din behind

For headstones gray and still,

As I neared the place where the dead did lie

I knelt and bowed my head

A fool is he who visits the graves

Without homage to the dead,

‘Melinda’ read the stone I sought

Melinda, my betrothed,

Only a thief as clever as Death

Could steal the health of Melinda, my love

Often I hear Melinda’s voice

Soft upon the breeze

I answer her call of eternal love

And grow hoarse among the trees.

I hope you enjoyed “Melinda”! Last but not least is an ode to a much maligned creature, a symbol of the undead, but in reality a beautiful animal that sustains our ecosystem. This last poem is called “The Bat”:

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels.com

The Bat

Taking inverted Sabbath in the caverns of Carlsbad

I measure time in locust-breath and calcite drip,

My bird-chest rising and falling with the gentle tides

Of this black carpet of brotherhood.

Footsteps fill my dreams,

Sun-bleached tourists groping into the cavern’s belly

To enter the sublime,

Their voices like a million valves releasing pressure.

For an instant they will recognize the face of God in this hard darkness,

The stalactite points of his beard,

The cascading rock formations of his brow,

And that fraction of animal intellect will rush forth,

Freed from concept and equation,

To join our ranks as we veer through this Jerusalem darkness

Toward dusk and sustenance,

Toward the amphitheater where they wait for their own departure.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed these odes to the season and wish all of you a sublime Autumn.

-R. David Fulcher, Founding Member of Old Scratch Press

REST

Published on by morgangolladay1 Comment
Photo by Erik Mclean on Pexels.com

I am recovering from major surgery nine weeks ago. I have been described by some who are nearest and dearest that I am not just an overachiever, but a classic type A personality. To which I say “Balderdash. Not in the least.” But one thing that has become all too apparent is that I love naps. At last one, if not more, a day. And while it feels like an enforced putting down of my will to write, and do, and create, and clear out, I don’t really care. My body has other plans. This is what my medical team refers to as “rest and recuperation.” Rest. Now there’s a thought.

I’m a writer – poetry, short stories, and an almost completed first novel. In all writing (and my reading) I find that the rest periods allow me, the reader, to think, to consider what I just read. One habit I recently developed is reading my poetry out loud, primarily to myself (unless there is a willing listener close by). This is not a new habit, just rediscovered, after a lapse of more than 50 years. I used to do this in college, for it helped me understand what the writer was trying to get across.

What I found in my personal poetry was timing. which phrases required slight stress, pauses, clear enunciation. And my habit of reading each one thee times allowed me to hear with different ears. The rhythm, the internal stresses, cadence, alliteration.

Poetry has always been a way of understanding the emotional frame of mind of both the poet and the listener. The oldest poetry we have records of shows that the stories and sagas were all oral, as well as aural. They transported the listener into another world, a world of magic, feeling, creation, alternate realities, explanations of heroic journeys.

And reading and hearing poetry aloud gives me a different perspective. I remember my grade school librarian reading stories to us. Magic. We could not get enough. It whetted an appetite for more, for it was a group activity led by an older and wiser person.

And the greatest value in my listening, was when she paused, created a resting spot, and then continued. I can imagine sitting around a night fire, listening to a traveling bard recite sagas. Just for me. It became personal, and valuable, and I was personally included in the vast story.

My current resting spot is in my recliner, head back, legs propped up. Napping away. I am not “shoulding” on myself as much. I am resting more, waiting for the next phrase, the next idea, the next thing I don’t have the energy to do. Resting is good, although it is contrary to my nature. But the recliner is so very comfortable!