NaPoWriMo Day #8

Today's prompt was to write about unusual love connections. I don't think I've written a love poem since I was a teenager, and here I've written two in one week. These prompts are definitely making me stretch.

Here's today's attempt:

you are the pictures

coloring my pallid words

us=complete story

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

April 8, 2010

NaPoWriMo Day #7

Today's prompt was to write a humorous love poem using the tanka form. I found this pretty hard. Normally, I like forms, but this was hard for me. I wasn't supposed to use punctuation, but this needed it. I wasn't able to stick with the syllabic form of 5/7/5/7/7, but that wasn't required. I do want to try this form again, but with a different subject matter.

If you greet me with roses,

there will be no second date.

You show up with a houseplant,

call it a housewarming gift--

I end up keeping you both.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

April 7, 2010

NaPoWriMo Day #6

Today's prompt is to "converse with images". Use an image and see what kind of poem it leads to. I checked in my "haiku pictures" folder on my computer and wrote a haiku for a picture I haven't written about before.

Peony, dressed up

waits in her frilly ball gown

wind asks her to dance

photograph and haiku by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

April 6, 2010

The Small Stuff

When you pay attention and look around, you might see things you never noticed before. At least that's what my husband said when he tried to convince me to keep my nose out of a book on our weekend trip. You see, I had a Vera Bradley bag full of books. I only got to one of them.

Instead I soaked in some "paying attention"--to the small stuff. For the small stuff is what poetry is made of.


butterfly wind-whipped
caught in highway speed tunnel
stroke of luck--escape

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 5, 2010

abandoned farmhouse
weathered gray boards tell stories
etched into wood grains

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 5, 2010

NaPoWriMo Day #5

Today's prompt is to make your poetry personal--giving it a personality and even a name. I had trouble with the naming part, but decided to go with a poem of address.

Here's my attempt:

Poetry

You grow inside the cherry blossoms,
droop down from the blueberry bushes.
You squirm in the dirt,
wrestle with the roses.
You flip-flop down with the helicopter seeds,
flirting with the bees.

You keep me awake at night,
running your words
through my head,
pestering me til
I scrawl them down
in the dark,
hoping I can decipher them
in the morning

when you dangle like dew
from the spider's web.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 5, 2010

A Literary Easter

Literary Things We Did Over Easter:

1) Check out our kids' Easter baskets.

Our 11 month old son got Duck in a Truck by Jez Alborough and Hot Rod Hamster by Cynthia Lord (which my husband declared a "very awesome" book at 7:00am on Easter morning).

Our 5 year old daughter got Jan Brett's new The Easter Egg, several I Can Read books, and a cool doodling book.










2) Hubby and I got away for an anniversary trip to Charlottesville. I usually stick my head in a book while he drives on long trips. He was sleepy, so I had to try to keep him awake, and he says I always "miss things" with my nose in a book. So I spent my time "paying attention". I'll post the poems that I wrote post-paying attention.

3) Charlottesville is the host of the Festival of the Book. I didn't get to go this year because I had to work, but I can see why Charlottesville can host such a wonderful event--it's such a literary town. Our little getaway took us to the Historic Downtown Mall area. I love, love, love their bookshops.

Read It Again, Sam is a very neat (and by this I mean clean and orderly) used bookstore. It had a small, but treasure-trove of children's lit. All of the books were in impeccable shape and were reasonably priced.

New Dominion Bookshop was larger, but is an independent bookseller of new books. Also, very neat (clean and orderly) and had a large and phenomenal children's book section. I spent a fortune.

O'Suzannah is a great little gift shop, and had an extraordinary selection of kids' books.

There were several other bookstores, but my wallet and time were insufficient.

I will definitely be going back to Charlottesville soon. The bookstores alone are worth the drive. But there are plenty of good restaurants and other local shops to enjoy too.

I love short and silly books!

Books I Wish I Had Written #2: Billy and Milly Short and Silly

Perhaps I should change this series to "Books I Admire and Want to Learn From". I'm featuring books I think are brilliant--books that I want to learn more about what I think makes them great. Last summer Candice Ransom encouraged us to type up the text of favorite picture books and study them. It helps to see the text without the pictures (if you are a writer-only) to see what makes these books "tick".

Billy & Milly Short & Silly

by Eve B. Feldman

illustrated by Tuesday Mourning

Penguin, 2009

This book comes in at a whopping 49 words. In the class I took last summer on picture books, we had to keep our manuscripts under 500 words. You can see why. So many of the phenomenal picture books being published are super short.

This text is told in individual words, grouped in threes or fours that tell the story. "Tee Tree Bee Flee" is on one spread. The illustrations show Billy hitting a golf ball off a tee, smacking the ball into a bee's nest in a tree, then running away when the bees come after him.

The first time I read this book I honestly thought it was an author/illustrator book. I thought--this text is brilliant, but I know it didn't sell on text alone because the pictures tell way more than a typical picture book. But I was wrong. The text and illustrations are by different people. Then I thought--even more brilliant!

Each set of words rhymes, and each set of words tells its own episode in Billy or Milly's world.

WHY I WISH I HAD WRITTEN IT: It's amazingly short, but each word works perfectly. The text allows for a lot of illustrative interpretation.

I definitely want to give this super-short text idea a whirl.