Visual Music

Today’s form prompt provided by Grace at dVerse Poets Pub is the Flamenca.

“The elements of the Flamenca are:

*stanzaic, can be written in any number of quintains.
*syllabic, 6-6-5-6-6 syllables per line to imitate the rapid click of the heels of a dancer.
*Line 2 and Line 5 assonate. (same vowel sounds) “

Here’s my first attempt a a Flamenca:

Dancing on the Waves

A slight breeze skirts the lake
Each wave dances with light,
shimmering rhythms
of ecstatic insight,
my visual music

I stare myself dizzy
listening to motion
flickering, fleeting
like these summer notions
and days flittering past

Each wave laps the shore
offering light to me
in endless pattern
fascinating to see
forever captured here

And for all you creative artists and poets I want to tell you about A Year in Practice by Jacqueline Suskin!

I received a digital advance reader copy of A Year in Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression through NetGalley.com. I had read another of Jacqueline Suskin’s books, Every Day is a Poem, but didn’t realize it until she mentioned her Poem Store project in A Year in Practice. “Suskin composes improvisational poetry for patrons who choose a topic in exchange for a unique verse. Poem Store has been her main occupation since 2009 and has taken her around the world writing nearly forty thousand spontaneous poems” (from her bio). I liked Every Day is a Poem, but I enjoyed A Year in Practice even more.

A Year in Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression starts with winter and moves through each of the seasons sharing the author’s personal creative understanding and practices for each season including her poems and ending with a list of selected poems by other poets. She includes questions to ask yourself and journal about to explore your relationship with each season and provides ideas for activities to align your creative efforts with the energy of each season for a path of least resistance.

This book really spoke to me as a creative artist. I’ve been feeling my seasonal changes and cycles more and more, and though Suskin and I feel differently about spring (I love the jolt back into high energy, ideas flying), this book aligns with my creative practice through the seasons. It’s a celebration of how we as creative humans are part of nature’s yearly cycle. I highly recommend this book! It comes out December 5th, just in time for your Christmas list. You can pre-order now!