Art Poetry

After my week went terribly wrong and I was feeling very down, I bought myself: _{(assoc. links)} the Schylling Marblescope Kaleidoscope, and the The Artist Magnetic Poetry Kit, but in my haste to get it as soon as I could, I didn’t check the address, and sent it to my house instead of where I was staying. But now I’m home, and to my surprise no porch pirates had come my way, so I’m enjoying my new distractions and feeling a bit better.

I came across the work of Jan Pypers in the daily email I get from L’Oeil de la photographie. Here’s an interesting look at how he creates his images: The studio of . . . Jan Pypers. I chose this image from his Diorama series to inspire my ekphrastic poetry today.

The Prompts

NaPoWriMo: write a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word (e.g., “Because,” “Forget,” “Not,” “If”). This technique of beginning multiple lines with the same word or phrase is called anaphora, and has long been used to give poems a driving rhythm and/or a sense of puzzlebox mystery.

PAD Challenge: write an ekphrastic poem.

Poetry Non-stop: Choose an item of clothing associated with a well-known figure, and use this as the focus of a poem about their character or activities.

Today’s Poem

Perfectly Framed

Because they wear speedos and caps
Because one is blue and one is orange
Because they must have been on opposite teams
Because the viewer must have climbed the structure too
Because he could be either orange or blue
Because the yellow ball on the water is framed by the structure
Because the rock is framed, and the girl on the rock is framed, and the person on the rock on the other side too.
Because the whale breached in the center frame of the structure along with the hazy sun
Because the viewer had such perfect timing and was perfectly positioned
Because it would have been a miracle to capture that drama
Is the image any less magic when you know it’s a diorama?

Poetry MFA Week 2 Review

Writing: I started this week’s assignment by finding something I wanted to write about in last week’s free-writes, and continued finding things in my writing to build on it on the second day, but I did not continue working on it each day I’m afraid. I think that’s what might have derailed me last time I attempted this Portable MFA program. But it won’t derail me this time. I got a lot of poetry drafts written this week, and other than the week-long poem, I wrote for at least forty-five minutes every day, and did this week’s work for Sharpened Visions poetry workshop. I did get myself o write at night one night before bed, and I noticed that my writing is different at night, looking back on the day instead of looking at the day ahead, so I think I’ll continue to try to get myself to write at night (though it’s not something that’s easy to do).

Reading: “The Magnificent Frigatebird” was an interesting poem to study. I found that trying to emulate it as I did with my poem The Cards Dealt Better on the tenth, really helped me understand the poem better. Ada Limón keeps coming up in the Poets & Writers Magazines I’m reading for the A to Z Blogging Challenge, so learning more about the poet I’m studying while I read her poems is happening all the time.

I’ll talk about the week three instructions and expectations tomorrow.

How’s your NaPoWriMo and/or A to Z Blogging Challenge going? Did you have a good week? I hope you’re having fun.

Happy Poetry Month!
See you tomorrow