Tag Archives: Kim Addonizio

Excavating the Mind Round 2: Taming through Framing

photograph of a raked garden plot

Garden Potential (2020) photo by Maria L. Berg

Yesterday, I missed the live broadcast of Rattle Magazine’s weekly critique video, but I watched it after. It was very informative. I found it fascinating how little of the original draft may be the real poem, the gold nuggets that can then be mined.

I’m going to watch more of the critique videos before I post my poem tomorrow.

This morning, I enjoyed the interview with Charles Harper Webb and his powerful poem “Prayer for the Man Who Mugged My Father, 72.” I also loved his poem, “Down the Bayou,” a raucous adventure of the imagination.

I’m enjoying that many of these poets are also performing musicians.

Thoughts for framing today’s drafts

As I mentioned in my last post, I am reading Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within by Kim Addonizio. In chapter 25 “the poem’s progress” I found some exercises I’m going to try as I’m drafting my poem today. I was especially drawn to the first exercise that asks me to think about some truths I currently hold. Her first example is, “People are inherently good.” An old friend and I recently debated this idea.

The exercise proposes writing three poems based on the truth I currently hold: The first in support of that truth; the second disproving the statements of the first; and the third arguing for and against.

I am also drawn to the sixth exercise in which I open the poem with a specific question and write two poems: one in which I come to a conclusion, and one in which I don’t.

These challenges appeal to me as artistic frames in which to approach this week’s observations. Looks like I have work to do, so many poems to draft.

I hope you will join me tomorrow to read this week’s poem.

Happy Reading and Writing!

Excavating the Mind Round 2 Day 5: Observing with American Sentences

trees in the zoo

Trees in the Zoo

  • Neighborhood trees are in cages; I throw meat at them, but they don’t move.

I am working on a week long photography and poetry challenge inspired by a prompt from Poets & Writers called Excavating the Mind.

Today’s Enrichment and Time Engulfer

This morning, I was excited to see that one of my library digital holds came in, so today I get to explore Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within by Kim Addonizio.

Here she is talking about the book:

Her first prompt in the book is “american sentences,” Allen Ginsberg’s take on the haiku, a sentence of seventeen syllables. He introduced them in his book Cosmopolitan Greetings. If you would like more information, Paul E. Nelson provides a PDF called American Sentences Workshop. I thought it was fun that he talked about juxtaposition creating tension.

Chapter 17 is “three observations.” I skipped to that chapter to see how Ms. Addonizio approaches her observations and translates them into poetry. She says that when she’s trying to use up some time when waiting, she tells herself to look for three things that are “striking or unusual” and make a note of them.  I like the idea of combining these two exercises. I will attempt to find three striking and unusual things to observe and create american sentences to describe my observations.

Day 5 notes and observations

Poets are people who notice what they notice – Allen Ginsberg

With that in mind, Levi and I set out to notice three striking or unusual things. We stumbled upon the first unusual things right away. Levi pointed out a flower that had fallen, but I focused on a small piece of crumpled foil in a place it had no business. The mystery foil led me to some worrying thoughts and my first american sentences.

  • This foil whispers secrets of teens doing drugs in the night, left behind
  • A small bit of crumpled foil on the walk so out of place like drugged teens

For the next unusual thing, we looked slightly beyond our usual trek around the house and ventured past the end of the driveway. We found this oddly broken and separated rock.

  • This rock, solid and strong through aeons, not cracked, nor broken, but apart.
  • A canyon created, mysterious geological event.
  • Moss and detritus of trees collect on and in your new surfaces.

Our final striking thing was a shocking pink giant rhododendron mingling with the trees.

  • Her shocking cotton candy petals betray her; she wants to fit in.
  • The relationship falters when she blooms; her strength and beauty overwhelm.
  • In a world of gigantic rhododendrons, this flower became tree.

There you have it, the last day of the second round of pictures and observations. I’m glad I repeated the exercise for a second week, so many different and unique observations. Tomorrow the drafts and on Sunday a new poem.

Happy Reading and Writing!