Month: May 2020

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Today’s writing inspiration comes from Kimberly Johnson, Ed.D. She is a literacy coach and media specialist in a public school in rural Georgia. She enjoys writing as a guest blogger for www.writerswhocare.com and counts down the days between monthly 5-Day Writing Challenges.  She is the author of Father, Forgive Me: Confessions of a Southern Baptist Preacher’s Kid.  Follow her on Twitter at @kimjohnson66.

Inspiration

In The Right Words at the Right Time by Marlo Thomas, celebrities and famous personalities share their stories about how prophetic words delivered at pivotal moments helped shape the course of their future. For example, Shaquille O’Neal’s mother’s guiding words to him were, “Later doesn’t always come to everybody.”

Process

Consider the people whose words were your guiding lights in direction and decision making. How did they help you make an important decision or to see things from a more clarifying perspective?
Challenge: Raise a Glass to the Literary Avant-Garde by writing a “Right Words at the Right Time” verse. Embolden your right words at the right time.

Kim’s Poem

The Greatest Gift

Saturday, December 22, 1984
the letter arrived

dated
Wednesday, December 19, 1984

from 13-year-old
Tolliver,
whose world was as dark
as his skin.
“Hi, Kimberly,
This is your friend,
Tolliver.”

Tolliver
from Camp Leo for the Blind,
where I’d been a counselor that summer.

Tolliver
who lived in the inner-city
with a disabled mother
and a recently deceased father
and 4 sighted brothers and sisters.

Tolliver
who had tucked a one dollar bill
inside the letter, wishing me
a Merry Christmas
as I read his gut-punching news
through blinding tears,
Christmas tree lights twinkling
across the room,
the merriment of music losing.

“What do I do with this?” I asked Dad,
a minister
with all the right answers
in 1984.

“Let me think,” he said,
taking the envelope.

Sunday, December 23, 1984
from the Pulpit:

Sermon – The Greatest Gifts of Christmas,
closing story

“Hi, Kimberly,
This is your friend
Tolliver,”
Dad read,
sharing snippets
of passages to
eyes filling with tears,
sniffles echoing.

He turned to me
with his answer:

“You keep it.
It’s the greatest gift you’ve
ever gotten
because it came
from deep within the heart
of the giver
when it was
all
he had to give.”

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posted on Ethical ELA on May 19, 2020  http://www.ethicalela.com
 
Today’s writing inspiration comes from Kimberly Johnson, Ed.D. She is a literacy coach and media specialist in a public school in rural Georgia. She enjoys writing as a guest blogger for www.writerswhocare.com and counts down the days between monthly 5-Day Writing Challenges.  She is the author of Father, Forgive Me: Confessions of a Southern Baptist Preacher’s Kid.  Follow her on Twitter at @kimjohnson66.

Inspiration

As writer/reporter Tom Ryan, author of Following Atticus and Will’s Red Coat, was losing his dear friend Vicki Pearson to cancer, he read aloud to her from her bedside the 32nd stanza of Whitman’s “Song of Myself” from Leaves of Grass:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.

Full text of poem available here: https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1891/poems/27

Ryan’s life has been one of turning from the distractions of daily life to things that silently resonate deep within the soul – things that matter more. He uses a poem by Whitman that, in many ways, foreshadows Ryan’s own turn from a heavily populated society to one of quiet solitude with his dog.

Process

Raise a Glass to the Literary Avant-Garde by writing a “Turn From” verse, using Whitman’s line starters to create your own poem, or scroll through the linked poem and find another passage to use as line starter motivation today.
From what or where or whom do you turn?
Toward what or where or whom do you turn?
What would happen if you turned toward something new or away from something you’ve always known?
Perhaps you can imagine a future perspective or imagine the turns taken by a fictional character or superhero.

Kim’s Poem

I think I could turn and Manhattan-dwell
I’d stand and watch folks buy! and sell!
They do not gather their own eggs
They do not stop for one who begs
They do not nap on front porch swings
Not one picks the crops rain brings
Not one serves biscuits with gravy
Not one offers sweet tea! Crazy!
So they swiftly move from place to place
They meet deadlines at break-neck pace

I wonder if I’d miss life on this farm
Did I jump the gun on greener-grass charm?

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Inspiration

Jason Reynolds, recently named the National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature, captures the way he felt about news of a death in Long Way Down in his verse “The Way I Felt.”

Process

Raise a Glass to the Literary Avant-Garde by writing your own version of “The Way I Felt.”  The “ul” feature in the comment box will help you indent if you wish.
If you are feeling nostalgic, keep the past tense and direct address.
If you are feeling connected to the present, move to present tense.
The “I” need not be you, but could invite another perspective in human form or an abstract concept like Love, Joy, Grief, Regret.

Kim’s Poem

The Way I
felt when your
tail thumped three
times was heartbroken.
I never had
a dog as
loyal as you.
I stood on
the front porch
waiting for you
to look up
but you were
too weak to
lift your head.
Three tail thumps.
And I understood.
It was time.
“Just this side
of Heaven is
a place called…
Rain…bow…bridge”
*Quoted lines are attributed to Paul C. Dahm from the original “Rainbow Bridge Poem.”

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Inspiration

Jericho Brown recently won the Pulitzer Prize for his poetry collection The Tradition, in which he invented a new style called a Duplex. The Duplex blends the musicality and structure of the ghazal, the sonnet, and the blues. You can read a couple of Brown’s poems here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2019/04/invention

Process

 Raise a glass to the Literary Avant-Garde by writing a Duplex today on any topic of your choice. I chose my favorite line from my favorite Eagles song to help me get started. The duplex starts with a couplet of two distinct lines. The second line is repeated and a new line is added, and then the format is repeated until there are seven couplets of nine to eleven syllables in each line.  Each new couplet’s first line ends with the final word in the preceding line, and the final word is the last word of the first line. 

Kim’s Poem

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I’m hosting this week at http://www.ethicalela.com, so here is my prompt and my poem for today:

Inspiration

In The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets by David Lehman, readers learn that Joe Brainard went to spend the summer of 1969 in Vermont, where he began writing short anaphoristic snippets of memories, all beginning with the words, “I Remember,” thus defining a new poetic form.

Process

Raise a Glass to the Literary Avant-Garde by writing an “I Remember” verse today. Ponder! Unearth! Ruminate! Reminisce!
Reminisce: This can be a time and place in your life that you want to revisit, that will bring you joy or comfort in these unprecedented times.
Ponder! Unearth! Ruminate! Or this can be a time and place in your life that you want to re-imagine with new eyes and perspective. Maybe you will write this from another’s point of view.
Imagine: Spring into the future and imagine what you will or want to remember. Or go for fiction — write something sci-fi, fantasy, or fairy tale-ish.
Your poem can be as short or as long as you need it to be today. A few lines will do. Give yourself permission for “good enough.” And give yourself permission to reject this idea all together and write whatever you need today.

Kim’s Poem

 

The Family Circle

I remember clutching her warm hand as the death rattle beat the drum of her final march
deferring to my brother, “I picked the spot. You pick the plot”
I remember pleading, “Lord, I need a sign she can rest in peace”
confessing I’d prayed for a sign: a majestic bird in flight, wings outstretched, assuring peace
I remember fighting tears, wanting to shoot three birds circling overhead
resisting the urge to punch my brother, who was fighting his own tears……of laughter?
I remember eyeing him, raising one questioning brow, tightening my lips, muttering obscenities
wondering if he was drunk as he whispered sideways, “She showed up! With her parents!”
I remember feeling the full force of her humor, her sign: sending buzzards in place of an eagle
I remember my animal-loving mother – prankish and ever-present. Even now.

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Hope is for the unknown chocolate,
hidden and forgotten,
 to be discovered and devoured.