Patchwork Prose and Verse
Inspiration
For the second day of poetry in the ethicalela.com small group, Angie invited us to focus on using anagrams to inspire poetry. She hosted Day 2 of the January Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com.
She encouraged using this anagram generator to help with ideas: https://ingesanagram.com. I wrote about the snow we had on Sunday.
snow
once upon this now
he won sniffing his own spot
in this cold-sown snow
This month, I’m writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. Today’s prompt opens with a quote: “All of the sadness in the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter.” – A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway.
Goldberg invites us to write about weather – so I chose a shape poem for today’s writing, using a memory from Route 66, where I was so frightened by the sky I was practically trembling in the back seat. To see the shape, phone must be turned sideways…..(a real twister)…..
In Tulsa, Oklahoma
I’ve lived through hurricanes I’ve walked the eye in one
that came right over me ~ sunshine in the middle ~
but the wickedest weather I’ve seen was in
Oklahoma traveling Route 66 the sky
was yellow gray like a constipated
face only with the fear of the
stomach so ominous
it erased all
memory of
sunshine
I was in a Pre-K class, where students were making predictions about Groundhog Day forecasts. I Googled the truth and didn’t spoil their afternoon surprises, but I came back to the office and shared the news in verse.
Common Threads 