Poetry Challenge #74-I Am From . . .
A few years back, we shared a prompt inspired by the I Am From Project, celebrating our unique voices through poetry (my summation of the project, not the official word.). The project’s goal was “to create a national river of voices, reminding America that diversity is our origin and our strength.” I Am From Project invited us—all of us—to share our stories and rejoice in the experiences—different and the same—that make us, U.S.
Poetry Challenge #74
The Stuff of Me
Write a poem describing where you are from, your ancestors, roots, family, and or your own personal journey.
Begin with the words:
Where I’m From . . .
“Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon
I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening,
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush
the Dutch elm
whose long-gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.
I’m from fudge and eyeglasses,
from Imogene and Alafair.
I’m from the know-it-alls
and the pass-it-ons,
from Perk up! and Pipe down!
I’m from He restoreth my soul
with a cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.
I’m from Artemus and Billie’s Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
to the auger,
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments—
snapped before I budded —
leaf-fall from the family tree. ”
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 3200 days ago and counting . . . We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link below and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #72.5-Flip-Flop
Are you, by chance, wearing flip flops?
If you aren’t, you should be.
Why? Because the Wednesday after Memorial Day Weekend is officially National Flip-Flop day.
This glorious art is by Teri Virbickis. You can order prints!
Flip-flops are called “flip-flops” because of the sound they make when worn. They are also called “slip-slops” for the same reason, and also, my friend Shona explained, “because they look sloppy.”
Other names for this “inexpensive footwear consisting of a flat base, typically rubber, and a strap with three anchor points: between the big and second toes, then bifurcating to anchor on both sides of the foot” are slippers, thongs, pluggers and double-pluggers, jandals, plakkies, tsinelas, and chanclas.
Flip-flop is also means to change one's mind or opinions on something, or to be indecisive and wavering between different positions—in other words to wiggle-waggle over one’s opinion in the same manner a flip-flop does on one’s foot—especially when wet. (Which came first? You decide.)
Poetry Challenge #72.5
Flip-Flop
In keeping with the theme, rather than give one solid prompt, here are a few. Choose the one that suits your mood:
1. Put on a pair of flip-flops and let them take your poem wherever they want to go.
2. Write a poem that begins one way and ends another.
3. Write a poem from the point of view of a flip-flop
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 8 years ago! We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem at @kellybennettwrites
Click on Fishbowl link below and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #71-Listing Up!
Find this list and more on Growing in the Garden website.
Spring is in full swing. Which for me means the frantic rush between post-winter clean up and pre-summer weeding & planting. A glorious time of year, but hectic—and the rest of life doesn’t slow when the garden goes into hypergrow either.
To keep up, I make lists (and borrow lists like this one.)
Lists are good. Checking items off lists is better.
Lists can help keep our “boats,” in the sometimes rough and rocky ocean, from well…listing and possibly crashing or sinking in the process…
What’s more, lists are easy, which makes them a great way to begin:
Poetry Challenge #71
Listing Up!
You can write list poems over and over with different results every time.
Begin with any topic and list things it makes you think of as quickly as you can.
Next go through the list and pick out one or more things that stick out for you.
Try making a list from the thing you picked out.
What does that thing make you think of?
Why did you pick it?
Add detail.
Use your senses.
Play with rhythm or rhyme.
Here are a couple prompts you can use to start if you want:
I like…
I wish I liked…
I remember…
Help! My peonies have fallen and can’t get up…in other words, they are listing, too!
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
*Cindy Faughnan and I resolved to begin this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 8 years ago! We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link below and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Totally Cool
Cool to be Busy or Hip to be Boring?
Yesterday morning, on hold with a ticketing agent, while reading email and checking Instagram, this article entitled, Cool to be Busy, popped up. I didn’t have time to read more than the headline just then—the operator clicked on—had too much going on to get back to it, later, so I never learned where the article went. But, maybe I didn’t need to know . . .
California Dreaming:
As a teen in Southern California, in The Beach Boys 70s, in Huntington Beach, when “sunscreen” meant sitting on the shady side of Lifeguard Stand #5, it was cool to be busy. (Having nothing to do, nowhere to go, was just sad, dude.) We were totally cool, and kept ourselves totally busy—working on our tans.
Being tan was cool & tanning was a job. Job performance was judged by our tan lines. Fading was not an option! “Tanning” was a top item on our To-Do lists. An overachiever even then, I put in my hours and then some “working” on my tan. Which, even I’ll admit, was a pretty mindless task. As long as I minded the sun’s position, turned & basted accordingly, I was free to mentally pass the time doing whatever I liked: reading, dozing, people watching, daydreaming.
Grandboys at the Lake
I was trying to find a snap of my kids back when but the photos have all gone yellow—yes it was that long ago…
Lazy, crazy, hazy daze of Momming:
Later, as a mother in the 80s and 90s, in “Bring on those babies” Tulsa, Oklahoma, “Momming”—Play Dates, Swim Lessons, T-Ball, Soccer, Dance—replaced “Tanning” on my to-do list. While the name had changed, commitment-wise “Mom events” were much the same as Tanning: schedules chunks of the day during which, aside from tossing out cautions or cheers, depending, my job was to be there. And while I was there, mentally pass the time however I wanted: reading, dozing, chatting, people watching, daydreaming.
Fast Forward to Now:
If busy is cool, I am the Coolest! But, busy cool now doesn’t make me feel as chill as back then, it just makes me tired. Why?
Now, looking back on those golden unplugged days of yore, I miss having “Tanning” and “Momming” on my To-Do list! Not that I miss having to doing them. “Tanning” and “Momming” were definitely not Free Time. I wasn’t free to go or do what I wanted. (After all, my job was to minding my tan, or my children, depending.) Because the nature of the tasks, “Tanning” and “Momming” required me to be some place physically, while mentally leaving me free to do or think—or not—as I pleased, call it ME TIME.
(As I define it, ME TIME is some scheduled time in the day when I absolutely cannot Go or Do or Produce anything for any purpose other than to pass the time.)
So, if “Cool to be Busy,” is cool! It’s time I played it real cool by getting busy, getting in some ME TIME. How about you?
Scheduling Me Time:
Step 1: Take an honest look at your weekly schedule and find a slot for ME TIME. (How much time depends on you, your schedule, and your guilt threshold.)
Step 2: Don’t take NO! Find Time—15 minutes here, 10 minutes there, half-an-hour on a Sunday—Time you would, or could, or used-to reserve for _____________ (Insert your equivalent of “Tanning”).
Step 3: Imagine yourself laying on the beach, slathered in Bain de Soleil. Don’t move or you’ll muss your tan lines! Don’t touch or you’ll get sand in your device! Can’t scroll cause there’s sun glare on the screen!
Step 4: What’s left? List things you want to/enjoy/miss that you don’t allow time for now. For Example:
Reading for fun
daydreaming
baseball games
People Watch
Taking a nap
Organize photos
Stamp Collection
Write letters/cards
Build a model airplane
Work a puzzle
Watch the grass grow
Work on your non-tan (SPF 100 & hat mandatory)
Be Totally Cool!
Totally Cool Playlist:
Poetry Challenge #70-Noises On!
For the last poetry challenge we explored the Sound of Silence, this time, let’s crank up the volume by focusing on noise.
City Noises…
Country noises . . .
Kitchen noises: day or night the kitchen never really sleeps…
And my favorite critter noises…
Poetry Challenge #70
Noises On!
Visualize an event, a moment, an incident—either real or imagined. Now, close your eyes and listen to the sound of significant movements and/or actions happening in that moment. What sounds do you hear? Heart beats, water dripping, footsteps, maybe bells . . .
Write a poem using these sounds. Try establishing a rhythm by repeating the sound a few times in each line followed or preceded by what is making the sound. Some hugely successful songs use sounds in this way. For example, in The Trolley Song sung notably by Judy Garland in the movie Meet Me in St. Louis sounds are used to describe the first moment Ester meets John:
“Clang, clang, clang went the trolley
Ding, ding, ding went the bell
Zing, zing, zing went my heart strings
From the moment I saw him I fell
Chug, chug, chug went the motor
Bump, bump, bump went the brake
Thump, thump, thump went my heart strings
When he smiled I could feel the car shake”
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 8 years ago! We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem at @kellybennettwrites
Click on Fishbowl link below and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #69-The Sound of Silence
I’m writing this in the wee small hours of the morning, when, as David Mann wrote, “the whole wide world is fast asleep (sing it Frank).
Schools and businesses are closed. There’s no traffic. The world is silent.
And that got me thinking: What exactly does silence sound like?
Poetry Challenge #69
The Sound of Silence
Write a poem that’s filled with silence. What images make you think of silence? What can you see and not hear?
Try using quiet sounds—s and l and w—for your words so your poem has a quiet sound to it.
Shhhhhhhhhhh. Listen.
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
The Sound of Silence Playlist: Simon & Garfunkle’s Sounds of Silence (Of course!)
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 8 years ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. (This prompt was Cindy’s idea.) If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link below and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Fin Pal asks Norman how to overcome Stage Fright
Hey Norman! I have a question for you . . .
Gavin has some really good questions. Those of you who have read Norman One Amazing Goldfish, know that when it was time for Norman to go up on stage, he got really really nervous. So nervous he shivered and quivered. Has there ever been a time when you were that nervous? Me too!
Ready to read Norman’s answer, Finpals? Scroll down . . .
Glug
Glug
Glug . . .
But first, a finny!
Q: What do goldfish use for money?
A: Sand dollars!
Friends, check out the picture Gavin created for Norman! Fin-o-menal!!!
Do you have a question for Norman the Goldfish- about friends, school, pets, family, life in and outside the fishbowl?
Do you have a finny fish joke to share?
Send Norman a letter!
Don’t forget to order your copy of NOT NORMAN: A GOLDFISH STORY and NORMAN: ONE AMAZING GOLDFISH!!
Poetry Challenge #68-Cup of Kindness
Nanny, my grandmother (born July 6, 1906), and her girlfriends gave each other tea or coffee cups as gifts. None of them had pockets deep enough to buy a whole set of china at one time. Nor did their ilk register for wedding gifts.
Nanny and her friends built their sets of “good dishes” piece by piece as budget allowed. (Nanny is on the right with glasses; one of her prized tea cups on the left.) On birthdays they would either give a cup in the recipient’s chosen pattern, or they would surprise each other with different cups. Nanny called hers “Friendship Cups.”
These cups are a few of Nanny’s remaining Friendship Cups. I display them front and center in my cabinet to remember her—and to remember my friends. You are welcome to use one anytime.
The cups in my cupboard seem empty, they are absolutely not. Each one, still today, is brimming with love and kindness.
This bulletin board kit is from Jannylovecolors.
It’s a bright spring day and “What the World Needs Now” was the last song on my local NPR station WLIW. That song!
What’s better way to germinate love than to fill a cup with kindness.
Poetry Challenge #68
Cup of Kindness
Think back over the past few months and recall a kindness someone gave to you.
What was that kindness? How did it make you feel to receive it?
With that in mind, fill a cup with a kindness of your own. To whom will you pass it?
Title your poem “Cup of Kindness”
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
Nanny’s Cup
This cup is one of few remaining pieces from Nanny’s “good dishes.” The 1989 earthquake sent the rest flying.
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 8 years ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.