Author: carolyncordon

The writing prompt for today is a particular poetic style. Even though I have long been a fan of short, short poetic forms, this is a new one for me, I first heard of it this year, and decided to use it as one of my writing prompts for February.

The prompt is this : The American Sentence
If you go to this site, you can read about it. Paul Szlosek has written about the form, and has lots of examples on his post about it, and some further examples in the comments. It sticks to the seventeen syllable count of the Haiku.

This poetic style is very much in the stripped back, ‘moment’ style of haiku, but is presented as a single sentence in the one line. I enjoy trying to write good haiku (and occasionally get another good one). And I very much enjoyed playing with this new (to me) style of poetry.

There are also words concerning this poetic form here, another American poet’s blog site. And now I’m wondering about the possibility of an Australian Sentence, and what may be the thing that makes it so … Reference to a kangaroo? No, far too kitschy … How about this definition of the Australian Sentence poetry style: “Tight, no bullshit, blunt, not flowery, about truth, seventeen syllables” – does that work?

I don’t know, but I definitely feel this would make for an interesting discussion. If you have any thoughts about it, please leave a comment, and the discussion can continue.

In the meantime, here is my American Sentence that I wrote on Paul Szlosek’s blog :

“Mid morning sunshine, pot plants outside, all wave branches beseechingly …”

What could I write for ‘An Australian Sentence’? I wonder … how about this one:

“Summer, dry again, bloody government thinks it’s not their fault, dumb *#*&^s.”

Well that’s certainly blunt, and truthful, at least as far as I and others see it. But is it poetry? It’s in keeping with the initial definition I gave above, you thoughts about it most welcome.

So I’ll leave it to you, the writing prompt for today is The American Sentence and if you wish to have a go at it, why not An Australian Sentence too!

The writing prompt for today is Worthy of Worthless? Feel free to choose which of the two options seems to give you the most scope for your writing, or choose to write about both of the options in the one piece.

I’m quite interested in the idea of writing a poem that is a dialogue between two voices, with opposing views about something, one feeling the thing is worthy, the other calling it worthless. I’ll have to have a think about what the subject might be. At the moment, birds are attracting my thoughts, so perhaps it may be a particular kind of bird? No, all birds are worthy, in their own ways! I’m an interested bird watcher.

Although, the blackbirds that scratch up the bark and leave it on the pathway where my mother lives might be named as worthless, by some. But then the blackbird sings its lovely song, and they seem very much worthy … Personally, I tend to prefer native birds over non native, but I like to see and hear the variety of birds around our place. In my time living where I live, I’ve seen over 45 different types of birds. Is counting birds like this a worthy, or worthless thing? It could be both, either, or neither …

Have you ever felt particularly worthy, or worthless? That could certainly be a good path to travel in your writing. I’ve definitely had some worthless moments, and it’s a terrible feeling. Fortunately, I feel extremely worthy these days, almost all of the time. Or at least not worthless. I have plenty of people who love and value me. It depends on what is needed or wanted at a particular time … But nothing is worthless, no-one is worthless.

Sadly, some people can’t say the same thing about themselves, and that is such a sad thing for them. Certain classes of people get labelled by unthinking others, and if those people don’t have better people with them, they might believe the ‘worthless’ label. People are not a thing you can easily label though, we are all quite nuanced, every single one of us, in various ways.

I may be not very good at running in marathons, but I am excellent at writing poems. If someone needed a person to run fast for them, I would let them know they’d be better off looking elsewhere … That doesn’t make me ‘worthless’ overall, just not good for that particular role. If they want a poem written though, I’d step up for that role, I am a worthy writer of poems!

So there were some of my thoughts about the writing prompt for today – Worthy or Worthless.

I’ve enjoyed this Fabulous February of Writing Prompts, but it’s been a slight challenge to get a new one out every single day for the month. Most days it’s easy enough, other days have more things happening. I’m glad I chose the shortest month of the year to do it, that’s for sure.

Now that February is drawing to a close, I ask myself, and am asking you, the reader too, should I continue giving out writing prompts here, on my writing blog? I feel yes, but a scaled back version. I thought putting a new writing prompt out on Monday, every Monday, would be an easier way to go, while still giving writing prompts for those who like them.

So if you’ve gained something good from this month of writing prompts, and would like more writing prompts to keep on coming once February is over, please leave a comment here. If nobody says they’d like it to keep happening, if might stop …

Missy says, “Yes, please let ‘mum’ know how you feel, otherwise she’ll get that sad look, and she’ll stop patting me (and feeding me).”

So if you don’t want to answer for me, do it for Missy!

Puss in Boots here – “You know this woman, Carolyn, does lots of things to help other people with their writing, I know, because she takes me with her when she’s out and about doing her writing community stuff. She does things for others because it’s her way of helping, how about you do a bit of helping too, and let Carolyn know if you’d like a weekly writing prompt to happen on her writer blog!”

So Missy and Puss in Boots are both backing me up, will you back me up too, and leave a comment about whether you want the writing prompts to continue. Please? Pretty please with sugar on top?

Cheers!

as name

I like having my friend, Puss in Boots with me when I’m out in public doing writing group things. He’s a calm fellow, Puss, never gets rowdy, he’s just there, colourful, but not loud with it.

The images of me aren’t so colourful, I tend to have more subdued ‘Autumn’ colours, while Puss is always dressed in his lovely bright colours. He has no voice, so I suppose the bright colours speak for him, to some extent.

In this photo, Puss in Boots was taking part in one of the Adelaide Plains Poets Festival of Words events. It is a visit to a particular art gallery, then a train trip to Adelaide and back. Attendees are encouraged to write creatively about art works that took their notice. It’s always a fun event, and yes, new poetry does get written, for sure!

This is one of the artworks that attracted my attention at the last Festival, and the poem I wrote on the train about the painting. I was thrilled to hear from the artist recently to tell me how much she enjoyed my poem, and that she’d been able to sell the painting.

Art and words go together well, I’ve always thought that, well I have for quite a while anyway. When I first heard of the Japanese Haiga, which is haiku displayed with an image, I fell in love with it. The image and words each add to the other, bringing much more thoughts into it all, for the viewer/reader … One day, I would like to publish a book of Haiga, but the cost of coloured images in books makes it expensive …

Something to put on my bucket list perhaps, or I could forget about an actual book, and do something online instead, where no expensive print photo needs to be printed, simply displayed on the screen with the words instead, as on this blog post, for my poem and the image from the Festival … Thoughts and ideas happening now, for sure …

Open and Shut’ is today’s writing prompt.

Shut your eyes, and listen …
What can you hear, smell, feel? It is said that if you lose a sense, it can help to make your other senses work better. I don’t know if that is true, but doing this eye shutting thing, certainly makes it easier to hear, I think.

Write down what it was that your other senses could pick up, bird song, traffic, the winds? Was it cool, warm, hot? Could you smell machinery odours, kitchen ones, something from the garden? Write it all down.

Now open your eyes. Look around and write down five random things you can see. Give yourself ten minutes, and put those five things,  together with your awakened senses pieces, in a piece of creative writing. Then look at what you wrote. Are you happy with the results? Try to use as many of the senses pieces in there as you can.

I have a lot of faith in this five random words idea. I’ve been doing it for quite a few years now, and have seen/heard some amazing responses, as well as enjoying writing in this way myself.

Adding in the senses part is a new thing, and using both parts? It should be good, I hope and expect it will work!

So, this is an open and shut of senses working over time! Are you ready? Go!

Are you surprised at where you went with those five things? The randomness seems to get the brain going in unusual directions at times, and that can be a fine thing.