This author, who is on Pacific Coast Time, may sometimes show up later than when the post is published. That is a feature, not a bug. Other than that, site rulz rule.
So grab your cuppa, and join in!
I was feeling completely uninspired at 5 PM PST yesterday afternoon— my imagination had gone AWOL. What Emily Dickinson called
— Darknesses —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —
So I started surfing poetry slams, looking for inspiration, and found Olivia Gatwood’s “Ode to My Bitch Face” — a terrific rant, but it would have been really cruel for me to hit you with it so early in the morning. You should look it up on YouTube sometime — I thought instantly of this line, and realized what a good description it is of poetry slams:
I am the cage where poetry
Paces and roars. . .
— ‘The Invocation of Kali’ by May Sarton
Makes me wonder what all these angry young women will be doing in 40 years. I was one of them way back when, and it’s astonishing to me how little the things that make young women rant have changed in 40 years.
Then went looking at quotes, and found this one:
You know, I used to say, when people say, 'How do you think about what to write about in the poems every week?' And I say, 'Well, I have to turn it in on Monday, so on Sunday nights I turn the shower to iambic pentameter and it sort of works out that way.'
— Calvin Trillin
Proof that Calvin Trillin has better shower rhythm than I ever will.
So, since my brain still didn’t light up, I’m giving you songs with ‘Monday’ in their titles, and then something to help all of us get centered for the week ahead:
I am trusting Ray Bradbury is correct, and that writing something every day will eventually lead to better writing.
G’Morning MOTlies! — May you have an iambic-pentameter-shower of a day.