Polaroid photo by author (Great Smoky Mountains National Park)
Illusion hills smoke signals further vision blanket memory, summer-warm consciousness dreaming a boulder for a pillow battling angels to climb ladders everything leaves a mark low-rounded, still-sacred some of those illusions carry ancient names some of them carry the bones of the sky
I love how mountains fade into the distance, how it hardly seems real. This poem is the second one I wrote for the polaroid at the top. The other one, a villanelle, is over on Tupelo Press’ website today.
Polaroid photo by author (Nag’s Head, NC – I think!)
the boy does tricks the woman
stands watching the sand is
too foot-stepped to notice the
camera makes them all
silhouettes watching the sand
is everywhere playing tricks
This poem is a companion piece to the one I published on Tupelo Press’ website today for the August 30/30 Project. You can read the other poem (a villanelle) here:
Guess who finally got some little books of William Carlos Williams‘ poetry? So, YES: this little poem of mine is a direct response to reading his work, and my attempt to play with words in a similar style. My local library doesn’t have anything by him (either that or it’s always checked out) so I decided I would just add to my own library instead. Any fellow bibliophiles out there?
BOOKS I LOVE BOOKS I LOVE BOOKS
And speaking of books, and poetry: I am THRILLED to announce that, thanks to an artist friend’s donation, I’ve met my fundraising goal! I’m so happy to be able to raise money for the press, and so grateful for my friends’ generosity in helping me! You can still throw in, tho, for as long as the page is active on the website – which means you can still get a copy of the poetry / photography zine I’ll be making once this month is over.
Golf town sand and spa pines and pubs coddled traditions and legends around every corner
My Grand-mere always spoke of azaleas sparkles in her milky eyes and soft hands around a pottery cup of chicory coffee
another time another place another south
This poem is a second one that I wrote for the photo, with the villanelle being shared on Tupelo Press’ website for this month’s 30/30 project. It’s been a journey!! I don’t know what’s been harder: writing the poems and submitting them daily, or trying my hand at fundraising. PHEW.
I’m thrilled to report, however, that thanks to the gorgeous generosity of a few friends I am super close to meeting my goal. I’m double excited about this because of the zine I’m going to make donors as a reward; I’ve decided I’m going to include some other pieces that I only have shared so far on Medium, too, since they suit the general theme. Yay for making something in print!
There’s still time to get in on the party if you have $30 you can spare (or less, or more – but $30 will get you the zine!) HERE IS THE LINK TO DONATE.
Pinehurst Village is a beautiful place. I can’t think about golf without thinking about my maternal grandmother, my Grand-mere. She loved the sport! I know azaleas are a Masters thing and that takes places somewhere besides North Carolina, but still: golf = Grand-mere, and Grand-mere loved to see the azaleas on TV during that tournament every year.
Jared Coffin House, Nantucket | instant film photo by author
Glass-eyed Narcissus hiding too tall for me to see him in his past place abiding
The summer days go sliding a boat upon the pond skims glass-eyed Narcissus hiding
its deceptive depths, chiding obsession’s inviting grin in its sin-seat abiding
What seeking brings is finding with a cup full to the brim still spy Narcissus hiding
Hours confidently striding distances the kith & kin of past places abiding
A shine of gladder tidings ringing in a new day’s whims glass-eyed Narcissus hiding in his favorite place abiding
This poem is a companion villanelle to the one I published today on Tupelo Press’ website as part of the 30/30 Project. You can read the other poem here:
Thank you for reading! I’m over halfway through my month of writing and publishing, so it’s time for me to add another request for you to kindly consider donating to my fundraiser for Tupelo Press. I’m going to produce a new zine, but only for people who donate $30. Want a copy? Here’s where you can donate!
Padded quiet morning, here where life has barely thawed out the birds wait to raise a cheer
to summer. Sunshine appears with warmth, flexing its new clout in the padded morning. Here
and there flying bugs appear but the earth-dwellers have doubts and birds wait to sound the cheer.
Chased by needling cold fears pine doesn’t worry about much here, soaks up the morning.
Sap slows thoughts, fills lungs. Clear blue tries to break through the clouds. The birds start to tweet out cheers.
My heart loves this high frontier, while my limbs long to thaw out in the padded quiet here I join the birds in their cheers.
The truth is that writing a villanelle each day is HARD. Some of the photographs I chose to prompt me aren’t very easy to work from, and keeping myself on task with the form while also trying to break some kind of incredible creative ground JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN every single day. This was the best I could do for this photo, and it was a labor getting it out of myself.
If you look at the Tupelo Press website, I sent in something else for the same photo. It’s a kind of mashup of haikus and tankas used as stanza, which I know some purists will say is all wrong but hey it’s what I chose to do.You can see that poem at the link below; scroll down a little please.
Thank you, readers, for being here! Please if you can, consider donating to my fundraiser; I would love to meet my goal but I am a long, long way off. . .
break it down, where the light finds the failing fallen, ignited by shadows
broken patterns alight within the frame’s swollen hollows, flushed with light
where geometry’s tight course follows peaks and glens waves will find the shadows
in the doorway hope fights feeling sorrow taken past breaking down. The light
will flush away the blight burning away bracken igniting the shadows
til the fire’s hot might shoulders its calling kindling where the light extinguishes shadows
Again today I am sharing a villanelle with you, as part of my project to write 30 villanelles during my time in the 30/30 project for Tupelo Press. Again, I decided to deviate in terms of what I sent to the “official” project website, so y’all get the villanelle here!
End of the mountains, the end of the line. Dad used to say “the dead center of town.” The old bones resting here have done their time.
Now they gaze out at the prairie, the fine endless grasses wave back. A man could drown in those mountains. He has to hold the line
until it breaks, then hold on longer. Twine is good but faith is stronger. Dad’s short brown hair gone white rests on his old head. His time
passes now in a chair, while movies shine in his eyes. His ears swallow up loud sounds like mountains. He still wants to tow the line
but his body refuses. There are times in my dreams where his health has turned around but the bones in his skin rest. There are signs
of love and hope in him still. The reclined dead in this town smile from the earth, laid down where the mountains rest. At the end of time all the old bones here will jump into line.
This poem is part of my 30 Villanelles in 30 Days project that I’m doing for Tupelo Press‘ 30/30 Project. However, worrying that maybe readers there might be annoyed by the consistency of form, I decided to switch things up a bit. What’s on the Tupelo Press website for the photo you see at the top is a different form (a poem made up of 3 Shadorma stanzas plus a tag stanza), and I’m sharing the villanelle right here.
Please head over and read the other poem I wrote – plus of course check out the work of the incredible poets who are writing with me this month! If you decide to donate to the level that you’ll get a copy of the zine I’m going to make, maybe I’ll throw in all the poems and not just the Villanelles. Whatcha think?
Rhythm jives to consonant percussion foot stomp to the letter keeping time staying in line with a heel toe, and something in the hips don’t forget to breathe
syncopated sur prises prying an extra beat, a kind of additive slipped in like a squeeze of lime in a cocktail when you need a
break
make it
if chance asks you for a dance take it
Part of the experience of participating in the 30/30 Project for Tupelo Press (which I will admit I didn’t know about beforehand) is Craft Talks, which are kind of like mini-workshops about poetry. We had one the other night where we talked about the line (in poetry). I took notes, and the next morning I wrote this poem.
Thank you for reading! And if you’ve been following along on the Tupelo Press website, thank you twice!
I am back again today to talk about the 30/30 project I’m participating in for Tupelo Press, and to offer incentives for your dear, wonderful, generous donations! The writing is going well so far – in the sense that I am happy with what I’m producing and *also* really enjoying reading the work of my fellow poets. You can check out the project here.
My goal is to raise $350. I won’t see a penny of this, FYI, but it will all go to support the Press. They are an independent literary publisher, and a non-profit, so you can imagine how important donations are to them. You can read more about them on their website.
Since it’s equally important to me that my fundraiser is successful, I would like to offer the following incentives:
Donations of $30 will receive a copy of a zine containing all the poems (and their corresponding photographs) at the end of the project. (Obviously I have to wait until the end of the project to make the zine, so bear with me please.)
Donations of $40 will receive a copy of my most recent poetry book, The Body Botanic (available at my Blurb store and pictured at the top of this post – but your copy will be free!)
Donations made for the wild amount of $100 will receive a copy of both AND I will gladly write you a poem on the topic of your choice.
I will need your mailing address to send you these rewards, so please if you do donate in any of those amounts send your details to me via email : amy@amywritespoetry.com
ANY donation you make, even if it’s just $1, makes you an automatic super star and comes with my heartfelt thanks for your generosity! If all you can do is read the poems each day, I appreciate that too!
Ok here ends my appeal for your hard earned money. Thank you so much for being here, and for reading this post. Thank you for your support of my writing by being here in the first place!
This summer, in advance of the road trips I went on, I made lists of focus words to help me with my writing. Two of the places I had been to before: Mueller State Park in Colorado and Abiquiu in New Mexico. Since they were familiar to me, I was able to generate a short list of things that I think about when I consider each location.
I started with Colorado, since I was going there first, and came up with:
Pine Mountain Cloud Mountain Cloud Sky Earth Rain Meadow
The list of words gave me something to start from rather than waiting to see if anything struck me, and it worked really well. Each morning I was able to sit and think about the words, while equally thinking about my surroundings and whatever I was experiencing in the moment.
Similarly, I used the words to help concentrate my photography a little, since again I had photographed that part of Colorado pretty extensively in previous years. I didn’t want to make the same pictures all over again – although who knows, maybe I still did that. In my head, I had a direction and goal and that was a nice feeling!
I waited until I was leaving Colorado to make a list about New Mexico, since I wanted to keep my head in the same space as my body rather than letting it wander further down the road. My words for Abiquiu were:
Sand / Soil Rock Rattlesnake Sage Heat Water / Mesa River Sky
I’m going to start sharing the poems I wrote on my Medium, so if you’re able to read me over there I hope to see you!
So, fellow writers and visual artists: what do you do? Have you tried working from a word list?
The Poetry Patio 