 April 1st it is, and I have taken on the poem-a-day challenge for National Poetry Month. I've got off to a good start, completing my 1st poem by mid-day. The task of a poem a day for 30 days is no small task. It's easy to get discouraged when you aren't getting quite what you want out of the piece you've been working on for several hours and throw everything up in the air and utter a choice word or two. I've don that, so I know. Thinking back over the years I've attempted this I believe only one have I actually finished with 30 or more. Sometimes I've given up mid way though or once I think I ended with 27 or 28. Anyway, I have every intention in completing the challenge this year.
On another note, Marie Howe's Magdalene came out on the 28th & my copy arrived yesterday and I finished today. Magnificent work by Howe, though I've read another book by her that I loved. I will say, she overdid herself with this one. I will be writing a review of it soon.
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Attended an Open Mic tonight in Liberty, Missouri at Morning Day Cafe. Read three poems:
If only in Theory, Tiananmen Mother, and Foxtrot. Very nice turnout. Great venue. First time there. Poems are great to the degree that they overcome a skeptical reader's permanent resistance to being powerfully moved. ~Dan Chiasson
This week I received a link to an essay by William Stafford from Ken Waldman. From my very first contact with Ken he told me he comes from the William Stafford School of poetry. I read the essay and while the concept Stafford describes is not new to me, it was worth reading because I've felt that I've written a lot of crap lately. It gave me the okay to just keep on keeping on to write through it. Something I needed.
Saturday I wrote for two hours solid and they cam back to the work and dove into it again and I have no idea how much longer I wrote because I'd get up periodically and come back to it. Just back from Mass this morning and I tinkered with one of them some more. I feel Im close on it. This afternoon I am scheduled to go do a platelet donation at the Community Blood Center. I went last Sunday but they had trouble with the flow clotting and had to about the procedure. I've done this for several years now and every once and a while the have problems. Keeping my fingers crossed. So today begins the Spring Session of the AWP Writer 2 Writer program. There were nearly 400 applications for this session and a total of 25 mentors and mentees were matched for the program. I was fortunate to be one of those 25. It took applying to 6 sessions so I suppose 6 was my magic number.
I've been paired with poet and musician Ken Waldman who has done this once before. What I've already learned about Ken is that he is all energy. He travels a lot and is non-stop about his art which includes poetry and music. He's not into social media but makes hundreds of contacts the old fashioned way. Person to person. The program is broken into 6 modules and the start of this first module has me pondering the following questions,
There are also some recommended activities to in and a chance to do some short or long term goal planning for my writing. Looking forward to learning from Ken. |
AuthorMichael Allyn Wells - notes & musings Archives
November 2024
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