ACTIVITY: Write about Dining

The theme this week is to write about dining--anything related to dining. During the meeting, I mentioned that, while writing about dining, really try and write about something else. Easier said than done...

dining

dining is less about eating
and more about place

where to go
which time of day
how the table settings should be arranged
what to wear
who to eat with if not alone
and often we are
unaccompanied
in a cafeteria
or a kitchen
complementing the various
courses of a meal
scratching the tableware
with our flatware
in the musicless silence

Unfinished poem about dining

In the beginning there was soup

And it turned into a poem

This is how it goes

First things first

We quench our daily thirst

With whatever makes us merry:

Ice cubes, bubbles and a juniper berry

Then we talk but not quite yet

The table is already set

And words may finally start flowing

He is talking to her

And, yes, she is glowing

But other guests not so much

Too far, too scared to touch

Each other’s minds or souls or hearts

So small talk only, the weather and prices  

And now dinner is served and starts

With soup and salt and maybe some spices

Bread and butter(fly) goes around it like flies

And everyone smiles and tries to be nice.

Unfinished due to poetic confusion and exhaustion

The Jolly Roger

by Malcolm 

We were young

and they were old

around the table.

There was no spoon

in the mashed potatoes;

bratty cousin scooped them

in his hand.

The maid was in tears.

I wanted to splash

in the finger bowls.

Someone brought the roasted bird

to the table

and Granddad said:

“He’s your Jolly Roger!”

thinking we’d cheer

at the mean rooster

now plucked dead before us all.

Just Saturday he chased us

around the yard

and we ran, dazzled by silly rooster fear.

We sat silent;

none of us ate any of him.

ACTIVITY: Imitation

This week, write a poem using "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens as your model. Write about thirteen ways of looking at something else...

13 Ways Looking at Death!

1

 Among the dark sky

The only moving thing

Was the flow of the grey clouds.

2

A cold shiver

Felt within the graves.

3

A new path

In a ghostly world

Unknown by human beings.

4

Is it a dream?

Covered by the black light

Feeling hopeless.

5

Waking up

Finding yourself in eternity

A path you created.

6

Being in a tug of war

Angel vs Evil

Where will you go?

7

Feeding the worms 

Fading away

In the depth of the Earth.

8

In pace requiescat

Is it really peaceful?

9

The unidentified creation
Full of fears

No one will help

You are all alone

10

The next life 

Full of happiness

Living in paradise

That's if you were good

11

The burning flames 

Full of horror

Misery in hell

Don't break the laws.

12

An adventure 

Curiosity fills your mind

But back off

It's deadly.

13

Your heart beating

then suddenly

Black.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Poem

I
All I can see
Sentences changing
To poems

II
I was shocked
Like a breathless fish
The poems are there

III
The poems are everywhere
They flow in the books

IV
A word is a poem
A poem is a word
Both of them are the same

V
I do not know the difference
The function of the words
Poems are dancing and flying

VI
They are mysterious
They have shapes
You can see the difference
They are pure
They are poems

VII
Why do you read books?
Isn't it true you see poems.
can't you imagine the words talking
expressing feelings of a person

VIII
I read the books
I see the sentences
All I observe are the poems
That keep coming into my mind

IX
The poems talk
They have feelings
They tell stories

X
Flying in darkness
Crying of pain
Express your feeling
Let it out into a poem

XI
Is it easy to write a poem?
Yes, just take a pen and a paper
Flow your feelings in
Let people feel you
Let the world know about you

XII
The poems know you
You know the poems

XIII
It was evening all afternoon
It was sunny all afternoon
I was writing poems
Making everyone listen to me
Poems listened to me
I listened to poems  

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Table

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Table

I.

Underneath hills of potatoes

And rivers of green pea soup

Ran the blade of the table.

II.

She was unsure if the plain white cloth that covered it

Suited the feast on the table

And matched the horror and the glory of the occasion.

III.

The table grew between them

Stretching into an all-night wordless gluttony

IV.

They sat in fragrant silence

A man and a woman

Waiting to be one

At the table laden with unspoken words

V.

She did not know what to offer him next

A sublime conversation about Platonic shadows

Or the raillery of juicy innuendoes

The table groaning

Under yet another platter.

VI.

Rain knocked on the window

Ever so gently

The table didn’t let it in

But turned on them instead

They suddenly felt softer and lighter

As if they had never eaten.

VII.

O fat people of the city,

Why do you dream of golden plates and silver spoons?

Why can you not see that the table

Is all

You need?

VIII.

I know the delicate flow of gourmet hors d'oeuvres

On clinquant trays

But I know, too,

That the table is involved

In what I know.

IX.

When the food was cleared away

The table stood in its rectangular beauty

Without expectations.

X.

Wine stains and breadcrumbs on the white tablecloth

Were the only memories

Of the first supper.

She dropped a knife.

XI.

They were still full after dessert,

But getting hungry again.

Since they ate their words on an empty stomach,

Impatience and fear of the unknown spilled like coffee

All over the table.

XII.

The table was no longer between them

They wiped it dry from tears.

XIII.

It was evening all night

It never rained

The rising sun made dust dance on the table

They ate and ate

All the words unheard, unsaid, untasted.    

13 Ways of Looking at a Map

I
What is one mountain
Or another
On a map?

II
I was lost
Like someone who does not
Know how to read a map.

III
The map was forgotten in the glove compartment of the car.
No one wanted a paper map anymore.

IV
A driver and a backseat driver
Are one.
A driver and a backseat driver and a map
Are fighting.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of longitude
Or the beauty of latitude,
The map unfolded
Or just before.

VI
The floor of the car was littered
With trash and candy wrappers.
Coffee stained the torn map
An ugly brown blur.
The name of the town
No longer legible.

VII
O corpulent men of GPS,
Why do you look for a golden app?
Do you not see how the map
Shows the way
To the women in the compass rose?

VIII
I know the legends
And the distances between two points;
But I know, too,
That the map is a record
Of all I know.

IX
After locating myself on the map,
A crease in the landscape
Obscured my destination in another state.

X
At the sight of a map,
Spread on a table beneath a yellow bulb,
Even the geeks of cyberspace
Gape in blind silence.

XI
She walked across a stony beach
Slipping this way and that on the uneven surface.
Once, a fear pierced her,
In that she mistook
The pattern on a wet stone
For a map.

XII
The ocean is roaring.
The map must be orienting.

XII
It was all beginning and ending.
It was hidden
And it was going to hide.
The map folded
On the floor of the car.

FAILURE

Someone who feels that she will never

be successful in her life.

Someone who is always negative and

does not trusts herself nor someone else.

Is she the way that she's thinking?

Even though she feels like she's in a good stage of her life!?

Is it because of the people that she trusts then they leave her?

Or

Because of her, judging people and not giving them a chance to prove themselves?

She's feeling lonely,

She's nothing compare to others,

That's what she thinks,

She's ME!

I am a Failure.

Wonderful World

Passing through horrible time
Struggling beautifully...
Fighting in the pouring rain
Waiting for a ray of sunlight to come out between the dark grey clouds
Waiting for the sun to rise
Just so another dark night befalls
Yet why do we love to struggle?
Is it because we're masochist?
No...
It's because we recall all those warm memories...
And we don't wanna lose them
This's a truly wonderful world filled with suffering

ACTIVITY: Create a Star Field

This week's creative writing club activity was taken from an exercise developed by Christian Bök called Impromptu #16, which was hosted by The Found Poetry Review during a National Poetry Month activity last year, and which instructed us about how to create a field of stars based on a found text.

While Bök's exercise suggested using source material from an antiquarian astronomy text, in the interest of time (club members only meet for one hour each week), we used material from Astronomy Books Online. Follow the link above if you want to read more about how the star fields were made or just look at the amazing creations that follow! Don't you wish you were part of it?

Are We Alone?

Star field text: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/88aug/easterbr.htm 

Birth and Death of Stars

Lamest Starfield ever

https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0303500

Greek Cosmology

History of Cosmology

A New Astronomy. Visual Poetry by Shamma Al-Bouainain

The Universe in a Helium Droplet

Source material taken from The Universe in a Helium Droplet by Grigory E. Volovik.

Astronomy Notes

http://www.astronomynotes.com/

                                                   ☼  

        ۞

           ٭  

             

                               ٭                                     ٭

      ۞

                                              ۞                                  ٭ weather

                             ☼ climate and climate change agents with feedbacks٭ and appearance۞            ۞ runaway greenhouse ☼) Mars discussion now includes proofs for liquid water in past and sub-surface water ice☼  now includes the role of plate tectonics in the carbon cycle

ACTIVITY: Write about the New Year

ABP creative writers gathered this week to write about the new year. Did you make a resolution? How long could you keep it?

new year resolutions

i promise to promise more and break
my promises
and put myself back together
when i'm broken
and eat well when i can
with people i like
and i like people and i want
to like more of them and then
we can be friends
or this that and the other
a brother or sister

i won't!

slow down
really slow down

let everything sink
into the calm

of paint
as it spreads and blends

on a silk scarf
that i won't tie around my neck.

i could tie it
on the handle of my purse

but them again,
i won't.

i'll fold it
carefully

place it in the trunk
of colorful resolutions.