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Invitation to the Prompt

4/29/2013

Those-in-the-Know know that I've been messing about lately with my collage papers. Cutting and pasting and gluing and cropping zing my brain cells in ways no other activity can. After focusing primarily on writing for several years, the addition of visual media to my bag of tricks has shaken, rattled & rolled my creativity. It's as if I can feel my brain rewiring through this process, both a thrilling and a welcome prospect.

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to write a few poems to the mixed media work of Robert Tomlinson. My pieces, as well as those of several other poets, were collected in the book, Original Weather, which was published in 2011 by Uttered Chaos. Ekphrastic work was new to me at the time, but now I regularly turn to visual stimuli as the Zippo to flame my poetic pyre. My postcard adventure a few weeks back was one such example of where visual cues have taken me.

For some time now I've had the idea to experiment with a parallel blog, one that would offer a weekly writing prompt for poets and others who enjoy the challenges of creating a poem (or ???) from a given cue. I don't intend, necessarily, to stick to purely visual prompts, but I'm imagining they'll be a substantial component of what I present.

So what do you think? Is this a project you think might be useful to you? I welcome your thoughts.

And stay tuned . . .

. . . STARTING NOW!
Is this an image to make your pen feel prickly all over?

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Color Me Bad

4/22/2013

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Confession time: I am in love with color.

Passionately, irrevocably. Color blinds me. Makes me want to do the wrong thing.

Most recently, this: I was wandering in a furniture store, testing a few pieces, as usual non-committal. And then I turned a corner and all visions of sofas and sugar plums danced right out of my head. I had come face-to-face with a taller-than-I display of leather swatches, samples of cowhide dyed in colors straight out of a Crayola box.

O frabjous day!

I went straight for the purples: iris, orchid, lavender. The names were stamped on the reverse of the three-inch square swatches, six or seven of each color hanging by their corners from small, gold hooks. A wall of leather diamonds, and no treasure chest in a dental office, no arm-deep bin of pinto beans could give me such a rush. I wanted them. I wanted them all.

I want to be an outlaw. Really, I do. I want to say that my pockets were half-stuffed, that I only stopped due to the untimely arrival of a salesperson nearly catching me in the act. I want to say I slipped out the door stained with guilt but thrilled with the kill. That the smell of leather is still on my hands.

But I left the entire bouquet behind: bluebell and iris, sunflower and fern. My inner scold was with me that day, nag on my shoulder, the finger of accusation tapping on my chest. Fifty-five years old, but the impulses of a kindergartner are still alive and kicking. And that's a good thing, I suppose. I didn't keep my life-slate pristine by succumbing to my every impulse. But oh the disappointment of not being someone other than myself for just one kaleidoscopic moment.

As with the rest of life, there's always a way to compromise. I'm willing to give that a shot. So off to the hardware store I go—the rack of paint chips is calling me.

WATCH AN INSTALLMENT FROM ONE OF MY FAVORITE TELEVISION COMMERCIAL SERIES EV-ER:

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Send Me, Mail Me (Any Way You Want Me)

4/15/2013

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When I was a kid, a misbehaving kid, my mother would threaten to put a postage stamp on my rear end and drop me in the mailbox.

Trust me, that would have been light punishment considering the grief I caused her. (Come to think of it, the fact of a stamp affixed to my hindquarters underlines the fact that she was serious about dispatching me--without the postage, this wiggly parcel would surely have been returned straightaway to the sender!)

Thus began my early relationship with the mails. I wondered what it would be like to be dropped into that dark box, be bounced around amongst the letters and postcards and parcels. I kind of sort of knew that the scenario was implausible, but on the other hand, was it? Really?

Fast forward all these years, and I still have a passion for the sending and receiving of things. Surprise things. Postcards are a particular joy, a small rectangle of delight that has the ability to transport the receiver to an entirely different place. A perfect melding of image and language, all in a compact, tidy bite.

Last week's postcard-a-day blog adventure got me thinking about postcards in an entirely different way. Or, more accurately, in a deeper way. Seen from the side, a postcard is just a line, a thin wall dividing front from back, image from word. The blank side itself is often divided—half for the sender, half for the sendee. Two relationships evolve with the creation of a card—the writer to the writing of it, the recipient to what's been written there. The card is the intermediary.

I'm an eavesdropper. I love to listen in to conversations, to build whole narratives from the snippets I can grab. I love walking down a street at night, glimpsing other lives framed by uncurtained windows. I love old letters, notes in margins, fragments of handwriting found in the street. And I find a particular thrill in reading a postcard, parsing its inherent duality. What is it the writer intended to say? What is it the receiver insists on finding there?

We say so much, but so much of what we mean is in the words that go unsaid. We tiptoe through language—the very currency of communication--dodging, obfuscating. How effective are we, really, at fogging over our truest thoughts?

My mother's plainspoken postage-stamp threat was clear.

To her I send this postcard--Wish You Were Here.

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Nobody Knows the Postcards I've Been

4/8/2013

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April is National Poetry Month, a fact which has little or nothing to do with my Monday Blog. But in anticipation of all of the events this busy month promises, I've been feeling, well, somewhat poetic of late. In the tradition of this blog's tendency to go slant on its subjects, I'm throwing in a little creative bonus this week. For each of the next seven days I'll be offering a rectangle of art along with its inscription, similar to something you might find in your mailbox. I'm calling this small series Postcards I Have Been.

Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy your travels—

MONDAY: POSTCARD the FIRST

Dearest Vincent,

Something has happened. It involved a derailment. Shorn fields, filigree, a vanishing point. I have been feeling outside myself. I would like to say I have seen your stars, but the sky is plainspoken and pained with daylight. When I try to look into it, I can only decipher the beginnings of bruise. But I wanted to tell you of the sunflowers, how improbable they are. And true. Were.

TUESDAY: POSTCARD the SECOND

WEDNESDAY: POSTCARD the THIRD

THURSDAY: POSTCARD the FOURTH

POSTCARD the FIFTH

SATURDAY: POSTCARD the SIXTH

SUNDAY: POSTCARD the SEVENTH

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The Easter Bunny Cometh

4/1/2013

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I'm not a believer.

Or wasn't.

And now here a-hoppin' comes the Easter Bunny, intent on making me take another look at my system of non-belief.

Yesterday morning, Easter Sunday, I scuffed down the stairs in my curlers and fuzzy slippers to retrieve the newspaper from the porch. Oh, the paper was there to be sure. But it was plopped in its blue plastic sheath right next to this little crackle-nosed guy, who was waiting in his adorableness with his offering of chocolate carrots.

Dare I admit that squeals ensued?

But wait, there's more!

Chicks and ducklings and jellied robin eggs in the planter box! Wheverer—whomever—did they come from?

Here I was, plodding happily along in my cynicism, only to have a bunny arrive to take a few nibbles from the snarkier edges.

I may not believe in water into wine or stones rolled back to reveal empty tombs, but I was lifted on this Sunday morning. I'll take the everyday mysteries of the human spirit over one day of holiness designated on my desktop calendar.*

* Easter fun fact: Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon in Spring. Well, kinda sorta.

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Invitation to the Prompt

Color Me Bad

Send Me, Mail Me (Any Way You Want Me)

Nobody Knows the Postcards I've Been

The Easter Bunny Cometh

Nancy Carol Moody

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