Mining Ghosts: Fighting the Inner (Ms.) Pac-Man to Find New Poems

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ghosts, hauntings, memory, Ms. Pac-Man, poetry lab, poetry prompt, writing prompt

Poor Ms. Pac-Man! She has spent a lifetime fleeing ghosts. By embracing yours, you can free up a wealth of material for new work.  Everyone has some image or moment or experience lingering from their pasts.  Yours might be tied to people or houses or stories.  You might even have a book that has attached deeply in your memory. The key to unlocking these “nuggets” is to override the self-preservation instinct and push into uncomfortable territory.

Let me give a personal example.  Recently, I accompanied my mother on a drive through an older part of town.  When we had lived in that area ourselves, we used to pass a certain two-story that would always launch my mother into a well-worn story about the two, small boys who had once lived there. One had accidentally (fatally) shot the other, and was forever haunted by the memory.  I was too young to remember much of the detail of the tragedy for myself, but this ritual retelling ingrained the warning just as certainly as our endless fire drills. Incidentally, we were the most emergency-prepared children on the planet. [More on that later.]

Mom

It had been many years since we passed by this house, but my mother immediately picked up with the story, and I was reminded of yet another cautionary tale that was always prompted by a certain Mississippi back road. Here she would recount the story of a close friend who had lost his arm while dangling it from a car window. She would talk about the phantom pain he would complain of years and years later, and how that one stupid decision had hung over his life.

As a child, I could repeat both of these stories by heart, but it was not until a high school friend lost his older brother to huffing, that I understood about phantom pain and true hauntings.

I watched helplessly as this friend struggled not just with the loss of his brother, but with his parents’ strange reaction.  Even long after we had gone off to college, they carried on as if the dead brother were still alive– keeping him constantly before themselves with his favorite activities, even birthday celebrations, and especially ensuring that nothing was touched in his room or his soccer shoes removed from the foyer.

The honoring of a dead brother over a live one was deeply traumatic even for those at more of a distance.  I dug into this residual pain and the images from my mother’s warnings/stories in a poem called  “Apparitions” that is currently under consideration at a prominent magazine.  It’s probably some of my best work, precisely because I made myself dig out all of those old ghosts.

See where this type of mining might take you!

GUEST POST: Terry Wolverton Talks Dis•articulations Technique

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Dis-articulations, guest blogger, poetry lab, Terry Wolverton, writing prompt

A couple of years ago, I found myself growing weary of my own poetic voice, of predictable themes and emotional stances to which I found myself returning. They seemed less like burning preoccupations and more like habits or mannerisms.

For a long time I’ve been a fan of working within structures and their “liberating constrictions,” but I began to grow tired of inspiration itself, or at least, tired of the things that were inspiring me to write poems.

So I began looking for more mechanical processes and stumbled into a technique that I call dis•articulations. It consists of these steps:

1. Working from prompts.
   Early on, I would draw prompts from phrases in random books I’d pick up. Now, with a desire to have greater engagement/collaboration with others, I ask people for prompts; sometimes I ask my writing students, other times I post requests on Facebook. A prompt might be a single word, a phrase or sentence, the more random the better.
2. Fevered Writing.
   I learned from author Deena Metzger the technique of “writing faster than you can think,” to let the words pour out without first thinking of what will be said. We try to bypass the rational mind and channel the intuitive mind, where unlikely associations and juxtapositions can occur. Natalie Goldberg talks about this process as “writing meditation”; the goal is to keep the pen moving without stopping to think or discern or edit. A former poetry student of mine, Yvette Beltran, gave it the name “Fevered Writing.”
   Each round is timed—3-5 minutes—and begins with a prompt, not a topic, but a trampoline, something to bounce off.
   For a dis•articulations poem, I do four rounds of fevered writing, each time using a different prompt.
3. Dis-articulating.
   This is the OCD part of the process: I take apart the four rounds of fevered writing, creating a list of all the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, articles and conjunctions. These lists become the lexicon for my dis•articulations poem.
4. Writing the poem.
   The lexicon suggests the topic and the form of the poem.
   Here are my rules:
   • I don’t have to use every word but I cannot add any words.
   • I can change verb tenses.
   • I can change usage (if in the fevered writing “skin” was a noun, I might allow myself to use it as a verb in the poem).
   • I can repeat words even if they only appeared once in the fevered writing.
   • The title has to come from the same lexicon.
5. Blog.
   Throughout 2013 I wrote a new dis•articulations poem each week and published them on a blog: http://disarticulations.wordpress.com. I also posted the prompts, fevered writing, and lists of words.I invited readers to post their own poems created using any of these instructions:
   • Let one or more of the prompts inspire the poem.
   • Do your own fevered writing to make a poem.
   • Use the list of words to construct your poem.
   • Write a poem in answer to or inspired by my poem.

My dis•articulations poems seem both me and not me. The random prompts and the stricture of using only the words on the lists alter my voice in a way I find satisfying. I’ve produced poems I would never have gotten to using only inspiration as a guide.

But it’s humbling to note the recurrence of certain words or tropes. It’s fascinating to observe themes that recur in this work and just as interesting to note ideas and images that never seem to enter the work. I have a secret wish that some scholar or graduate student would undertake a study of these poems and see what patterns would emerge when viewed from outside the experience of creating them.

Here’s a sample poem with its associated prompts and lists:

First responder

Every day she crawls through a crack
in the psychology of the world,
tends its sores. She knows the industry
of breath, small patience of bones. Hands
contain the blood, keep it from leaking
into the tremulous universe.

She hides her secrets, all she’s seen, but
I can feel trees aflame against her
wide back, stones guarding her jaws, void in
her belly. After, she cannot be
indoors, studies stars until the rain
comes. Swimming in its gold-green light, she

wonders at chance: a house in ruin,
spark and smoke, holes blown into routine,
yet here is her girlfriend, staring up
at leaves raining jewels onto grass,
hand covering hers, moist air pressing
earth spinning past the place of terror.

The Prompts

Stones in the wall – provided by Doug McBride

Alligator light – provided by Sage Bennet

Flat earth – self-generated for a workshop

Mouse psychology – self-generated for a workshop

The Fevered Writings

Stones in the wall are like bones in the hall not like cones at the mall when I’m feeling small. Years ago Colleen said if she were a terrorist she would go to the Mall of America and now terrorists blew up the Mall in Nairobi. Fashion doesn’t last and the sparks rain down among the gold jewelry, the haute couture covered in blood. My girlfriend is a first responder, not in Kenya, but here. She sees the blood of the world; she tends to its sores. The mall is smoking rain now and the cash register is void.

Alligator light like the light in the rain forest. I can feel the humidity pressing like a hand but the light is filtered through the thickness of the trees. It’s like being indoors, so contained am I by the moist air and the leaves and vines all around me, so green, so tremulous and I want to crawl on my belly and swing my tail, greet the world with wide smiling jaws, grow scales, and large pointed teeth and swim in the rivers not yet set aflame from the industry encroaching.

Mouse psychology is the study of being very small and stealthy. It’s like keeping a secret of one’s existence and hiding in places no one thinks to look. The mouse feels its belly against the grass, feels the sun on its back, feels the cat’s breath on it’s neck. The cat wants to play but doesn’t know her own strength. She would chase it all afternoon but the mouse will find a hiding place under the house. Through the crack in the foundation he stares out at the world. The cat guards the hole – she has patience until she hears the call for dinner.

Flat earth like a ball with the air leaking earth is leaking into the universe spinning off our course past stars and the space monkeys who ride their bicycles through outer space. I wonder if I’ll go when the aliens come to me. I’m usually up for an adventure, the change to see something new but I also love my routines. I’d miss yoga and gardening and my girlfriend and my cat, Annie. I’m neurotic even when I leave her for a week always asking the pet sitter to text me a photo every day, sometimes calling her on the phone.

The Lists

NOUNS – mouse (3), psychology, study, secret, existence, places (2), belly (2), grass, sun, back, cat (4), breath, neck, strength, afternoon, house, crack, foundation, world (3), hole, patience, call, dinner, earth (2), ball, air (2), universe, course, stars, space (2), monkeys, bicycles, aliens, adventure, chance, something, routines, yoga, girlfriend (2), Annie, week, pet, sitter, photo, day, phone, alligator, light (3), rain, forest, humidity, hand, thickness, trees, leaves, vines, tail, jaws, scales, teeth, rivers, industry, stones, wall, bones, hall, cones, mall (4), years, Colleen, terrorist (2), America, Nairobi, fashion, sparks, jewelry, haute couture, blood (2), responder, Kenya, sores, ruin, cash, register

VERBS – is (8), being (2), keeping, hiding (2), thinks, look, feels (5), wants (2), play, does not (2), know, would (3), chase, will (2), find, stares, guards, has, hears, leaking (2), spinning, ride, wonder, go (2), come, am (4), see (2), love, miss, gardening, leave, asking, text, calling, can, pressing, filtered, contained, crawl, swing, greet, grow, swim, set, encroaching, are, said, were blew, last, rain, covered, tends, smoking

ADJECTIVES/ADVERBS – very, small (2), stealthy, no, own, all (2), out, flat, off, outer, up (2), new, neurotic, even, every, moist, green, tremulous, wide, smiling, large, pointed, not (3), yet, aflame, ago, down, gold, first void, always (2), past, who, when (3) usually, also, sometimes, now (2), here

PREPOSITIONS – of (5), like (7), in (8), to (8), against, on (4), under, through (3), at (2), until, for (3), with (2), into, if (2), by, indoors, around, from, among

PRONOUNS – if (3), one (2), its (4), her (2), she (7), he, our, their, I (11), me (3), my (6)

ARTICLES – the (44), a (9); CONJUNCTIONS – and (15), but (5), so (3)

Terry Wolverton is the author of ten books of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, most recently Wounded World: lyric essays about our spiritual disquiet. She’s the founder of Writers At Work, a creative writing studio in Los Angeles, and Affiliate Faculty in the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. Tweets @TerryLWolverton.

Get A Lick of This…

Tags

Aimee Nez, Creole Creamery, Ice cream, Ice cream social, Kei Miller, lab, Laurel McConnell, Liz Rosenberg, Mary Rose O'Reilly, New Orleans, Picasso, poetry prompt, Raoul Dufy, The Prytania Theater, The Wave, writing prompt

Back when I was in school, the junior high vice-principal (not from the South nor good with 6th graders) decided that it would be a good idea to have a welcome-back ice cream social for the newbies.

Now this was in Louisiana, in the middle of August. Needless to say, an unairconditioned gym plus moody teenies were not such a good plan. We melted down faster than the slop they were passing off as ice cream. I am not sure what that goop was, but I am telling you that it almost turned me off ice cream for good. Seriously, seriously gross.

Luckily, I discovered Ben&Jerry’s when I went off to college. My only excuse for not having found it sooner was that my mother did all the grocery shopping back then. Let me just say a little thank you to all of the ladies at Hollins for keeping the Rat stocked with my favorite mix. I forget the name of it now, but it had some yummy shortbread chunks and was a total God-send. Sorry, but the cafeteria sucked! And you Virginians really need to learn about spice. 

I was so very happy to move back to New Orleans where red beans & rice are kept on tap. And do not even get me started on crawfish. National treasure.

Almost as good as the ice cream. Almost! Creole Creamery on Prytania (that’s in the Garden District) really whips up a mean Creole Creme Cheese and a kickin’ Sweet Potato Praline. Some people swear by their Red Velvet Cake, but for now I like me some Blueberry Pie in a waffle cone thank you very much.

A good cone after a movie at the Prytania is the perfect date. That’s right, snuggle up. Eat that ice cream in pairs. You’ll need some good lovin’ after watching The Shining (it’s playing all week).

And if you happen to have come by in the daytime, you really should try to take some photos of the wild parrots that own the trees in Uptown.

This photo ran in the local paper.  Hard to get a better shot of the birdies! Pretty, but loud.

Reminds me of one of my favorite paintings by Raoul Dufy. He liked the bright colors of tropical birds, and so do I.

I am also reminded of Picasso’s Woman Reading. Something about the combination of colors and shapes.

I also think ice cream when I see photos of the Wave formation in Arizona. Chocolate swirl anyone?

What you do associate with ice cream?

A color? A smell? How about weddings?

These pics are from photographer Laurel McConnell on the happy couple’s anniversary. Very cute! And reminiscent of the opening photo.

Ice cream is perhaps an unofficial language of love??

Find a way to tell that story. Or work it out as a poem.

Or go another way. Whatever speaks to you, write!

And if you can find a copy, read In Praise of Ice Cream Vending Machines at a Greyhound Bus Station by the talented Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Then soak up Confession by Mary Rose O’Reilly.

Here’s part of Life Without Ice Cream by Liz Rosenberg. You can find the rest in The Lily Poems.

Or try something a bit more political like this set from Kei Miller.

Post if you find something else that you like. I love it when you share.

The Things That Their Carts Carried

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flash fiction, Grocery store, poems, Ptolmey Erlington, sculpture, shopping cart, Tim O'Brien, Walmart, writing prompt

Twitter inspires again! Someone was musing about how much they enjoyed watching people grocery shop yesterday, and I thought wouldn’t it be fun to dive into what might be in their carts.

So, a la Tim O’Brien, but much less dark, I’d like you to explore what clues might lie in these shoppers’ purchases. What does all that cereal, toothpaste, etc. tell you about circumstances, attitudes, or tastes?

Feel free to make up whatever you want about these people. Don’t be bogged down by reality. Reality is often inconvenient and usually boring.  You might want to go camp out at Walmart for inspiration, but try not be creepy about it. Nothing worse than creep-os at Walmart.

Just work up a suite of flash fiction pieces, or poems if the mood strikes, and see where it takes you.  If you don’t get anything salvageable out of it, a

t least you had fun and got to look at the world in a new way.

And speaking of looking at the world in a new way, check out these breathtaking sculptures made by Ptolemy Elrington out of…you guessed it..old shopping carts. Gorgeous!  I would love, love, love to have one of these for my own.  Perhaps when I become rich and famous. 🙂

Happy writing!

 

 

 

 

Pop Out a Poem!!

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poetry, poetry lab, storybuilders, writer's block, writeshop, writing prompt

Ok, so maybe a poem’s not just going to pop out like PEZ, but you sure as heck can do a lot to help it along.

One of my favorite techniques is actually something that I picked up from teenagers who stole it from the little kiddles, so you can bet that it’s fun.

It’s a product called Storybuilders and it happens to come from a company that caters to educators who are trying to give reluctant writers a spark.

Basically, it’s a set of ebooks that when printed out form a deck of cards with categories like: Character, Character Traits, Setting, and Plot.

Now, I know that this sounds like something for pulling fiction from grade schoolers, but trust me, it works just fine for poetry and for adults.

Some of the entries may seem simple (ex: a fishing boat as setting and an elf as a character), but it’s when you mix up the decks that your rockets will really start firing.

And the best part is that once you get started, you can add your own cards for a personalized deck! I like to paste in pictures straight out of magazines, as well as add words.

A few things that I added this week are: cyborgs, Chibis, and sharks. And I actually ended up with something really fabulous when I threw that last one into the deck.  [Hope to hear back from a lit mag on that one soon.]

So here’s wishing you equal success in all of your own experiments. And please feel free to post if you have something that you want to share. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adder-Mouthed Orchids and Shrooms: Getting Down in the Dirt For the Sake of Good Poetry

Tags

Mary Oliver, mushrooms, nature, nature poetry, orchids, poetry lab, poetry prompt, the private eye, Theodore Roethke, writing prompt

If your town is like mine, then you have seen something called the Private Eye Workshop popping up in parks and local colleges.

No, they’re not trying to teach you how to get in touch with your inner Magnum. But they do look kind of strange running around with all of those jeweler’s loupes and shoving their faces into weird things.

And before your imagination gets the better of you, here’s a link to the book and the facebook page.

See! It’s really all in the name of education, and for the grade school teacher it’s a must-do.

I’m recommending it to the poets out there as well.  At least the part about closely observing nature. You don’t need any special gear, and the regular practice of this skill is what takes a good poet to great.

Just look at the work of the sharply honed Theodore Roethke and Mary Oliver.

Countless hours spent amongst his father’s flowers gave us Roethke’s famous Orchids poem, and Oliver got Mushrooms to us after a lifetime of walks in the woods.

So here’s your challenge for the day: Taking these two poems as your models, try to craft one of your own in a similar vein. Remember to focus tightly on just one specimen and lavishly describe!

Try not to get too hung up on honeybees and spiders. And if anyone knows of some good insect poems out there that don’t sound like they are channeling Shel Silverstein, please post.