10 Minute Prompt

 

 Write about opening a gift.

 

Challenge:  Include a #quatrain in your poem.

For an overview of 10 Minute Prompt go here.

Cozbi

And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Cozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family. [Numbers 25:15 NIV]

COZBI

The scent of my father's house

sun

the way Zimri's eyes glittered

in the nightsky

water

mother's laughter

the girls

the patter of things

people, on the desert floor

all the festival food tastes


These I will miss.


These

I trespass across bloodlines

and surrender

for my love.

6 Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand

8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman's stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped. [Numbers 25:6-8]

Shalonda – Just Go

Shalonda decided it was time to get her work out there. Her vehicle – Apple’s Garage Band. What impresses me about Just Go is Shalonda’s arrangement. She adds her jazz vocals on hiphop tracks built on soul samples. It’s a masterwork at layering and musical co-signing.

I first learned of  Shalonda from a Soulbounce mention.  I fell in love with her version of Misty Blue which pays homage to Dorothy Moore on  Kanye West’s “Say You Will” Track.  (Aside: Dorothy Moore started her own record label in 2002 and is touring internationally).  On another song, we hear Shalonda signal Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” atop Kanye West’s  “Love Lockdown.”

Always keen to get to know more independent women  artists I started following her on Twitter. I responded to some of her zany tweets and she mentioned me. Just that bit of connection made me go to her site to see where I can see her live (she lives a few hours away). No dates posted on her MySpace yet, but I’m sure she’s rehearsing for a live performance.

I donated $10 to her next project.  Just two days later, I received Just Go on compact disc.  Wrapped around the cd is her handwriting with Thank You ___ (my name) written over it and her signature.  Not only was I delighted with her personalization, I’m saving this to auction on Ebay in 10 year! Thanx Shalonda.

Luckily I live a few hours away from Los Angeles or I would stalk  Shalonda and give her the proper fan treatment that she deserves. For now, I am the unofficial president of her fan club.

Download her free EP but if you love it as much as I do, please contribute to her next album and receive Just Go on cd (one gift out  of the way).  Make sure to donate at least $12 because the shipping cost is nearly $2.00.

• Follow Shalonda on Twitter
• Donate to her next project.
• Subscribe to her Tumblr.

Natasha Trethewey – My Mother Dreams Another Country

Native Guard, Tretheway's third offering, is a book of two narratives. There is a Louisiana soldier walking into the Civil War and the poet herself uncovering a relationship with her mother.

Trethewey workshopped her early poems in a supportive motley crue of Black poets. The Dark Room Collective, once hosted weekly Thomas Sayers Ellis’s, apartment honed the craft of many contemporary poets. So many members of the Dark Room Collective have gone on to win awards.  Ms. Trethewey, however, earned the Pullitzer Prize for Native Guard in 2007.

Listen to her poem “My Mother Dreams Another Country” about miscegenation in the rural south.

---

MY MOTHER DREAMS ANOTHER COUNTRY 

Already the words are changing. She is changing
    from colored to negro, black stilly ears ahead.
This is 1966 -she is married to a white man -
    and there are more names for what grows inside her.
It is enough to worry about words like mongrel
    and the infertility of mules and mulattoes
while flipping through a book of baby names.
    She has come home to wait out the long months,
her room unchanged since she's been gone:
    dolls winking down from every shelf all of them
white. Every day she is flanked by the rituals of superstition,
    and there is a name she will learn for this too:
maternal impression -the shape, like an unknown
    country, marking the back of the newborn's thigh.
For now, women tell her to clear her head, to steady her hands
    or she'll gray a lock of the child's hair wherever
she worries her own, imprint somewhere the outline
    of a thing she craves too much. They tell her
to stanch her cravings by eating dirt. All spring
    she has sat on her hands, her fingers numb. For a while
each day, she can't feel an1'thing she touches: the arbor
    out back -the landscape's green tangle; the molehill
of her own swelling. Here -outside the city limits_
    cars speed by, clouds of red dust in their wake.
She breathes it in -Mississippi -then drifts toward sleep,
    thinking of someplace she’s never been. Late,
Mississippi is a dark backdrop bearing down
    on the windows of her room. On the TV in the corner,
the station signs off broadcasting its nightly salutation:
    the waving Stars and Stripes, our national anthem.

---

Listen to Natasha Trethewey discuss Native Guard.

Read Natasha Trethewey poems from Native Guard.

Go On A Silence Retreat

I would use all of Oprah’s billions to purchase unlimited silence.  Silence and solitude are the playground for my creativity.  There can be no distraction.

Remember solitude  on a day long silence retreat.  Here’s the trick, it must be a full day. If you have a partner or children, send them away the night before, and don’t let them come back until the day after. (This makes Saturday the optimal day for silence retreats).

You want to wake up alone with yourself, with silence. 

The Rules

Do not communicate or interact with a human being. This includes:

• In-Person Conversations
• Phone Calls (Turn the Ringers Off)
• Text Messages
• Emails & Fax
• Instant Messengers, Twitter
• Blog Posts &  Comments

Next, do not communicate with media:

• Television (DVD Player included)
• Computer games
• Internet
• Music with words (Instrumentals, Classical, Jazz allowed)
• Book (yes book lovers, books)

The Night Before

Write a list of specific actions you want to complete. It may seem like underachievement, but focus on one action for only one poem. For the following example, I’ll use a fictional poem called Tread in Silence.

• Finish writing Tread in Silence
• Revise Tread in Silence
• Record  Tread in Silence
• Add sounds to  Tread in Silence.
• Memorize Tread in Silence.
• Rehearse performing Tread in Silence.

While it may be tempting to create a marathon by writing X number of poems, creating a submission package or compiling a chapbook, small actions work well.  You may be surprised at how long it  takes you to revise a poem or how quickly you can memorize one. This time is about self-discovery. By this practice, you’re learning what you need to delve into your writing process.

The Day

Wake up in solitude, with yourself and silence.  Most books tell us to wake up and write.  I prefer to take a shower, put on clothes, pray and eat breakfast. This can take me up to two hours. It’s ok if I give myself that time because I know it’s me preparing for the work.  I take out my list and begin working on whatever task I prepared for myself.  I break for lunch. Then I come back to the words, exercise, then dinner.  After dinner,  create a quick to do list, giving yourself 3 items that you want to work on during your next writing time.  Again, make sure they are specific actions.

Phase in media by reading a book. Read it until you fall asleep .  Of course parents should always check in to see how their children are doing.  Feel free to talk with your partner  but don’t tell them  exactly what you were working on, keep it private.  Sometimes we need to keep our creative parts to ourselves. 

The Day After

Welcome your partner and family.  Go out to lunch with a friend.  Just reintegrate yourself back into the “noisy world.”

I’ve been taking silence retreats for 14 years.  Most times, they last for only a couple of hours.  Still, there are other times that last for days.  These are always my most productive writing periods.

If you have a little extra cash ($50), go to a local bed and breakfast or motel. You can usually find great deals on Tuesdays.  If you call ahead, you can even schedule a stay like an extended work day (checking in at 9 and leaving at 9).

Forgive Yourself

Even if you succumb to watching movies all day and don’t get any work done, you’ve still taken a mini vacation from communicating with others. Schedule another silent retreat for the following month.

If writers write, then poets poem. Use your solitude and silence to poem.

10 Minute Prompt

 These were the reasons to stay.

For an overview of 10 Minute Prompt go here.

Joy Jones – Beautiful

 In this video Joy Jones & her “baby on the bass” [husband] give us an anthem worthy of repeat play.

For further exploration of her sound, watch her vids starting with Glass Boxes.

Check out tracks from her album below.

10 Items You Need to Hustle Your Poetry

Image via Wikipedia

Some of us ok me work at perfecting our craft for years. We fantasize about MFA poetry workshops and dream of all the silence and solitude to write. Our thesis will get picked up by a university press and our life as a poet begins.

There is a shorter route. If you’ve written 20 poems, there is no reason not to organize and share your work.   What distinguishes modern poets from our literary ancestors is our access to communication media.  With all the avenues available to us today, it can become overwhelming to figure out how to distribute work. Below are a few items that can help your hustle.

• a bookmark
• a broadside
• a book  (preferably with 6  poems accepted in literary journals/magazines)
• an album
• an audio interview
• a video of a live reading, recitation, or performance
• photographs
• newspaper, magazine, or blog feature
• website (with upcoming events)
• press kit

I debate friends saying Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Tretheway’s poetry may  not go well in the spoken word/slam/open mic scene.  She wouldn’t memorize her poems. She doesn’t read with a cadence. She probably wouldn’t even have a book or cd to sell afterward. Yet she won the top prize in literature.

On the other hand, I have witnessed people with hustle sell unfinished, unedited, unpoetry, by sheer force of personality.  There’s something to be learned from both.  Polished pieces sell. Marketing works. Surely those who cherish the written word can offer a polished product with a little hustle. 


 Can you think of another item to hustle your poetry?

10 Minute Prompt

Write about casting a spell

 

For an overview of 10 Minute Prompt go here.

Senryu

My body palace

open to entertain your

uranium heart

                                    Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple 

 

Quick Tool to Discover if your Haiku is a Senryu

A great collection of haiku and senryu by Jara at Random Rhyme and Reason.

Betty Everett – You’re No Good

There are dozens of versions of "You’re No Good".  I think Betty Everett sings it best with  Dee Dee Warwick a close second.  Though Warwick’s statement is guttural, Everett is defiant, anthemic. The foot stomps by The 5 Heartbeats The Dells give it that extra down home feel. 

I’m not sure if it’s rare, but my 45  was distributed by Eric Records with classic The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss) on one side and "You’re No Good" on the B side. I purchased this record for 19 cents. I know I keep referring to my landmark purchase at Rockaway but I can’t help but marvel at the jewels lounging in record shops.

Straight From Vinyl Betty Everett – You’re No Good

In my Google Images and the Politics of Remembering analysis -  When choosing an image of Betty Everett, it  as interesting to see two pictures that come up, which represent two ways she’s remembered.

A Hometown Gal

A Glamorous Woman 

Listen to Betty Everett and Dee Dee Warwick give you the yes-ma'am handclaps on "You're No Good."  I added Linda Rostadt's version for my blue-eyed-soul folks.