Loose Leaf Notes

1. There’s a fine line between play and work when it comes to writing poetry.

2. It’s good to see yourself represented in a story. I felt represented when I first read the children’s book Fredrick by Leo Lionni  to a group of preschoolers many years ago.  Fredrick is a laid-back field mouse who seems to get out of his duties of preparing food for winter. While the others work, Frederick stares out at the meadow feeling the sunlight, taking in the colors, and when the food runs out Fredrick shares his talent: poetry. His words feed his fellow mice in a different way and helps them survive.

3. I think I should buy a stack for the poets for next year’s Little River Poetry Festival.

4. Can you pick out the Fredrick in the picture above?

 

5. This is Krista’s letter “P” Poem. I don’t know who innocently said, ‘pull out,” but we all laughed and Krista felt inspired and brave enough to write it.

6. Vanna called my text ring tone “ominous” when it went off in my pocketbook while she was reading during at Open Mic. She read a second poem, a tribute to LRPF co-founder Judith, and it went off a second time. She must have gotten used to it because she didn’t react.

7. Today when I had enough and pulled myself away from the computer, I spontaneously started singing “Just Walk Away Renee,” a 1966 popular song by The Left Bank HERE. 

8. Does poetry matter? How can it work for good? Those questions came up during a panel of poets called The Apocalyptic Poets at the poetry festival, which caused me to remember a quote by Bill Moyer: “There was an old story that when a revolution occurred in some ancient land the new ruler was asked, “What’s the first thing to do?” and the new ruler answered “Kill the poets.”

9. Now I scour the news / and read the long stories / They come in like ticker-tape / breaking all normalcy / I want to open what’s closed / and hold the truth together / I want to convince myself / that poems still matter. – Read The Literary Journal in its entirety HERE. 

10. On my list of things to do: Swing in the park with my friend Martha. Wear leopard skin pillbox hats at the next Dogtown dance party with Linda.

11. Sly of Sly and the Family Stone who died this week: “If there was anything to be happy about, then everybody’d be happy about it. If there were a lot of songs to sing, then everybody got to sing. If we have something to suffer or a cross to bear – we bear it together.”

12. “The poet’s work is an interpretation and illumination of the contents of consciousness, of the ineluctable experiences of human life with its eternally recurrent sorrow and joy.” – Carl Jung

13. Katherine and Colleen talk about the writing process at the end of their duo reading, Ars Poetica.

________Thirteen Thursday