Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Writing Prose



“For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed and intelligent men and women carry on today in their endeavor to make sure that the fires of this planet burn peaceably.” 
― John Cheever


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Gentileschi-retorica.jpg
Allegory of Rhetoric by Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi  (@1650)


“A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.” ― Gustave Flaubert


“The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.” ― Milan Kundera

 "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Zora Neale Hurston


 "Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life." Barbara Kingsolver




Poets United ~ Writing Prose

Poets United has a new prompt on the first Sunday of every month, "Telling Tales with Magaly Guerrero: a Pantry of Prose."  So let's write a poem about the tales we can tell in prose and how it is to write them.

Your challenge is to do one or more of these in a new poem
  1. describe prose vs. poetry
  2. use the prose element of dialogue fitting the character who speaks it (within your poem)
  3. praise prose to the utmost 
  4. show us a prose writer at work
Literature saving the past from destruction by Time, in the Wellcome V0007539.jpg
Literature saving the past from destruction by Time
in the form of an old angel with a scythe. Etching by L. du Guernier.
 
They shut me up in Prose –
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet –
Because they liked me “still”   –

Still! Could themself have peeped –
And seen my Brain – go round –
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason – in the Pound –

Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Look down upon Captivity –
And laugh – No more have I –

 πŸ“–


Poem by Aleksandr Kushner
πŸ“–

Ordinary Miracle - by Barbara Kingsolver


I have mourned lost days
When I accomplished nothing of importance.
But not lately.
Lately under the lunar tide
Of a woman's ocean, I work
My own sea-change:
Turning grains of sand to human eyes.
I daydream after breakfast
While the spirit of egg and toast
Knits together a length of bone
As fine as a wheatstalk.
Later, as I postpone weeding the garden
I will make two hands
That may tend a hundred gardens.

I need ten full moons exactly
For keeping the animal promise.
I offer myself up: unsaintly, but
Transmuted anyway
By the most ordinary miracle.
I am nothing in this world beyond the things one woman does.
But here are eyes that once were pearls.
And here is a second chance where there was none.

 
πŸ“–

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—
 (Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~
 Almond Blossoms, by Vincent Van Gogh)

6 comments:

  1. Good morning, Poets United! My azaleas are opening. I wish you all a lovely day and a great week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Our tulips have been encouraged by Dave between the sun and rain, these last few days. Our Internet, on the other hand, is a messy. And I don’t like blogging on my phone. My huge fingers always always seem to hit too many keys. 😭

      Delete
  2. Hello everyone! Happy writing :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello everyone, wishes for a lovely Wednesday

    much love...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi kids, here we have light spring rain and chilly tulips! Happy Wednesday.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My attempt at a prose vs poetry mash up of a poem, prose and sonnet. Not sticking to any, but having a bit of each somewhere at least.

    Carry on letting the creative juices flow everyone.

    ReplyDelete

This community is not meant to be used in a negative manner. We ask that you be respectful of all the people on this site as each individual writer is entitled to their own opinion, style, and path to creativity.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Blog Archive

Followers