Wild Fridays: Roving the Web

 Advance notice – we're going on vacation! (Not immediately, but soon.) 

What that looks like may depend on where one lives.

(First image Public Domain, second mine.)

As usual, we'll take two weeks off over Christmas and New Year.  The Pantry on Sunday the 22nd will be our last post for this year. We'll start 2020 with a new Pantry, on Sunday January 5th.

I hope you'll all be too busy enjoying yourselves to have withdrawal symptoms. But just in case, here are some things that might amuse you during the break:

Inventiveness

My friend Helen Patrice, whom I've featured here a few times, is both poet and storyteller. She has written poems, short stories, novels, articles and memoir, a lot of them published. At her Blog of a Witch, this recent post includes a number of good tips for starting a story and keeping on going with it. Though she refers to prose in this instance, many of them could apply equally well to poetry. You can either skip over the personal stuff they're embedded in, or read it all for the entertainment value. (I always find Helen very readable.)

Many of you are already familiar with Carpe Diem, the site where Dutch haiku poet 'Chevrefeuille' keeps coming up with innovative new ways to approach the writing of haiku and related forms (though he doesn't tamper with the actual form). He provides prompts, and the opportunity to link our responses. I dip in and out of this site, sometimes forgetting all about it – but if I'm stuck, it's a very good place to go for inspiration. Bonus: I always find a few Poets United friends participating too.

Good reading

As I have shared in some previous posts, I like my quick fix of daily poetry in the email inbox – from the sites below in particular.

The first two also take submissions. I keep meaning to send something! If you are not such a procrastinator as me, you might like to give it a try. Or just enjoy reading: a sweet start to the day. (Sometimes familiar names pop up at either of these sites; just recently I was delighted to encounter a one sentence poem by a certain Ron. Lavalette.)  

TINYWORDS haiku and other small poems

One Sentence Poems 

Poem-a-Day

Knopf Poetry also offers a poem a day, but only during the April poetry month – but you could sign up for that now, while you think of it (and I think to suggest it). They are always wonderful, sometimes include free broadsheets to download and/or sound recordings to listen to, as well as referring you to the poet's latest books. Of course, once you click on the site, you can have a good browse right there, right now, of the many poems already shared.

The Morning Porch/Patio A blog of sentences by one Dave Bonta, observing the world around him over his morning coffee, particularly the natural world. I find these snippets entertaining in all sorts of ways. They originate as twitter posts, therefore are 140 characters or fewer (regardless of the fact that twitter has now upped its limit to 280). Some people use them as prompts, so if you're having withdrawal symptoms, there's an idea. This used to be called just The Morning Porch – based in his rural home in America (Pennsylvania) – but he now spends part of the year in England, mainly in London, as he is married to a British woman.

Attending to other aspects of life

(While you've got some extra time to do that.)

Zen Habits is a famous blog by Leo Babauta, on mindfulness and simplifying one's life. He began this years ago, and so many people found it useful that he has now written books on the principles, and also shares them on facebook and twitter, and even offers some courses in acquiring new habits. You can jump in at the latest post, or go back and explore the archives. It's all good value. Do I put all his good advice into practice myself? Well no, but he's easy to read, makes good sense, and some of it sticks.

Dear Earth: free e-course from Satya Robyn (the woman who invented the 'small stones' way of mindful writing). This is a gentle 28-day way to 'make space for grounding and creativity', 'come into a closer relationship with our beautiful earth', and, if you choose, find out more about the environmental crisis and what you might do about it. But it won't tell you what to do. Satya believes 'change is only sustainable when we allow ourselves to be transformed from the inside out, slowly and gently'. Or, if you prefer, you might skip the course and just enjoy reading Satya's own Love Letters to the Planet.

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But we're not quite on holidays yet, so do stick around for the treats still in store right here before the year ends: one more Midweek Motif, one more Wild Friday, and one more Pantry of Poetry and Prose. (And maybe we'll whet your appetites with some hints of what's to come in 2020.)

Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors.

Note: I've had to belatedly remove the photo of feet toasting by a fire when it suddenly acquired a 'Copyright' mark across it, and replace it with a different fireside image of my own. I thought I'd bought its use but apparently only for a very limited time. I'm annoyed this wasn't made clearer, especially as it was initially listed as Public Domain, but....