Pantry of Poetry and Prose #9: Goodbye 2019

Greetings, word lovers. I hope this week finds you healthy, happy, and looking forward to the New Year. In my home, we are enjoying our Winter Solstice traditions—cooking together, exchanging gifts, watching Star Wars *cough*, and wishing everyone the best 2020.

2019 has been a year of changes and endings, as Rosemary shows us in “Wild Fridays: Deaths and Entrances”. If you’ve yet to read it, do go back and take a look-see. The post doesn’t only reflect on this year’s happenings, but it also offers glimpses of what’s to come (i.e. we are planning to do some housekeeping, mostly de-cluttering, organizing, labeling… You will see!).

Did you participate in “Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Year’s End”, or was I the only one who missed it? *sigh* Well, if you share my slightly delinquent status, today is a great day to revisit Susan’s topic.

So, dear poets, storytellers, worshipers of words... our pantry is open for poetry and prose (stories, articles, essays… in 369 words or fewer). Share an old piece or a new one, your choice (our delight).

Note: When we return, on January 5^th, this blog will look different (colors, layout, fonts and such…). Our love for words will remain unchanged.

Nature crafts the best art.

Please, add the direct link to your entry to Mr. Linky. Visit other lovers of words. Enjoy the Holiday Season (and every day after that).

Pantry of Poetry and Prose #6

December greetings, poets and storytellers! Yes, December. Can you believe it? My joints can feel it deeply, but… the rest of me is still wondering what happened to November (and the rest of 2019).

Well, I have no idea where last month went, but its last Friday was taken by Rosemary’s Moonlight Musings: Process and Product. If you’ve yet to read it, do go back and take a look-see. Next week, for December’s first Midweek Motif, Sumana and Susan invite us to explore “Change”.

Speaking of change that affected (and continues to affect) a lot of souls, 64 years ago (on December 1, 1955), Rosa Parks refused to sit on the back of a bus—where Alabama law said she, and anyone with too much honey in their skin, belonged. Rosa said enough! and changed the world. If you need a bit of inspiration, let your words celebrate Rosa Parks.

It’s Sunday at Poets United, so the pantry is open to both poetry and prose (stories, articles, essays… in 369 words or fewer). Your entry can be old or new, the writing choice is yours. And the reading pleasure is all ours.

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Feed the direct link to your entry to Mr. Linky. Delight in the words of other poets and storytellers. And have the best of all days.

Pantry of Poetry and Prose #2

I’ve always loved reading letters written by poets and storytellers. So, when I noticed that The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman—where the latter declines a marriage proposal by the former—are free for our reading pleasure, I had to share the finding with you. I haven’t finished the book yet, but the bits I’ve delighted in are delicious.  

Today, and every Sunday after this, Poets United is open to both poetry and prose (stories, articles, essays, letters…). Entries can be old or new, the choice is yours (if you choose to share prose, your contribution should be in 369 words or fewer).

 

photo by Álvaro Serrano, on Unsplash

Glimpse into the past and future:

Last Monday - a Farewell to Mary and Sherry.

Last Friday - Rosemary provoked our thoughts with Jasmine Logan’s “Imagination”.

Next Wednesday’s Midweek Motif - Susan invites us to explore “Authenticity”. 

Please, add your old or new or upcycled entry to Mr. Linky. Enjoy other participants’ words. And have the most delightful of Sundays.

Moonlight Musings: the Interactive Edition, #3

Change storms in, grabs life by the ankles, and drops it on its head. When feeling extra spiteful, change steals everything we know and love, and leaves us in an empty room feeling lost (and often screaming).

But there are times, when the change that wrecks the world gives us a reason to rearrange (redecorate?) our living, when finding ourselves holding empty hands pushes us to fill them (with all kinds of wonderful).

For our 3^rd, and last, Interactive Moonlight Musings, I invite you to write an article (in 369 words or fewer) inspired by the Positive Side of Change.

Since we’re speaking of change, we should change something. So, if your muse is in no mood for article writing, do feel free to respond to this prompt with a story or poem.

photo by Ramiro Martinez, on Unsplash

a couple of wee notes :

- Starting November 3^rd, Sanaa and I (Magaly) will be hosting on Sundays. These features shall remain unprompted, but participants will be able to link poetry or prose (stories, essays, articles).

- As mentioned above, there will be no more interactive musings (aka Friday prompts). However, we will continue to have Friday features. Next week, our Sherry will delight us with another episode of “I Wish I’d Written This”.

Please, add the direct link to your new article, story, or poem. Visit other writers. And react to their positive-change-inspired words.

Pantry of Poetry and Prose #1: October Is Here…

October is the coollest month, birthing

jack-o’-lanterns out of wounded pumpkins, brewing

cackles and traditions, enticing
summer green to fall in red.

We walked through the yard, wondering if anything had sprouted. The grass was dead, but… “Stetson! Look how lively your dirt trembles. You might’ve zilch gardening skills, friend, but your necromancy grows.”

It is very likely that someone visiting East Coker today, just felt T. S. Eliot’s bones cringe in their grave. But what can I say? April and October are my favorite months (and The Waste Land one of my favorite poems), so I couldn’t help myself. Besides, October (with Halloween cackling near) is the perfect month to differently-adore the dead writers we love dear.

This season of transitions and thinning veils, always inspires me to try new things, to challenge old thoughts, to mix-it-up and mingle… Keeping that in mind, I invite you to write poetry and prose.

So, for today’s prompt, let us write a new story, or essay, or article, or poem set in the month of October (our prose pieces should be 369 words or fewer).     

This prompt will remain open until Tuesday night. Only one entry per participant. Visit other poets and storytellers. Let’s delight in October words. If you share your contribution on Instagram, use the following hashtag (and we shall connect there, too): #pantryofpoetryandprose.

In case you missed it, on Friday, Rosemary shared D. H. Lawrence and his “Piano” on The Living Dead. And for those who like to craft ahead, Sumana’s next Midweek Motif is “Everyday Living”. 
 

a random note (because, well… October): poetry and storytelling look sooo good united.

Add the direct link to your contribution to Mr. Linky. Have a blast.

Moonlight Musings: the Interactive Edition, #2

Our last interactive Moonlight Musings was all about negative criticism. This month, we shall trek into the tricky realm of “That’s Not What I Meant”. Or, those times when readers interpret our writings in unexpected (peculiar, bewildering, enlightening,  and even humorous) ways which have very little to do with what we intended to convey.

Let’s write articles about misread words that conjure hysterical interpretations, about grammatical errors (horrors?) which change the meaning of a piece, about descriptions (which we thought brilliant) that end up filling our readers’ minds with images we can hardly recognize.

I particularly would love to read about how you, dear word lover, handle this sort of situation. Do you get irritated? Do you pretend that it isn’t happening? Do you laugh until your rib cage hurts?

Our new articles—written in prose—should be 369 words or fewer.

Add the direct link to your contribution to Mr. Linky. Visit other writers. And if you can, have fun (goodness knows the world needs more of that).

 

the face I make when I’m trying to figure out why (and how) a reader could see something in my writing, which I can’t even begin to glimpse

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