Tag Archives: creative writing prompts

Make Friday Write

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Howdy! And welcome to Make Friday Write! I do have two recent publications to mention. The first is that my final photograph is now up in Corium Magazine. I say final because I haven’t been sending photos out, and well, I haven’t been taken many photos because my Canon G10 started taking what looked like ghost photos or something. I did do a lot of research and I finally decided to get a more updated phone that has a good camera in it instead of getting an expensive camera AND PHONE. I don’t know if I’ll take anything that will be publishable, or if I’ll find the time to start submitting photos again, but I am happy to have a new phone. I bought a Samsung Galaxy 2 Skyrocket. Don’t you love these names? It has an 8MP camera which isn’t as good as my old G10 but is still excellent for one on a cell phone. I can do some SLR things like ISO (100-800) but need to figure out how best to handle AV and speed without having those specific settings. Hmmmm<

The other item recently published is a poem in the online journal Assissi. It is published via ISSU so you have to dig in to find the poem. It is titled “Little Borders” and is in the book that will come out next year. Trying to decide with that book if I want to pull some poems from my chapbooks to put in there as well. I did that with Paper House but I’m not sure if I will with this one.

Here is the poem I have been working on this week after being inspired by poetry I was reading. That always ties together :)

–reading to close the Gate temporarily on my poem as I revise :)  

As always I want to hear what you guys think of what I am working on and I want to read some of what you are working on. Friday is the day to share :) Remember I will take down my poem and any work you post one week from today.

Poetry Boot Camp: Day 4: Symbols

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Yesterday we talked a bit about the little obsessions that we come up with as writers. One of mine, lately, was considering my relationship to the store Family Dollar after the wonderful jimk (blog reader extraordinare!) noted in a comment once – quite a while back – that he enjoyed my Family Dollar poems. Wait – I remember thinking after blushing at the comment – I have more than one Family Dollar poem?

And I do. I address this some in an essay I found myself writing (sorry unlinked now that the week has passed. I’m gonna work on it!) on the topic. Yes, an essay. If you check the non-fiction tab for me under publications you’ll see I do write essays from time to time, but I haven’t written many recently. I’m linking you above to the actual work in progress which, as with the poems from earlier in this week, I’ll leave up for a week before taking down. I’m not sure if the essay is heading towards publication, to a point or what, but it was interesting to go back to the Family Dollar and to take the time to consider the subject.

What I think I’m beating around the bush about in the essay – which is why I wonder if it’ll just end up being more of a diary rather than something I try to get published – is how we take some of these things around us and turn them into symbols.

When I was in high school I became entranced with William Blake and fascinated by the idea of creating your own personal iconography of symbols. I remember sitting down and trying to plot out what a rose would mean in the work I wrote. Trying to find the symbol first and then write the poems, well, I think that was a naive move (hey I was 16!), but I like going back now and questioning some of the images that reocur in my work to see what I think they might ultimately stand for.

None of my Family Dollar poems are online, it appears, at this time but I always refer to Family Dollar in reference to being with my mom. In one I know I talk about her wardrobe being from the Family Dollar. In another I speak about her buying these neon pink camo shorts for my sister and I. What, if anything, do the associations of those images – and what I talk about in the essay have to do with each other? What, do you think, Family Dollar means to me?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this question, the essay, or for you to post your own work in progress (to be removed a week later), or your own bits of personal symbology/obsession for discussion.