I am leading a Story Circle Network “20 Minutes a Day” Writing Challenge this month. Approximately 42 women are participating in this challenge, and each has signed up to write 20 minutes a day, 6 days a week for 4 weeks. They are divided into accountability groups of 5 to 6 members, and each group is…
Tag: poetry
#54 – Something That Makes Me Happy – Going to the Circus!
When I was growing up, the circus coming to my small Texas town was a cause for celebration. There was a big parade around the town square with music, colorfully painted circus wagons, wild animals, and exotically attired performers. Also, when the troupe traveled to an empty field north of town, many local people gathered…
#39 – Something That Makes Me Happy – Another 1st Draft Song to Share with Brother Sam
I wrote this song shortly after writing the one I posted last night. I sent it to Sam this morning and we’ll see what comes of it in our songwriting collaboration. As Sam said last night when I sent him the first song, “We’re songwriting again. How fun!” Yes, yes, and yes. I’m in “Beginner’s…
One Poem from Billy Collins
I love Billy Collins’s poetry. Here is one of his poems below to just get you thinking about how it is possible to view other people and oneself using a different lens. I love several of these images, but most especially “the evening paper blowing down an alley” and “the moon in the trees.” See…
“How?” by Abraham Sutzkever
Today I helped Rachael with a paper for a UCLA literature course and I read some poetry by Abraham Sutzkever, who is considered by many to be “the greatest poet of the Holocaust.” The poem that we read and analyzed is called “How?” It reads: How? How will you fill your goblet On the day…
Emily Dickinson: I Cannot Live With You
I have spent a good deal of today working with one of my students on a paper, which analyzes the poem “I Cannot Live with You.” Dickinson presents a systematic argument of why she cannot live a life with the object of her love. Most of us would go the other way, but not Dickinson…
A Poetry Book That Pulls You In and Teaches You History
My daughter Rachael has introduced me to a book of poems from her poetry class at UCLA entitled Blue-Tail Fly by Vievee Francis. This is a wonderful volume of persona poems written in the voices of either real people or composites of people living from the pre-Mexican American War through the post-Civil War era. This book…
20 Minutes a Day 