Out of nowhere

It’s so strange how poems

come out of nowhere

like clouds passing by

like birds soaring overhead

fluttering to a branch for just a moment

suddenly still

then flying off again

or like rabbits 

hiding in the grass

playing a game of hide-and-seek

or peek-a-boo. 

Catch me if you can!

What if you think of your pen 

as a butterfly net chasing words, 

trying to catch your thoughts 

before they disappear?

Or maybe writing is like fishing—

casting your line into the water, 

waiting for something to bite, 

an odd mix of waiting and hoping, 

trying not to get discouraged,

wanting words to appear on the page.

And when they appear, 

you have to act quickly, 

your pen racing across the page 

trying to capture the words 

as they spill out of your heart.

It's quiet this morning

Poems are hiding lately--

playing hide-and-seek

over the past few weeks--

unwilling to answer

the door when I knock.

Are they sleeping

or just shy?

Too tired to play

or busy working 

on a secret project?

The page is lonely and

sad without words

running across it today, 

words chasing words 

playing tag and peek-a-boo

laughter and cries of glee

rising from the page.

It's quiet this morning

the page wrapped in silence

the words still asleep

hibernating 

waiting, perhaps, 

for spring 

If you stay in bed

This morning I lay in bed before
the alarm went off wondering about
the shape of my day and what would
happen if I didn't go to my desk to
write before doing anything else.

It was the first time in months
that I thought about switching
my routine.

I lay there thinking
I don't have anything to say,
so why bother to get up and
sit at my desk with pen in hand
waiting for words that will never come?

But then my alarm went off and
out of habit I went to my desk
and sat down and took a pen in hand
and opened my journal to a blank page
and found the words waiting there
I couldn't see while lying in bed.

Maybe I'm just inherently lazy?

Or maybe it's just an illusion,
and you can't see it as an illusion
(that's the nature of an illusion)
until you get out of bed?

Or maybe writing comes down to habit--
a routine, a reminder to sit at your desk,
a need to find, through the familiar,
what's not yet known?

You don't know what you'll write
until you pick up your pen and begin.

If you stay in bed or go for a walk
instead of sitting down to write,
you'll never know what words are
waiting to give themselves to you.

Some Mornings

Some mornings

I sit at my desk

the way a man

might sit on the shore

and gaze out at

the water of a lake

or the sea watching

the patterns of light

and clouds shifting

on the surface.

Some mornings

I sit at my desk

and gaze at the

empty page as if

it’s the still surface

of a pond, unruffled

by the wind, undisturbed

by the fish swimming

below, a mirror reflecting

the sky above without

giving a hint at the mystery

that is hidden below.

Some mornings

I sit at my desk

and wait for words

to appear, for the slightest

hint of movement,

for a sign of life,

and I listen to my

breath and close

my eyes and wait.

Some mornings

I sit at my desk

and nothing appears

and I hear only

the drone of the fan

spinning on the ceiling

and the sound of

my breath when I inhale

or the sound of someone

else in the house putting

a teapot on the stove

to boil.

Some mornings

I sit at my desk

and watch the surface

of the page ripple

with life, words swimming

across the paper tugging

at the lines I dropped

in the water, filling

nets, the page awash

with words, overflowing

with words, words spilling

over the edge of one page

and falling onto another.

Some mornings

I sit at my desk

full of faith

that words will

come and I will

be able to catch

them with my pen.

Some mornings
I sit at my desk

not knowing if anything

will appear, filled

with doubt and anxiety

that I’ll starve,

that I’ll hear nothing

but silence the rest

of my life, that I’ll

drown not in words

but in the pages

of an empty journal.

Some mornings

I sit at my desk

and wonder

at the miracle of

creation—of love

and life, and words

and stories,

of ink and charcoal

and wood pulp

and forests and

rivers and seas,

of clouds and sky

and wind and rain,

of how the miracle

of each breath

is filled

with poetry.

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Finding poems

I always consider it a miracle of sorts the way poems can sneak up on us.

You can find them hiding anywhere—in your shoes, on the beach, up in the sky, even in the palm of your hand.

Earlier this month a friend who is a professor of English literature at one of the local colleges posted a note on her Facebook page.

She had come across a notice on a neighborhood bulletin board and thought a poem might be hiding there.

Here’s the notice that she shared:

Lost--tan Chihuahua wearing
navy t-shirt.
Do not chase.
Name: Spike

And here’s the poem that I found hiding in it:

Lost--
a tan
Chihuahua
wearing a navy
t-shirt.

Please, don’t
chase my dog,
just call his name:
Spike!

He will come
running to anyone
with open arms and
an open heart

a peanut butter
treat hidden in
your hand.

Is there a trick or secret to "finding" a poem? (What do you think?)

And where do you find poems? (Have you looked under your bed lately? Or at the end of your tube of toothpaste?)

Sometimes it can help if you close your eyes and listen for a kind of music.

Sometimes you might be able to hear words playing together in such a way that they create new sounds in your head. 

Sometimes the words may let you see a new picture that wasn’t there before.

Can you see (or hear) a poem hiding in the notice that my friend shared?

Why not share the poem you find in the comments below?

Help celebrate National Poetry Month with a poem!

Here are a few links to help you find poems that might be hiding right under your nose:
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/found-poem-poetic-form
http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/about-found-poetry 
http://www.creative-writing-now.com/found-poetry

To The Sea

Some say you should

start a poem with a

title

just write the words

at the top of the page

and begin

as if a poem is a

waterfall and the

title is the edge

of the cliff and

the words will spill

over the edge

once they begin

to fall, splashing

onto the page,

but I like the idea

of starting without

a title, wandering

aimlessly across the

page, the words

searching for a path

like a river meandering

through the soft earth

finding its way eventually

to the sea—

which might, in the end,

be the title you were looking

for all along.

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One Writer’s Process: Kelly Ramsdell Fineman

“A celebration of the senses on the sand and by the shore.” That’s how a Kirkus reviewer describes the success of children’s author and poet Kelly Ramsdell Fineman’s first picture book, At the Boardwalk. “The oceanside boardwalk bustles from dawn's first light until night's starry skies.”

This kind of praise isn’t a surprise to anyone who has read Fineman’s poems, many of which celebrate the senses and joys of life in such detail.

Many of Fineman’s playful and thoughtful poems are included in poetry anthologies and collections. “Baseball Season” can be found in Little, Brown’s One Minute Til Bedtime; “Catatumbo Lightning” and “San Francisco, Any Night” are included in National Geographic's Book of Nature Poetry; and “Pocket Change” is part of The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations.

“I started writing poems and stories when I was very young,” says Fineman, who continued writing poetry throughout high school and college.

It wasn’t until she began writing again after a hiatus of full-time work, though, that she found herself receiving acceptance letters for her writing projects, including most recently her picture book, At The Boardwalk, and her chapbook of poetry for adults, The Universe Comes Knocking.

In addition to writing poetry, Fineman produces an enduring and popular blog about writing and literature called Writing and Ruminating. In weekly posts, Fineman muses on a wide variety of subjects, including her love of Jane Austen and William Shakespeare, as well as her interest in the work of more contemporary authors. And, of course, a good deal of the blog is devoted to her passion for poetry.

It was thanks to her blog, and, her love and knowledge of poetry, that Fineman was invited to serve as the poetry chair on the Cybils Award Committee for Poetry (and she was kind enough to invite me to join her on the panel a few years ago, which is how I came to know her).

Fineman, who lives in New Jersey with her sweetheart, was kind enough to take time from her many works-in-progress to share her thoughts about writing.

Wordswimmer: If writing is like swimming, how do you get into the water each day?

Fineman: Sometimes I fall in, almost accidentally. There are days I really want to write, and can’t manage anything much at all, and days when I don't plan on it that something comes to mind and I follow that thought and find something new - a poem, or a chapter, or a blog post.

In the past, there have been periods when I was completely and utterly absorbed in a particular project, and I couldn’t wait to get to the work each day. It was so easy to be excited about the project and the writing (and often research, as well), and I was eager to get to it, that I thought it would always be that way. Come to find out, that’s not the case.

I keep hoping for another totally engrossing project, but in the past few years, it hasn’t happened. I have started flirting with Natalie Goldberg’s notion of daily practice, except that I don’t manage to get to it every day, so it hasn’t developed into a true habit for me yet. On those days, I sometimes figure out what I should be working on while I’m doing my pages, which gives me a bit of structure now and again.

Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat...for short work? For longer work?

Fineman: Much of what I write is poetry, and I find that as long as I have an idea - an inkling, even - I can explore that and get a first draft down. Sometimes the finished draft is just a slight tweaking of the first draft, sometimes it involves a lot more new writing, coupled with massive revision.

For longer work - either a poetry collection or a picture book, chapter book, novel, or memoir (all of which are on my hard drive in various states of completion) - two things keep them afloat. One is actual interest in or fondness for the project, whether it’s a character or a concept, and the other is regularly “touching” the project. I have a collection of poems based on women in Shakespeare, for instance, that I completely and totally loved the idea of. I worked on that project pretty obsessively, until it was completed. (Still hasn’t sold, but then again, I’m not as diligent at sending completed work out as I ought to be.)

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells? 

Fineman: I don’t always manage it - sometimes I flop about like a fish on dry land. I have a couple of autoimmune conditions that conspire to make life a bit difficult now and then, so while writing doesn’t require all that much physical energy, I am sometimes deprived of much in the way of mental energy. At those times, the work pretty much pauses.

There are other dry stretches, though, that are pretty much gaps in my own creativity, and those are the sort that are similar to anyone else’s dry spells, I guess. I view them as an opportunity to do other things and to fill the creative well. Something is bound to come along later to demand my time and attention.

Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?

Fineman: For me, the hardest part of actual swimming is keeping from panicking - I start to hyperventilate because I worry that I am going to drown if my face is in the water too long. I guess you can say that applies a bit to writing as well . . . the notion of panic because things aren’t going as well as you’d like, or the words on the page aren’t doing justice to what you meant, or aren’t conveying the idea or image you had inside your head.

Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?

Fineman: I guess it depends on the day. Because I am not under contract at the moment, nobody is waiting for any product or revisions, so I don’t have to focus on staying in my lane or kicking hard all the way through - I can always float on my back for a while under the sun, waiting for a new idea to come along. If I find myself in too much of a corner, I will backtrack to see if I went off in the wrong direction along the way. Or I will run it by a friendly first reader to get another opinion.

Wordswimmer: What's the part of swimming that you love the most?

Fineman: There’s a real sense of freedom to it on days when it’s going well and all engines are firing properly. Hours pass quickly by, and things come relatively easily. Those are pretty great days.

The other thing I love the most is playing with words. Finding the precise ones that are just the right shade for what I mean to say is a kick!

For more information about Kelly, visit her website: http://www.kellyfineman.com/

And take a look at her blog, Writing and Ruminating: http://kellyrfineman.livejournal.com/

To see her poetry chapbook for adults, visit: http://www.maverickduckpress.com/universe.html

And for more interviews with her, take a look at:

https://maclibrary.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/interview-with-kelly-fineman/

http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=880

And here’s the review of At the Boardwalk that appeared in Kirkus:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kelly-ramsdell-fineman/boardwalk/

Daydreaming

How much time did you spend daydreaming as a child?

Most writers remember how challenging, if not impossible, it was to stay in the present when a word triggered their imagination to soar into the future or back to past.

It was our ability to daydream, I suppose, that helped us survive the early years of childhood, even when it might have gotten us into trouble at school or at home for not paying attention.

Thanks to Nikki Grimes and her new verse novel, Words With Wings, I’ve spent the past few days daydreaming and enjoying memories (sparked by her poems) of just how large a role daydreaming has played in my life.

Grimes, the recipient of the 2006 NCTE Award of Excellence in Poetry for Children and winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, reminds her readers of how daydreams, like magic carpets, can carry us away:

Words with Wings

Some words

sit still on the page

holding a story steady.

Those words

never get me into trouble.

But other words have wings

that wake my daydreams.

They fly in,

silent as sunrise,
tickle my imagination,

and carry my thoughts away.

I can’t help but buckle up

for the ride.

It’s easy to sympathize with Gabby, who “can’t help but buckle up for the ride,” as she shares the challenges and pleasures of being a daydreamer in these poems.

Daydreams fill her imagination, that’s for sure, and they get her into trouble with her mom and with her new teacher, Mr. Spicer, who are frustrated with her for not paying more attention at home or in class.

Only her dad seems to understand the pleasures of daydreaming. He’s like her—a daydreamer, too:

Stuck in Dreamland 

Maybe something

is wrong with me,

all this fancy dancing

in my mind.

Where I see red and purple

and bursts of blue,

everybody else sees

back and white.

Am I wrong?

Are they right?

Too bad

I can’t ask Dad.

But Gabby can’t turn to him after her parents separate and she moves across town.

Luckily, she finds a new friend to share dreams with at school. And once Mr. Spicer understands the family problems facing Gabby and devises a plan to help her and her classmates learn the true value of daydreaming, Gabby no longer has to worry about being an outcast in her new school.

And, eventually, Gabby’s mother, who disapproves of daydreaming, comes to envy her daughter’s talent as a writer, and, like Mr. Spicer, develops a newfound respect for the value and true worth of daydreams.

If you don’t remember the pleasures (or hardships) of daydreaming when you were younger, this book will remind you.

And if you’re a writer, it may inspire you to turn your daydreams into stories.

For more information about Grimes and her work, visit: http://www.nikkigrimes.com

For more about Words with Wings, visit: http://www.nikkigrimes.com/books/bkwordswithwings.html

Swimming in History

An illiterate slave named Dave was purchased at auction in Augusta, Georgia in the early 1800s and taken to Pottersville, a small village in South Carolina.

There he was taught how to make pots, jugs, and jars on a potter’s wheel, and in time he learned the art of firing and glazing them, too, eventually becoming one of the best potters in the region.

And in some mysterious way--both courageous and profound--he learned to write, inscribing his poems in the clay.

In Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet, Andrea Cheng has done the remarkable and brought Dave’s story to life.

Relying on historical records and adding her own imagined scenes, people, thoughts, and dialogue to offer what she calls “dramatic extensions of historically documented events and interactions,” Cheng uses her own remarkable skills as a poet to infuse Dave’s spirit in the poems that comprise this book.   

Cheng writes in an afterward that she first learned about Dave’s life while listening to a review of Leonard Todd’s Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave, and then she read the book and found herself moved by the story.

“I had never heard of a person such as Dave," writes Cheng. "How did he dare to write on the walls of his jars at a time when he could have been hung just for reading a book?”

Like Dave, Cheng says, she is a poet. “I started writing poems when I was about eight, and I have been writing poetry—and prose—ever since. I was encouraged by teachers, family members, and friends. I cannot imagine writing at all in the circumstances under which Dave lived and worked.”

Here’s one of Cheng’s poems:

Etched in Clay

Dave, June 12, 1834

Only me here,

turning pots, making jars,

turning words inside my head

until I’m ready to explode

like a jar with an air bubble

in the furnace.

Magnanimous,

sagacity,

concatenation.

Here, on this jar

For all to see,

I’ll inscribe the date,

June 12, 1834,

and the word

Concatination.

Someday the world will read

my word etched in clay

on the side of this jar

and know about the shackles

around our legs

and the whips

upon our backs.

I am not afraid

to write on a jar

and fire it hot

so my word

can never be erased.

And if some day

this jar cracks,

my word will stay,

etched in the shards.

In addition to her poems, Cheng includes her own woodcuts, hoping the combination of poems and artwork will convey Dave’s story and “communicate his bravery, his dignity, and his artistry,” and, in some small way, “pay tribute to the quiet heroism of David Drake.”

She does all this and more in this amazing collection.

For more information about Etched in Clay, visit:

http://www.hbook.com/2013/02/choosing-books/reviews/review-of-etched-in-clay/

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/andrea-cheng/etched-clay/

http://www.slj.com/2013/02/books-media/author-interview/everyday-hero-andrea-chengs-etched-in-clay-charts-the-courageous-life-of-dave-the-potter-under-cover/

And to learn more about Cheng’s work, visit: http://www.andreacheng.com