Broke the Ice On Open Mic

Just arrived home after attending my first poetry open mic session and am still buzzing. Yes, I got up on the stage and performed! In fact, I volunteered to go third – having never experienced anything like this before.  It was a rush! The organizers were very welcoming, the crowd wonderfully warm and receptive and […]

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Composing Poetry

I’m going to let you in on a little secret:  my technique for creating a poem. First, I pluck an image from the Dreamtime: …trying to break the door down, mermaid legs…. Then, I pull the words apart, like petals from the flower and line them up in a column: trying to break the door […]

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Determining Audience

“Who is the audience?” As an English teacher I often asked this question, to which many students would reply: “Everyone.” Everyone, of course, is not the correct answer, but I understand how difficult it is to define such as elusive entity as ‘audience’. “Imagine,” I would invite them, “that you just failed an important test and […]

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Knock, Knock

A hot August haze hung over the early morning hours, as I sat perched on a kitchen stool, tea in hand, watching our host clean the rather large, concrete swimming pool in the backyard.  The day would be a hot one. I had risen early – a habit of mine instilled by a military father […]

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Pestilence of Words

Words, like crickets, leap from my mind – chirping pests whose trajectory eludes my dulled reflexes, scuttling around the periphery of my awareness. Harmless, really, in the singular; a cacophony in multitudes threatening to multiply further and rob me of this semblance of sanity. I must intuit their rhythm, define the notes in workable phrases, capture the […]

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Pecking Order – by Bill Fitzsimons

Originally posted on Algebra Of Owls:
? Verb – an eager, tail-wagging little word, running wide-eyed between its bigger brothers; words such as conjunctions, prepositions. One of grammar’s doers, never content to lie supine, always knowing that action speaks louder than other words. Pronouns are full of their own importance; adjectives are pure decoration and…

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Punctuation, Anyone?

I am contemplating the importance of punctuation when writing poetry. Please be advised that I am not an expert – either of the period or the poetic form – just a woman, who having stumbled upon the possibility of penning a word or two, has found herself questioning (which definitely needs a question mark, doesn’t […]

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Two Requests

Exactly…. Mitch Teemley View original post

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Never Sleep With a Laptop

Went to sleep with my laptop by my side.  Big mistake! Casually pushed it into the spot normally occupied by my husband, but as he is away, it was so easy to do.  Didn’t give it another thought. Never imagined that an object, so inanimate, would nudge me all night, invade my dreams and plea […]

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Creativity or Insanity?

My oldest brother is a talented musician, who has been composing and recording works in his own studio for years. “I just can’t write lyrics worth a damn,” he once told me during a visit. “I write poetry,” I offered, “but have no musical aptitude.” “We should put your words and my music together!” So […]

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