NaPoWriMo 2022

                                                               

Read all about it! 

Below is a paragraph explaining what is happening and how I will be participating:

How does it work? Simple — just write a poem every day from April 1 to April 30. If you’ll be 

posting your efforts to a blog or other internet space this year, you can submit the link using our 

“Submit Your Site” form, and your website will show up in our “Participants’ Sites” list.

Prompts are given daily at NaPoWriMo  

Here is another paragraph from the site:

As in prior years, we’ll be posting an optional daily prompt to help you get inspired, as well as 

featuring a different participant each day. This year, we’ll also be featuring a different online 

poetry magazine each day, with the hopes that you’ll be able to discover new poems and poets 

that you like, and perhaps even identify some good places to submit your own work.

Let's "poet" together!

A Slo-Poke Sucker Memory

 

While facilitating a memoir class at the Dietert Senior Center this month I used a local poet's poem to initiate the writing process one session. The poem, "Alphabet Soup" by Anne Schneider inspired my memory of purchasing the longest lasting candy possible at the movie theater's matinee, Dysart, Iowa, in the early 1950's. 

a slo-poke sucker memory

i eat Holloway suckers

       caramel on a stick

not now but years ago

       when at the movies

on a Sunday afternoon

       while Doris and Gordon

        dance and smooch.

the caramel diminished slowly

the musical went too fast

        "Tea for Two"

        " By the Light of the Silvery Moon"

Day and McRae, my favorites, as i

couldn't lick slow enough to make

the sucker last.

all those songs, all those fantasies

i just knew would be mine ~

one ten-year-old dreamer

as the caramel evaporates.

joanconnor 03/27/2022

Prompts for Memoir Class

 

What a delight! Enough pages have flipped on the calendar and the time is here!  It is memoir writing time at Dietert Senior Center. The class will meet for five weeks, ninety minutes each Thursday morning. That is not much time to "memoir one's life," but we can begin, share, motivate and instill inspirations with one another.

The curriculum design from Story Circle Network — Women Writers & Writing Resources that I am implementing is broad. It has good framework and then the add-ons are my design and challenge my creativity, such as the prompts below.

I begin with a chair poem as learned in Amherst Writers & Artists A home for writers & writing workshop leaders ⋆ Amherst Writers & Artists. The poem may or may not be used as a writing prompt. It may just be a "gift" to enjoy.

Then the sharing takes place, and we also share writing space incorporating the main idea of the day. For example, our first meeting centered around our ancestors, legacies they have left, memories they created with us, absences in our lives, etc.

The meeting did not have a closure to it that I would and should have implemented. I shall try to develop that facet for this next meeting. It is important, I believe, to have a meditative closure or a short inspirational thought.

Here are the three prompts I emailed the participants to encourage writing:

1. Although my ancestor’s life experience cannot be confirmed with facts, I have come to these conclusions….           (from Rachael Freed’s Women’s Lives, Women’s Legacies)

2. Create a list of “firsts” from your timeline, i.e., first home, first school, first friend, first kiss, first job, airplane/train/bus ride, first car, first trip alone, etc. Elaborate as you desire when a “first” grows into another story and yet another memory.

3. Write about something that has been passed down through your family for generations, perhaps an appreciation for music, or books or a type of food. Explore the positive and negative implications of this inheritance and how it has shaped you.

As you see, you can write objectively as in (2) or weave in your opinion as in (1) or subjectively explore the environmental influence that you select in (3).

Happy Memoir Musing!

Life Is But a Dream

Do you remember the 50's? Do you recall this doo-wop Harptone hit?

I wrote the poem below to fulfill a prompt about "dream." It was accepted and printed in Story Circle Network's quarterly journal this March 2022. You have read of my association with Story Circle before, a wonderful organization promoting women writers.

Do check out this tear-jerking rendition by the Harptones - their final performance in 2018. Willie Winfield and The Harptones - "Life is But a Dream" - Bing video

Willie passed away this past July 2021. What a voice!

Three Credos from The Harptones

1. It's what you make it

words perform acrobatics

on my google docs paper

keys in harmony

thoughts catapult

tumble to become

melodies, my melodies

resonate - 

an effort to 

be on pitch.

2. always try to give

who will benefit

from gifts i have

given, so few,

do more than 

i - do not neglect

to do good. *

3. don't ever take it

dream of less

desire less

 wants overwhelm

the need to dream be

yond parallels the possible

for others - not oneself.

* Hebrews 13:15 ESV

Italicized lyrics excerpted from

"Life is But a Dream," sung by the Harptones, 1955.