Writing discipline

Adair Lara writes that David Lehman wrote a poem a day and Khaled Hosseini of 'The Kite Runner' wrote everyday at 5 in the morning while finding time to be a physician.

Simpler than OJ

Unbinding the heart

In the book, the author explains the difference between a maze and a labyrinth. Her life and her search for self and meaning traces the path of a labyrinth with the center being her home. If you are the kind of reader who likes stories where the characters meet dead ends and still find the way out of a maze, then this book is not for you. Its not the adversity that fuels the author but the tenets of life passed on to her by her mother.

OR

In the preface of 'Unbinding the Heart', author Agapi Stassinopoulos uses the word 'synchronicity' many times. You begin to wonder about the meaning. Once you are informed of the originator of the term - Carl Jung and its relation with 'meaning', you can see the importance of meaning and its search in the author's life.
The book is written in independent chapters. Thats good as well as bad when some major events are repeated more than thrice (even if just a mention). Write to me if the age at which her parents got seperated doesnt get tattooed in your brain.
I picked the book for 'fearless living' in the description of the book. I want to know what other futures can we dream of if we dont limit ourselves even if that contains a huge monster from mars chasing us.
The book is very simple. There is no huge concept or sequence of things to be done. As I kept reading I wondered if its the same person all through. There's this image you have of the autor for whom things are falling in place even if after a great amount of persistence and then there's the ascetic side of forwarding her spirituality. But it is in this duality that she made her life path happen.
The author's mother has been a big influence on her philosophy of life. With that foundation, she was confident to find her own path. The author's wisdom lies in being a part of her friends experiences and learning from them.
Most books start with why they were written but this book ends with the moment the author found her reason. To share that 'our true home is inside ourselves'.

When spring came, the enormous old weeping cherry outside my dorm bloomed as though it had invented the word. - Frances Mayes, The Discovery of poetry

When writers write about their feelings, some can hook the reader like a magnet.

Jelly greeting and a poem

Happy Birthday jelly in You're

Bird Tree

A bird with
its feathers
as leaves

feeding her
young

on the
stump of a
tree

Ted kooser on metaphor

an interview

pg 11 has Abandoned Farmhouse poem by Ted Kooser and the poem that influenced him - The Listeners 

Walter de la Mare 1912

Scented pencil box

Reading of Baby Scentsations in parenting magazine, I am reminded of a green pencil box which was scented. I got it as a gift for an essay on United nations.

Poetic exercises

Write a syllabic poem. This is from Ted Kooser's 'The Poetry Home Repair Manual'. ted Kooser writes that Frost's Stopping by woods on a snowy evening is written in a form. In the article Mark Richardson defines 'what a poem describes—its content; what it has in mind—its theme; and how it holds together—its form.'

Another:
Write a paragraph about a poem you have written, to an editor. In the explanation I have found a good ending to an incomplete poem.

Weather

We see 28C on
the thermometer magnet
Dad says its cooler
than that
Maybe its not working
We check later
Its 15C

Its working

Its funny that its
on the refrigerator
whose insides are lot lower
than the room temperature
that the magnet shows.

Exercise: Write a poem on any instrument that fascinated you as a child - stethescope, weighing machine, compass, windvane, any others? On your coveted posession.

Tot poetry on the rise

poetry for kids
More

A dream visit to the pediatrecian

There are a few
experiments on the wall
written here and there

There are many people
around like its a
fast food joint
-hard to find all the
to -dos

You jot down the baby's
reactions from each of
the exercises

when its your turn
the doctor interprets
the results

Why is it so
complicated?

**********************

Must have been the result of a disney theme memory book uptil five year age for the baby, which had a column for baby's reaction to each of the vaccinations.

Android voice

In jane shore's Dream City poem on pg 45,

A voice called out "This is your room.This is your bed"

Frances Mayes in 'the Discovery of Poetry' says that she tacked Loveliest of trees poem on a cherry tree. people stopped by and read it. Imagine such a tag on everything you see. Write your lines on it. When you revisit, feel free to revise and update it.

Exercise: Write from a thing's point of view not in their inanimate sense but in a way that reflects them through their voice.

Metaphor at poem level

Jane shore's Shit soup poem.

She begins with a recipe but extends the poem to other events in life.
The pot gets extended to the grave ditch. The food to one's lived life.

In pg 84 with the example of 'The Envoy' poem, Ted kooser calls such a thing as 'lifting the eyes' in words of Chinese poets.

Detoured from the poem

Jane Shore in 'Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium' poem describing the ongoings at the place, writes of
'.. a grumpy
French-Candian family with three wired kids
detoured from the Cabot Creamery,
...'

I would have thought that kids love to go zoos and planetariums but the expression that they have been detoured from a place they like lets another poem going on not only of what one likes or does but of another of what one doesnt like or doesnt.

Exercise: Write a poem where you did something but in terms of what you didnt.

New shoes

In Jane shore's 'My mother's space shoes' poem there is a Xray fitter.

When we were kids
and my dad
on his way to office
put a paper on
the floor
'Put your foot on it'
He then outlined the
foot with a pen

It all meant
only one thing