Request for Poems: Why You're Alive

TOPers, why are we here?

Over to Mike for the month of February! Unless someone else would like to host.

Totally Optional Prompt: Why You're Alive

This week's prompt is a quote suggested by paisley:

"When you were called upon to speak, you were supposed to say why you think you're alive, why you were born, and why you're still around: What are your reasons? Everyone needs to come up with his or her own personal answer."

From a novel called Diary of a Heretic, by Kathleen Maher.

For an extra twist... try responding to this prompt without using the word "I" (me, my, mine). And remember, both the prompt and the twist are
Totally Optional
!

Request for Poems: Sonnet

TOPers, what'd we come up with this week?

Of course you know I wrote a sonnet: I find them addictive.

Totally Optional Prompt: Sonnet

Perhaps you associate sonnets with Shakespeare, or with love poetry. Perhaps you think they're obsolete, or difficult, or pointless. All of those things might be true, or they might not; it's all in how you look at it.

Take a look at some contemporary sonnets:

Susan Palnick: Room 9

David Gwilym Anthony: Water Bearer

Margaret Menamin: Blue Collar Sonnets (pdf)

You can also find lots of good sonnets at Sonnet Central and Contemporary Sonnet.

If you need to review the form, there are good explanations with examples here.

As always, remember the prompt is
Totally Optional
!

Request for Poems: The Magician

Check out the sidebar: sbpoet has added her collections to the TOP participant collections list!

Anyone else with a collection to advertise? (Sue? Rachel? Dale?)

Also remember: if you have an idea for a prompt-- or better yet, if you'd like to host TOP for a month-- leave us a comment.

Now a confession: I had no idea whatsoever where I was going to go with this prompt... it just came to me. I can't wait to see where everyone else went with it!

Totally Optional Prompt: The Magician

"The Magician" from the Rider-Waite Tarot.

He represents the potential of a new adventure, chosen or thrust upon one. A journey undertaken in daylight, in the Enlightenment Tradition. He brings things out of the darkness into the light. He explores the world in order to master it. He is solar consciousness.

He embodies the lesson of “as above, so below.” The lesson that mastery in one realm may bring mastery in another. He also warns of the danger of applying lessons from one realm to another.

He transcends duality. He’s learned the fundamental elements of the universe, represented by emblems of the four suits of the tarot already broken apart and lying on the table before him.

--interpretation excerpted from Wikipedia

Request for Poems: In the Ear

So, TOPers: what have we heard? Hopefully it wasn't in one ear and out the other.

Totally Optional Prompt: In the Ear

Most poetry (most writing in general) is visually oriented. The flash of color as a bird crosses your line of sight: maybe the sound of its song as an afterthought. The brilliance of a rainbow or a rose. Sounds tend to be neglected.

Yet we're surrounded by a vast and rich universe of sound at all times. These four poems are attempts to open the door inside the ear and let in some sounds.

Alicante Lullaby - Sylvia Plath
Reapers - Jean Toomer
What the Ear Said - Oliver de la Paz
A White Turtle under a Waterfall - Wang Wei

What do you hear?

Request for Poems, Poem to the Editor

Well, TOPers, what'd we have to say to our local papers this week? If you actually sent a letter, let us know in the comments. (I didn't, mine was just too silly.)

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Poem to the Editor'

I checked editorials in some local newspapers, you might need to check your own, and their current issues are state school testing, freedom from religion, religious liberty, the subprime meltdown, and federal spending. The challenge is to write a letter to the editor. To get the letter published the title should make the subject clear, it should express an opinion, have a novel approach to the issue, and have a clever or humorous twist at the end. If it's any good I'm going to send mine in, with the blog URL of course.

Cultural Note: Newspapers around here commonly have a letters-to-the-editor section on the editorial page where readers can submit opinions.

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And a side note: I was stopped at a rail crossing watching the train go by and saw this stenciled on a rail car: 'Warning, this car may fall over'. I suppose some lawyer required the sign but it sure doesn't inspire confidence.

Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For Poems, Moon Island

It's time to show your cards, and read what the other poets brought to the table. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Moon Island' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks.

This is an unusual time of year, days are short, normal schedules are so yesterday, and real attitudes don't match idealized tradition. I hope you are able to keep track of the loose ends and stay sane. Well, at least as sane as you were before it all started.

Saturday night, right after 'Hockey Night in Canada', I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Moon Island'

Moon Island is out in Grays Harbor, it's been there for years, and migratory shorebirds have used it as a stopover between Alaska and Mexico. Back in the forties the channel was dredged and the dredge spoils filled in the area between the island and the industrial area, which means it's not exactly an island any more. The filled area became a runway and sewage farm, and the remaining mud flats are now a wildlife area. Shorebirds still use the mud flats, waterfowl use the sewage pond, and there are birds on the runway when winter high tides flood the marsh grass under a freezing fog. So take your pick, an island that isn't, changes that do or don't make a difference, birds adapting, or freezing fog on Moon Island.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For Poems, Road Sign Redux

It's time to show your cards, and read what the other poets brought to the table. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Road Sign Redux' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night, right after 'Hockey Night in Canada', I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Road Sign Redux'

Take Highway 50 east out of Ely, Nevada, and in thirty miles there's a lane-and-a-half (ie narrow) paved-dirt-paved road north across the desert to the end of Jakes Valley, across Long Valley, and into the bottom end of Ruby Lakes. If you keep going north you get to the interstate between Wells and Elko. The stretch across Long Canyon is a straight-arrow straight dirt road for fifteen miles. From one end you can see the dust plume of the incredibly rare traffic coming from the other end (one time the only traffic was a helicopter coming up the road at ten feet elevation). Out there in the middle of lonesome is a less-than-useful sign:

KEEP RIGHT
EXCEPT TO PASS

I've always been intrigued by this less-than-useful sign. This has got to be a metaphor for something.

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In constructing prompts I try to present scenarios that stir me to think and write, in the above I see three possibilities. I'm also interested in what prompts and scenarios trigger your poetry genes. Leave them in a comment for Tiel, or better yet offer to host TOP for a month.

Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.