When you receive a “Listenback” from a critique on your work, what can you do next?
Use the feedback you’ve received to set up exercises to try things out.
Use this releasing question: What other poems are inside this poem?
Editing and re-writing are like sculpting.
During this time I’m in Lake County in Northern California and walking when I can in Clear Lake State Park, the jewel of the county on Clear Lake and nestled on the shoulders of Mt. Konocti…these lines from my poem HOME SWEET HOME often run through my mind…excerpts below. You can read more from “Sightlines:…
What do singing on Broadway, training dogs, and mastering the art of the business pitch have in common? Patience, preparation, and perspective. I learned this valuable lesson from a young friend Annemieke Farrow (daughter of Stephanie and John Farrow of Albuquerque, New Mexico). Annemieke transitioned from a successful theater career in New York City to…
Last year I met Eamon Grennan’s poetry through the Lannan Literary videos, a marvelous resource that deserves a post of its own. Eamon Grennan quickly became one of my favorite poets. Former U. S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins says of Grennan: Few poets are as generous as Eamon Grennan in the sheer volume of delight…
Take a thread from these thoughts and write for at least 10 minutes…and then 10 minutes more…to tap into your mind on the topic of connection and barriers to connection. Connection and the possibility for connection surrounds us. The oxygen we breathe together connects us. What do we share? What brings people together? What separates…
“The Apple Factory,” is the third poem in this series of reprising Arletta Dawdy’s poems which appeared on Riehlife in its early days. Read “The Apple Factory,” a poem by Arletta Dawdy–1914 Sharp turns in Russia and China…apples, war, and rivers. “The Apple Factory” grew out of a conversation in the 1970s with an elderly…
The “Write, Pen!” technique is a variation of what the Surrealists dubbed “automatic writing.” Writing that came, they felt, from their subconscious, and therefore routed around the conscious mind with its nagging censor dogs yapping at our writing heels too early. In modern day writing circle we use clustering or mind-mapping and free-writing to come…