Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Welcome to November

In November I'm accompanying those people out there participating in National Novel-Writing Month but I'm implementing my own Poetry-Writing Month. Really as a tool to put poetry-writing into an even more increased pace and rhythm...and taking advantage of the group mentality of the month-marathon. My own "daily requirement" instead of being comprised by word count is to generate one new poem each day and to work on one revision. It's not clear to me yet what I really mean by one new poem, since they are not poems when they first come out, but I sometimes think I know what material is the beginning of a poem, and what is just the work to get there. Perhaps that is one thing I'll learn from this exercise.

I copied this poem yesterday into my notebook because I am being enamored by Kay Ryan and am sure I can learn from her compact lyric wisdom.

Cloud
by Kay Ryan


A blue stain
creeps across
the deep pile
of the evergreens.
From inside the
forest it seems
like an interior
matter, something
wholly to do
with trees, a color
passed from one
to another, a
requirement
to which they
submit unflinchingly
like soldiers or
brave people
getting older.
Then the sun
comes back and
it’s totally over.

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