Theater

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How do you revise?

You have a poem that has some interesting ideas or rhythms, but it’s just not making it? Here are some things I do when I revise a poem to work:

Take some of your lines, split them down the middle, and regroup them e.g.:

Here are the shelves of unread books

An immigrant who stands on the edge of the forest

becomes: Here are the shelves on the edge of the forest

An immigrant who stands on unread books.

Or try to take a poem and erase words, e.g.

In first grade

We learned the names of dandelions and birch trees?

Forgot them & relearned them. 

They didn’t make much sense to us,

because we were in New York City

where there weren’t many flowers or trees.

becomes:

Trilliums, sweetgum trees,

forgetting, relearning.

No sense,

New York City,

No flowers or trees.

Try rewriting your poem from a different viewpoint:

Two brothers planted a sequoia in the orchard one afternoon

becomes: All afternoon my brother and I worked in the orchard planting a sequoia.

When I wrote my new book, Touch My Head Softly, I went through many revises:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy

What do you do to revise?

I will be posting on Thursdays, and on Tuesdays, if I have an announcement.

My new poetry collection can be viewed here:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

Here is the link to my book on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3609820860https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

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Are the sources of our strengths as writers in natural conversation?

You may have come to think of writing as a solitary, lonely process. And sometimes it is, especially during the pandemic. But writing is a social exchange. We write, often, to publish and put our writing out into the world. Here other people interact with our words, read it, understand it, and sometimes respond.

As a lifelong writer, I do often write in isolation, but I find my best writing comes from sharing it with other writers, or a mentor, and getting their feedback. How do you use speech to further your writing?

Photo by William Fortunato on Pexels.com

This is the link to my new book of poems at Finishing Line Press:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

Here’s the link to my book on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3609820860https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

I will blog on Thursdays, and on Tuesdays when I have announcements.

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Open the Door to Creativity

Have you ever seen a door and wondered what is on the other side?

The idea that you can create by opening a door goes back centuries. A note was found

in a Latin grammar from the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland in approximately 848

that describes an Irish scribe going outside and writing a poem under trees.

You could open a heart door that would enable you to write about things that you love or your favorite things. The door could be an observation door where you record things you carefully observe.  A memory door could lead you to memories, good or bad, that you have saved away in the back of your mind.  A wonder door could lead you to things you question, or wonder about.  A political door could lead you to write about your concerns in the world.

With the pandemic, the world is in lockdown and there are many closed doors.

We all long for the day with those doors will be open again and life will return to normal.

While we are on lockdown, our minds can wander and explore our thoughts, our wants and our imagination.

My new book, Touch My Head Softly, is now out from Finishing Line Press:

Have you ever seen a door and wondered what is on the other side?

The idea that you can create by opening a door goes back centuries. A note was found

in a Latin grammar from the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland in approximately 848

that describes an Irish scribe going outside and writing a poem under trees.

You could open a heart door that would enable you to write about things that you love or your favorite things. The door could be an observation door where you record things you carefully observe.  A memory door could lead you to memories, good or bad, that you have saved away in the back of your mind.  A wonder door could lead you to things you question, or wonder about.  A political door could lead you to write about your concerns in the world.

With the pandemic, the world is in lockdown and there are many closed doors.

We all long for the day with those doors will be open again and life will return to normal.

While we are on lockdown, our minds can wander and explore our thoughts, our wants and our imagination.

My new book, Touch My Head Softly, is now out from Finishing Line Press:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

You can view it on Goodreads at:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3609820860https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

I will be posting every Thursday, and on Tuesdays when I have an announcement.

Photo by Life Of Pix on Pexels.com
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“’Speaking onto the page’ (is) letting our fingers be guided by the mental process we use effortlessly in everyday speaking.” –Peter Elbow, Vernacular Eloquence (Oxford, 2012)

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

For any of you who have practiced Elbow’s freewriting technique, “speaking onto the page,” is it a useful method?  Whenever I get stuck, I do this.  I’ve done it in writing groups, speaking into a recorder, or just reading aloud for myself.  It seldom fails to produce some piece of writing.  The writing may not be my best, or may wind up unused, but it’s a way of getting started and perhaps generating something that eventually will be used.

Elbow also recommends this for editing, for writing that winds up ‘correct.’ You can do this while keeping those virtues of natural speech, and getting rid of what’s not suitable for the genre you’re writing in.  This can also add a new infusion to your old writing, by speaking it onto the page, reading it out loud, and hearing what sounds easy. Sometimes when you hear it, it just sounds different than when you read it.  I used this technique in developing my new collection of poetry, Touch My Head Softly.

This is the link to my new collection at Finishing Line Press:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

This is the link to my new collection on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3609820860https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

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“What one has written is not be be defended or valued, but abandoned”–William Stafford

By this, I think he meant that we shouldn’t judge our own work, but let it go out in the world. Others will judge it. If you think of it that way, it frees us, as writers, from nagging insecurities. There’s always someone who has one a prize for their work or gotten public recognition, and it’s easy to be envious. But if we just keep our sights on our own work, and trying to make it the best we can, we can gently return to ourselves.

I have a new book coming out soon, a collection of poetry called Touch My Head Softly from Finishing Line Press. It is about my experiences with my partner’s having Alzheimer’s. I try not to think about how other people will judge my very personal poems. I wanted to do it and now the poems are out in the world: abandoned.

Here is the link to my book at Finishing Line Press:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

Here is the link to my book on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3609820860https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

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“We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour” –Amanda Gorman

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Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

For any of us who watched the insurrection of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. last week, the words of Amanda Gorman, the inaugural poet, rings true. This poem was, ultimately, optimistic, portending a better future. Poetry can speak to us like nothing else when times are dark.

I wrote a collection of poetry after my partner died of Alzheimer’s Disease. It was a very dark time in my life. My partner, a brilliant mathematician, deteriorated quickly, leaving me in darkness. The writing of the poetry helped me to process what happened. I have been working on Touch My Head Softly with my publisher, Finishing Line Press, to finish the process. It has given me purpose through the pandemic.

Here is the link to the book at Finishing Line:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

Here is the link to the book on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3609820860https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

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Culture and Writing

Culture is a fuzzy term. Some cultures just have speech, no writing. Language affects the way we write. Some writers are multilingual, and that’s a definite advantage. Speech is flexible and can be used in particular ways in a cultural setting. We speak naturally in many diverse backgrounds as babies, from the playground, to school, to home. Writing can also be a misery for a child in school who hasn’t mastered the rules.Writing is where we must be precise. Speech is where we get to be imprecise, to play.

Imagine, as writers, playing with our words the way we play with speech. We can make magical words in our writing. Witness the incantation to open the caves entrance in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. Gabriel García Márquez made frog kings.

So how do we make magical writing in our culture? I’m not sure. Does anyone want to answer this question, just reply to my blog.

My latest collection of poems, Touch Ny Head Softly, will be out soon from Finishing Line Press.

Check it out here:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

You can also find me on Goodreads at:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3609820860

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Reflections on Writing in an Extraordinary Year

I don’t know how writing this year has been for you, but I know that writing has sustained me through this difficult year. I have a new collection of poetry coming out in early 2021 by Finishing Line Press about my partner who died of Alzheimer’s. With so many issues affecting us this year, such as the pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, the struggle for racial justice, I wonder how relevant my poems about Alzheimer’s Disease are in the world. I am donating part of the proceeds from the sale of the book to the Alzheimer’s Association to try to create a positive effect from the publishing of the collection. I am also trying to reflect on what I learned about myself in these trying times.

You can check out my new book here:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3609820860

Do you have any reflections on your writing this year?

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Recovering A Sense of Abundance

A sense of abundance is viewed as not godlike. What god do you believe in?

Abundance is defined as a lot of something. In whist it’s an attempt to make nine or more tricks. In writing, it may be more than one version of a piece or many, many pieces.

Then, when you have abundance, say a collection of poems being published, do you promote this abundance?

Is it good to promote your own book? You promote other books, but how do you feel about promoting your own? Making art starts with enjoying the now and letting it into your day. What do you think?

Check out my new book at:

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/touch-my-head-softly-by-eileen-kennedy/

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Join Straw Dog Writers Guild for its 10 Year Anniversary

Join Jacqueline Sheehan, Patricia Lee Lewis, and Ellen Meeropol
for “Wine and Chocolate with the Founders”
 

on Facebook from 6:30-6:55 p.m. 
Here is the link to the Facebook Event:  LINK

Stay for Writers’ Night Out/In at 7.