A NOVEL IDEA FOR NaNoWriMo: WEEK 2

Week 2: Prompts, News, and Poets who are doing it

What an exciting week for writers, including the novel-ty of poets writing daily in November.  Exciting because this week Appletree Books in Cleveland Heights has invited writers of all ilks to write in the bookstore window for an hour. I'm going to start with a report on how that's going, then feature a poet who used the prompts at "Read + Writer: 30 Days of Poetry" last April, and end with seven prompts, one a day for this week!

News - Writers in the Window at Appletree Books

This sweet bookstore has been in the middle of the exciting Cedar Hill  neighborhood

Dianne Borsenik in the window

since 1975, back then as a children's bookstore and now offering new books for both children and adults, as well as beautiful cards. Back in September Jane Rothstein contacted me, among many authors, inviting us to write in the window of the bookstore for National Novel Writing Month, though she noted that one didn't have to be a novelist to come write. I sign on immediately, and writers still can, in some spaces that are left later in this month here.

So far, Jane tells me, "We actually have a number of poets coming in.  We've had Christine Howey in this past Tuesday, Susan Oelbracht was in yesterday, Linda Goodman Robiner was here earlier this morning, and Dianne Borsenik will be coming in tonight.  Susan and Christine will both be in again next week, as will Philip Metres.  Meredith Holmes also recently signed up for a slot in the middle of the month....Christine she did say that she wrote a few poems while in the window - most of them being haikus, but still...."

Janet Cho has reported on the window writing at Cleveland.com this week, and you can read her article and see a photo of playwright and poet Christine Howey writing in the window here.

So it sounds pretty exciting. I'll be there this coming Wednesday, November 9th, so wave if you are strolling by on your way to Nightown or Aladdin's. Or better yet, come in and buy a book!  

Location: 12419 Cedar Rd, Cleveland Heights, OH 44106

The Poet: Julie Ursem Marchand

Weekly, I am featuring a writer who use the prompts last April, and this week, Julie is up. This is who she is and what she had to say about the process of writing a poem a day for a month:

Julie Ursem Marchand is delighted to have one of her poems featured in Diane Kendig’s blog topic A Novel Idea for NaNoWriMo – Write Poetry! She looks forward to participating in Cuyahoga County Public Library’s Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry for National Poetry Month every April since it began and encourages others to check it out. When Julie is not writing in Elyria, she can be found sharing her love of reading and helping patrons use the computers at the North Ridgeville Branch Library of the Lorain Public Library System or acting on one of many area community theater stages. Her poetry has been published in The Squire: Grand Tournament III Anthology and The Squire: Page-a-Day Poetry Anthology 2015 both by Writing Knights Press in Cleveland, Ohio. She has also had poems included in the 2016 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Anthology by Crisis Chronicles Press from Cleveland and in Delirious - A Poetic Celebration of Prince by NightBallet Press from Elyria in June. Her poetry was broadcasted on Charles Cicirella’s Radio Ether program #876 and also had one of her poems published in the digital June 2015 issue of The People’s Tribune from Chicago. Julie has been one of the many featured poets at two different Snoetry’s and was one of the three featured poets at the newly relaunched Artists Unite! at Olde Towne Hall Theatre in North Ridgeville this past March. Julie shares her love of the local poetry scene stretched across northeast Ohio and is currently working on her first book of poetry. Her first novel may also be in the works. Write on!

The Interview:

Q How many of the three years have you used the prompts?

A: I have been using your prompts since your 30 Days of Poetry began three years ago. A lot of us share the link to your email registration on our facebook pages and I look forward to seeing which poet you will feature that day. I am happy to say that I know many of your featured poets every year.

Q: Have any of the poems been published in print? Have you read them before at other readings?

A: I do not currently have any of these poems published, but I will once my first book of poetry is published. I am hoping to decide which poems I am going to include and where I am going to submit them for publication soon. I have read several of the prompted poems at many spoken word events in the area including a couple of Snoetry's. I am usually at every Monday at Mahall's Poetry and Prose series on the first Monday of every month. We are taking July off because the first Monday is July 4th, but we will be back in August. I was the featured poet at Mahall's in May and I read many of the prompted poems then.

Q: Are there any of the prompts that seem to work better for you? that don't work?

A: My favorite prompts are the ones that involve trying out a different writing format or style. I never tried writing an etheree or twitter style poem before, but they have quickly become favorites and I will write poems like that again. Some of the poems about different topics can be more difficult, but it is important to think outside of the box and try something new. Every writer and poet can go through bouts of writer's block and even start to feel stale. I get inspired by hearing other writers and poets in our area and following prompts like the ones that you put together can help me think about things in a new way and make me a better writer in the long run.

Q: Do you know anyone else who has been writing to them?

A: I know Kathleen Gallagher whom you featured early on this year. She enjoyed the pictures I took of my spine poem and shared them on Google Images as examples of spine poetry with my permission. I also know Steve and Theresa Gottl Brightman promote your 30 Days of Poetry event every year. I can ask my friends to see how many have written poems based off of your writing prompts. I don't get on facebook everyday, so it can be a little easy for me to lose touch with what everyone is doing sometimes.

Q: Would you send me your favorite poem? (Again, I wouldn't use it without permission.)

A: My favorite poem is the etheree poem I named Daydream. I never heard of that poetry style before, but it came together so beautifully even before I gave it a minor revision:

Daydream

(etheree poem for April 28, 2016)

I

wish that

I could fall

down the rabbit

hole like Alice and

escape the sheer madness

of this world to a place full

of smoke and mirror nonsense where

we can quietly sip at our tea

feeling perfectly at home with chaos.

I’d laugh and show you our abode behind

the rose bushes where all our dreams and

wild adventures will begin

beneath the toadstool of the

Caterpillar smiling

up at the Cheshire

Cat winking back

and we won’t

come back

up.

-Julie Ursem Marchand

Q: Could you tell me about yourself as a poet? How long have you been writing poetry? How does it fit into the rest of your life?

A: I am from and still live in Elyria, Ohio. I have been writing poetry and stories since I was a kid, but I didn't start really getting into writing until I was in high school. I wrote a lot when I was in college and thought that I would write even more once I graduated and got a real job. HA! I learned just how funny life could be in that respect. It wasn't until I started going to spoken word events a few years ago that I felt brave enough to pick up the pen again and make time for myself to discover my true voice.

PROMPTS 

Here you will find a poem by a Northeast Ohio poet and below that, a prompt. If you did not  use the 30 prompts in April, these are still good to go. And if you skipped some, here's some makeup work:

November  7th - A poem from a political statement, much more timely this month!

November 8th - Every day say or do

November 9th - Attachments

November 10th - Rituals

November 11th - Fibonacci!

November 12th - Opening Lines

November 13th -  Facebook

A NOVEL IDEA FOR NaNoWriMo: WEEK 1

WEEK 1 : Prompts, News, and a Poet Who Did It

As I mentioned last week, I am encouraging poets who have not yet written 30 poems in 30 days to do so this month while in the company of writers hard at it for National Novel Writing Month (NaNo).  And to help you along, I plan weekly to feature a link to a daily prompt, to poet-related NaNo stuff, and to an interview with a poet who used these prompts last spring. 

Prompts for November 1-6

Nov. 1 Beginnings: Write a poem about a first in your life, such as having a first child, first looking into Chapman’s Homer, or tasting a cannoli for the first time. Do not use the word “first,” “one” or “beginning.” Do not use the phrase “for starters.”

Nov. 2 - Create a spine poem by stacking up books with appealing titles from your bookshelves. Arrange them, spine out, to form poems. Take a photo to preserve your literary remix. If you’d like, share your images on Twitter with the tag #readwritepoetry and #spinepoem or #spinepoetry, where you will also find examples. (Thanks to Laura Weldon for this great idea.)

You can find these two prompts at the "Read + Writer 30 Days of Poetry," here.

For the rest of this week, Nov. 3-6, use days 3-6 from that site here  

News

This week's news comes from Cat Russell, this week's featured poet. Cat is also taking the challenge to write a novel this month. She believes the NaNoWriMo site provides a lot of information, encouragement and connection for participants. She says, "If you register at the NaNo site, it's free, you can access everything." (See the NaNo link above.) She notes that even poets who don't want to write a novel can register and sign up for the Discussion Forum titled "Rebels," and she says "the biggest difference is if you rebel you can't win the sponsor prizes. Otherwise, you can do anything you like." 

Prizes? Prizes? We don't need no stinking prizes. Or badges. Or nothing. Just bring on the prompts and viva la company!

The Poet: CAT RUSSELL

AUTHOR BIO:

 
I'm an author living in NE Ohio. My work has been published in the 'Best of Friday Flash – Volume One' and 'Volume Two' anthologies, Lightning Flash magazine, and Flash Me magazine. I share my life with my high school sweetheart, our son, and assorted creatures in the Wilds of Ohio while writing short stories, producing poetry, and learning more about the craft every day. 

More of my work can be found on my writing blog, Cat Russell,  at catherinerussellwriter.wordpress.com

Interview with Cat:

Q: Could you tell us about yourself as a poet? How long have you been writing poetry? How does it fit into the rest of your life?

A: I've written poetry off and on for several years now.  I've been heavily involved in the online #FridayFlash community via Twitter and Facebook, so I generally write one piece of short fiction a week. Writing a complete story with few words means knowing how to pick the right ones, cutting out excess, and focusing on what's most important.  That's what I like about writing poetry. It allows me to practice that same type of crafting while breaking the rules of prose.

Last year I joined a monthly Poetry Workshop through Lit Cleveland, and that's really helped expose me to new poets and approaches I had not known before. Between that group and the Cuyahoga Poetry Month prompts, I've gotten much more heavily involved with both reading and writing poetry.


Q: How many of the three years have you used the CCPL prompts?

A: I've used them every year, and I love everything about them. I get great recommendations for new authors, inspiration for my own work, and get to read one poem by a local poet each day.

Q: Do you know anyone else who has been writing to them?

A: I know one other person that has used the prompts, as well as several online participants through social media.

Q: Are there any of the prompts that seem to work better for you? that don't work?

A: There were a few prompts that were timed badly for me personally this past year, such as writing about things that occurred on certain days. Others I haven't written yet, but saved the prompts for later use. However, I found most of the prompts to be very helpful and have started submitting some of the poems they inspired. Mostly, I find the daily ritual combined with the posted poem to be a great creative boost that makes me want to write. I'm especially fond of the prompts that introduce me to new forms--such as six-line fibbonaci poems.

Q: Have you presented any of the poems in workshops or readings? Have any been published in print? (If so, can you provide titles and/or which prompts you were writing to?) Have you gotten any response to those particular poems?

A: This year, the poetry prompts came at a particularly turbulent time in my life, so they provided a much needed emotional release. I have shared a few with favorable results, but some are still being worked on or are too personal to share right now. I have submitted several for publication, though I have not heard back on all of them yet. (P.S. I actually have sold one poem written to the prompt to write a poem that consists of a single, long sentence. :)

Q: Would you like me to publish or republish one of the poems? Please keep in mind that most journals consider blog publications as publications, and I don’t want to get your prize-winning poem disqualified for having been used as an example on a blog.

A: Thank you, but I'd rather not. I've published them on my blog in the past which reduced their marketability. This year I restrained myself, and I've gotten two sales! (not direct responses to the prompts but rather written as a result of being in poet-mode as a result of consuming so much poetry in April.)

*****

All best wishes to Cat for her poems and for her novel writing month, and to all you novelists, poets, and rebels.

 

A NOVEL IDEA FOR NaNoWriMo: INTRO

INTRO: Why not write poems in November?

 

Several decades ago, Jerry Roscoe and I were ferrying Robert Creeley around for the day in Jerry's salesman car, heading east to meet Jim Lowell, of Asphodel fame. He was still selling wonderful broadsides and fine letterpress books but now instead of the bookstore downtown, he was working  out of a room next to his wife's beauty shop way out in the country. As we drove (ahem) Jerry asked Creeley about the novel Creeley had written-- was it the only one he had written, Jerry wanted to know. There was a long very long silence before Creeley responded:

"Yes. I learned novels are long and life...is short."

Creeley had a relatively long life that yielded some of the greatest poems of the 20th century, and while he didn't  seem to have any regrets about having written the novel... well, it seemed he wouldn't have had any regrets if he hadn't written one either.

If you are a writer who would like the fun or rigor or challenge or pain of writing every day in the month of November, when all your friends are yammering about their novels, but you just aren't the novel type, consider writing a poem a day. I know, I know. We were supposed to do that in April during National Poetry Month. But face it, sometimes there is just too much poetry going ON to write anything during April. If you go to just half of the readings your friends give during that month, you don't have time to shower, let alone write.

True confession: I created the 30 prompts for the "Read + Write: 30 Days of Poetry"  online project of the  Cuyahoga County Public Library (CCPL)  last April. In my profession as a creative writing professor for two decades, I had always done the prompts myself ahead of time that I then gave to my students. But I was too busy January through April with writing events, editing, and e-mailing to try them. By the middle of April, with no writing done, I felt guilty as heck and promised myself I'd do the regime in May. And I did! And it was wonderful! I wrote 30 poems, over half of them worth sending out, two of them published by now.

When I finished, I wrote some of the Ohio poets whom I knew had written during April-- a few of whom had responded to TWO prompts a day-- to ask them what they got out of it. Their responses were so generously descriptive and enthusiastic that I thought I'd use them to excite writers for next April. But then, the problem with April is everything poetry that's going on. Whereas November is...novels. For some of us, November may be a little slower than April. The Indians should have sewn up the World Series by November 3rd. There are very few graduations coming up. The holidays are a whole month away. It's too cold for grass and not quite time to shovel.

If you have the time for a novel in November, you go. But if you are a writer who doesn't have the time this month, or a poet, who doesn't have the tendency, consider writing a poem a day. Weekly, I am going to be linking to a week's worth of April prompts and posting an interview with a poet who wrote to those prompts and has some things to say about it. 

Cat Russell (who does plan to write a novel this month)
Chuck Salmons (Pres. of the Ohio Poetry Assoc.)
Julie Ursem Marchand (Lorain County Librarian)
Kerry Trautman (author of To Have Hoped)
Laurie Kincer (Co-ordinator, CCPL Skirball Writers Ctr.)

Stay tuned!

MY DAD'S DOGTAG and DYERSBURG

73 YEARS LATER, DAD GETS HIS DOG TAG

Russ Kendig, opening the mail

THE CALL

It's Sunday night, the phone rings at 190 Perry Drive in Canton, Ohio which has the same phone number it's had since 1949 when my dad built the house. Some woman leaves a message: she's looking for Russ Kendig--does she have the right number? Her voice is so hesitant and sweet, she can't be a telemarketer, and I phone her right back and say, well sort of. I am his oldest daughter: how can I help her?

Diane Seat is calling from Halls, Tennessee to tell me her family has found my dad's WWII dog tag in a soybean field near what used to be the Dyersburg Army Air Corps base. Rather, after much sleuthing, she thinks it is my dad's. She asks,

Diane Seat

"Was his mother's name Bessie? Did they live on Tenth Street?" Yes and yes. We talk a fairly long time, for two strangers. I tell her about all the trouble Dad's crew got into at Dyersburg before shipping out for Europe, and she tells me about going on Ancestry and there, finding Grandpa and Grandma Kendig and their thirteen children, among them Russ, whom she figured would be 91 and probably not alive. She has tracked down two other dog tag owners and found one had died in the war and one had died in his early 80s. She'd be glad to mail the tag to us-- she knows if someone found her dad's tag, she'd love to get it. We trade addresses and phone numbers and emails and friend each other on Facebook, and then I wait.

Telling Dad

I drove over to Dad's senior residency to tell him. I have to drive over because he is never in his room, so reaching him by phone is impossible, and he never checks messages. He is sitting out front, and laughs at the news. He had another tag when he returned from the war; it's in our files, and it doesn't have Grandma's name and address on it. He has no memory of that first dog tag. My dad does have some dementia, but many of his WWII memories are crystal clear (he can still recite a lot of accurate numbers and co-ordinates for firing from a B-17), but only one really from Dyersburg.

My cousins say that they have two tags of their dad who is my Uncle Les and Dad's deceased big brother: one tag with Grandma's name and address and one without. Maybe stateside tags were one way, and then soldiers got new tags when they shipped overseas? I've asked a few vets. None recall, which is no surprise because there was much much much more to recall once you arrived "over there." Uncle Les survived the Battle of the Bulge and came out with purple hearts and bronze stars, and Dad survived many missions and earned several medals that are now in the files with the dog tag. Who remembered the stateside base? Well, actually, my dad does remember one story and The Canton Repository files hold the story too.

Backstory: Dyersburg to Canton and Back in the Dark of the Night

Russ Kendig in 1943, 18 y/o

This story has nothing to do with the dog tag, but it does have to do with the Dyersburg Army Air Base, where the tag was found, and it is such a good one, I am sneaking it in here.

My dad had started in training to be a pilot at a base in Lincoln, Nebraska, but as the war heated up, the army didn't really need any more pilots and sent him and many pilots in training to gunnery school from whence he ended up at the Dyersburg base, assigned to the crew of pilot Robert Ellis. That was the setup for one of those lifelong friendships the war cemented for some lucky men. Uncharacteristically for the makeup of a crew, both men were from Canton, Ohio. Bob was the only child of a sometimes single mother (when she wasn't married, which she was, five times) who was a flamboyant character. Dad was one of thirteen children of two loving and fairly strict, religious parents. Bob, an officer, was son of a fairly famous army officer who did not approve of his son's friendship with an enlisted man. Bob didn't care. My dad, who had six older brothers, really adopted Bob as another big brother in his life. Bob went on to live in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Columbia, and the United Arab Emirates, but whenever he got back to the U.S., he visited Dad, who never wanted to live anywhere but Canton, and they'd stay up late talking and talking.

Ellis Crew at Dyersburg

While they were stationed in Dyersburg, the crew was assigned to fly a night mission for practice on a Sunday evening. I don't know where exactly they were supposed to fly to, but I know where they were not supposed to fly to, which was Canton, Ohio and where Bob decided they would fly, to see the hometown once more before they left for who knew what, but it wouldn't be easy. What anybody else on the crew thought, I have no idea, but they did fly to Canton, and then they flew low over it. My dad says that his family, yes, living on 10th Street, near the Fairgrounds, came out on the front lawn, and that Grandma knew exactly who was in that plane and waved as they dipped the plane and flew up.  They then headed up Tuscarawas in Reedurban, where Mrs. Ellis lived and dipped again.

Canton Repository story from that night

Keep in mind they were flying a BOMBER and this was WWII. Three police cruisers were sent out to shine spotlights to help the plane land because the pilot had flashed his landing lights (in helloes to the moms out there, but the police thought he was looking for a place to land). It was all in the Canton Repository  the next day, noting it would go down in the police records as "The Mystery of the Low-Flying Bomber," and ends, "The pilot gunned the engines, all four roared and he climbed into the darkness and sped on his way."

Only, as Dad tells it, they did not have enough gas to get back to the base, had to stop to refuel and were busted. He says they were court-martialed, and the morning of sentencing, he received a letter from Grandma Kendig, with a copy of the clipping from The Canton Repository, which Dad says he burned immediately. The army was more anxious to get the crew to Europe than to punish them for a few gallons of gas, and they were shipped out shortly after.

The Tag Wends Its Way Home 

Yesterday, my mailman came up to my back porch and yelled at me as I worked in my garden,

Dad with the new tag and the old and Dyersburg reading

"Diane, I have certified mail for you!" Diane Sheets wasn't taking any chances on the tag getting lost. I signed and drove over to take the package to Dad.

He opened the small envelope with the tag and we studied it. The thing I love most, after seeing my grandma's name and address, is that a tiny bit of Tennessee dirt is still clinging in the metal fold around the edge of the tag. Dad immediately took his current tag and chain out of his pocket, took his nail clipper tool out and cracked the chain open, added the new tag and draped it around his neck.

Then we looked at the rest of the material in the envelope. Diane Seat had sent us the brochure from the yearly air show at the base, a pamphlet on the base, which is now a veterans museum, and a history of the base 1942-45. She and her family are the heroes of this portion of the story.

I have a trip planned to Louisiana in the fall, and I am hoping to visit the museum along the way.

What did Dad have to say about this latest episode? He's a storyteller, but not much of an emoter or chatterer. (That was my mom.) When asked what he thinks, he just chuckles, shakes his head. He has no idea how the tag got in the field, no idea when he last took it off. Like much of the rest of his 91- year- old life, this provides another interesting tale, a small mystery with a happy ending, or as he does say, smiling, "I get a kick out of it!"

Favorite Northeast Ohio Libraries for Writers

As National Library Week is in April, when I am all about National Poetry Month, I am

Halfway into my walk

celebrating libraries this week by writing about a few of my favorites.  Actually, I celebrate libraries every week, every day if you count that my 3-mile morning walk usually takes me past my local Stark County District Library branch library, Perry Sippo. 

I wrote in this blog a while ago with excitement about a big research archive I visited in Atlanta, and with my academic husband, I have gotten to work in the grand libraries of UC-Santa Cruz, UC- Berkeley, Princeton, and the Library of Congress. Loved all those places and many others, near (Massillon, Ohio  Library's video collection) and far (Trinity Library in Dublin, and oh, dear heart, the British Library in London). 

This week, though, I am going to focus on five Northeast Ohio libraries which are particularly strong in resources for writers.

First, I will celebrate the new and exciting Cuyahoga County Public Library's South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch with its William Skirball Writers Center. (Read it Here.)

Then, I'll go a few miles away to the Literature Department of the  Cleveland Public Library (Here )

Third, I'll write about the Performance Center and activities at the East Cleveland Public Library. (Here)

and a terrific Teen Writers Workshop at the Canal Fulton Public Library. (Here.)


And finally, I am going to come back to my own county, Stark, to show you around the writer activity at the Stark District Library (Here.)

I'm a big fan of all the digital resources that libraries are making available, but in this series, while I will be including two digital resources for writers, I am more interested in spaces, hard copy collections, and other in-person stuff. This series is about working writers and writers working in communities, assisted by our libraries and their great librarians, working with us.