These are busy days for all us teachers as the end of the semester approaches, so I'm keeping this post short.
I've added one of my published poems, "The News from Southwest Minnesota" to the Poem Gallery page on my website. It appeared in Farming Words: The Harvest of Literature at a Prairie College edited by Bill Holm and David Pichaske and published by the SMSU Foundation. The poem sprouted from a disturbing news article about a fatal accident I'd read about in the Marshall Independent.
If you're searching for a good prompt for a poem, story or essay, the newspaper--print or online-- is a great place to start. What story bothers you, grabs your attention, keeps you awake and wondering at night? A writer friend of mine likes to use "sticky words" as prompts, so why not use "sticky news stories"? Start writing about it, and see where it takes you. When I started writing about the Buddhist monk's accident, I had no idea where the poem was going and was surprised when the words came to me. Surprise yourself, surprise your reader.
I've added one of my published poems, "The News from Southwest Minnesota" to the Poem Gallery page on my website. It appeared in Farming Words: The Harvest of Literature at a Prairie College edited by Bill Holm and David Pichaske and published by the SMSU Foundation. The poem sprouted from a disturbing news article about a fatal accident I'd read about in the Marshall Independent.
If you're searching for a good prompt for a poem, story or essay, the newspaper--print or online-- is a great place to start. What story bothers you, grabs your attention, keeps you awake and wondering at night? A writer friend of mine likes to use "sticky words" as prompts, so why not use "sticky news stories"? Start writing about it, and see where it takes you. When I started writing about the Buddhist monk's accident, I had no idea where the poem was going and was surprised when the words came to me. Surprise yourself, surprise your reader.
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