Cathy Cook
My word of the year seems to be overwhelming. Everything is too big, too loud, too much. Life right now is full of disruptions--some I chose, others I was handed. Personal disruptions in the middle of a news cycle that just can't quit. Overwhelming. Poetry and the community surrounding it has been a place to … Continue reading Post IWPS Thoughts
Livin' on a prayer! Now that song will be stuck in your head. You're welcome. November, national novel writing month, is a month in which many aspiring novelists (myself included) take on the possibly foolhardy challenge of attempting to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month. Nanowrimo.org offers oodles of writing prompts, local … Continue reading Nanowrimo: Halfway There
Donald Trump’s twitter account makes me deeply unhappy. But this week I decided to dig through the last week of tweets for the sake of art, and the subject of this post, found poetry. Found poetry is a form in which writers create poems out of existing text. Anything from speeches to Shakespeare, to graffiti … Continue reading The Poetry of Donald Trump’s Twitter
When’s the last time you spent your weekend obsessively counting syllables on your fingers? Or trying to find a word that rhymes with fish that is both esoteric and concrete? I know, that sounds like the best weekend ever! You too can panic as you try to figure out whether enmity has two syllables or … Continue reading How Do I Love Thee Sonnet
Not really. But this is an introduction to a poetry form that will force you (just like the pantoum) to embrace repetition. Story time. When I was in eighth grade, I had a MySpace page. I’m not even sure if MySpace exists anymore, my page certainly doesn’t. I wasn’t a very good MySpace user. I … Continue reading How to be a Rap God
The cilantro and parsley succumbed first. Their thin stems and curled leaves couldn’t muster the strength to keep standing and fainting and standing and fainting in the heat. When temperatures rose or the soil grew bone dry they collapsed, stems hanging limply over the side of their metal pots. Sometimes the limp plants became entangled, … Continue reading The Death of an Herb Garden
I'm planning to move soon, so I made a photo essay about my neighborhood. I live on a street filled with print shops, punk shows, stray cats, laundromats, and old friends.
When I was first introduced to this 15th century poetry form, I despised it with a burning passion. If I could print out all the pantoums in the world and set them ablaze, I would have. They're easy to write. They're near impossible to write well.
I didn't grow up in a big city. Las Cruces, New Mexico, population 100,000 and growing. But it wasn't tiny either. My bedroom window faced the street, so I was no stranger to the night time sounds of cars rushing past, the occasional siren, or motorcycle. I could hear the train whistle from my bathroom … Continue reading In the Absence of Sirens
Captain Jack Sparrow stumbled his way onto the big screen in 2003. At eight, I couldn’t imagine anything better than being a pirate (or a jedi, or a wizard—between Star Wars and Fantastic Beasts, I feel like my childhood movie going experiences are experiencing a renaissance). The Curse of the Black Pearl is a prime … Continue reading The rum is actually all gone, so is the magic
