Tupelo 25/30: Not Dead But Dead Set on Dying

Dear Reader, 

Today, my friends, I've written another two-prompt-for-one-poem! And with five poems remaining, I need to integrate eleven (yes, 11!) donation prompts. I don't know what I was thinking! I do, actually. And I am so happy/excited to be riling up my writing/process in a way I've never done before. 

I like how prompts can provide some type of container for the other ideas/images that are already brewing in my head/heart. In the past month, the various titles/topics/words have helped me write toward my own themes in new and exciting ways.

Today's poem is a Rondel, which was a formal challenge donated by colleague and fellow poet (and harpist!) Rosemarie Sprouls, and I've written towards/in response to a title donated by another marvelous friend and poet Donna Vorreyer.


Here is an excerpt from "Not Dead But Dead Set on Dying" (read the full poem on Tupelo Press' 30/30 blog): 

"If the ocean’s a type of black box,

for what should we be listening–

ghosts of cargo ships long lost? Foresight mocks

our fear of cannibal sharks when the sting

of man’s tentacled hate blisters, shocks."

Reader, thank you so much for following this blog and for sharing your kindness. 

Though I am swimming in prompts, if you have your heart set on sending me something, please do. It may be the exact image/words I need! 

Some people have asked what I will do when I'm done with this challenge. Will I still take poetry request? I think I will. Perhaps I'll open a cheeky little Etsy shop ;-). 

I will also need a break. Did you hear that, friends? I just admitted I will need a break. Friends who are close, try to hold me to that. 

If you would like to donate to support my project, please see my first posting for incentive amounts and make your way to the Tupelo Press donation page. Be sure to select my name from the scroll down tab titled "Is this donation in honor of a 30/30 poet?" After you've donated, be sure to email (edigiorgio@gmail.com) or Facebook message me your requests. I don't want to miss your request!

Also, if you're enjoyed reading poetry this month, you might consider a subscription to Tupelo. You'll receive 9 books for $99, which is a steal! You can also *gift* this subscription to someone else (including me!)...I have friends and students who would be delighted to be the recipient. 

Yours in poetry,

Emari

Tupelo 24/30: Distracted by the Laundry

Dear Reader, 

Six! Six days, six poems. However, I have twelve donation prompts to work in. I have really set myself up for a high-wire act at the end. 

As I've noted in earlier posts, I've been on a writing residency at Rivendell in the Sewanee Valley. Besides writing a poem-a-day, I've been working on assembling my second manuscript. I'm excited to report that in the past few days I've catalogued all of the potential poems, noting things like form/speaker's perspective/major themes & images, physically laid out the manuscript (in the main house's tomb-like dining room), and organized it into one exciting (for me, anyway) book. 

Friends, it's real and it's big! Right now, it's 73 pages. That's about twenty pages longer than my first book. It's not the number of poems that differs but that the second book contains longer poems. In the last three and a half years, I think I've learned how to write into the material that matters to, and frightens, me. 

This 30/30 marathon has helped me to finish the collection and it has given me a different relationship with my process. It's showing me that even if I don't really know what write or how to enter a poem, I might play with language and tease something out. 

Today, I've written a poem for the wonderful title donated by my cousin Sharon Ferrucci, and since she gave me an "open theme" donation, I also am offering this to my friend and fellow poet Jackie Shelley. 

In my first book, The Things a Body Might Become (forthcoming July 2017, ELJ Editions), I explore a lot of personal and global domestic themes, writing about the matriarchs of my family and the idea of the matriarch in general. So when I sat down to write "Distracted by the Laundry," I wanted to return to those themes in a fresh way. What emerged was a zany poem that imagines tightrope walking the clothes line, which is a kind of metaphor for balancing a public life with a domestic one.  

Here is an excerpt from "Distracted by the Laundry" (read the full poem on Tupelo Press' 30/30 blog): 

"...There’s something

in the air, this wingless flight, but more

of a thrill when eyes are up. Harder

to toe-heel than stride. Watch a chemise

stand on end, filled like a sail it stays,

but too much lift and it’ll pull the clip,

drop, dangled one-armed in a sorry

breeze. I’ve always liked to climb,

but what to do when at the top, spin

around camera shot, one last gaze, then

what?..." 

Reader, thank you so much for following this blog and for sharing your kindness. 

If you've been unsure about sharing five words/a theme/something else, please muster the courage to contact me. 

I've realized that as much as this project has been about me taking a creative risk, it has also been a type of risk for those of you who wrestled with what words/phrase/title/theme you would send me. Please know that I am inspired by your connection to language and that this whole project affirms my belief that poetry matters. 

If you would like to donate to support my project, please see my first posting for incentive amounts and make your way to the Tupelo Press donation page. Be sure to select my name from the scroll down tab titled "Is this donation in honor of a 30/30 poet?" After you've donated, be sure to email (edigiorgio@gmail.com) or Facebook message me your requests. I don't want to miss your request!

Also, if you're enjoyed reading poetry this month, you might consider a subscription to Tupelo. You'll receive 9 books for $99, which is a steal! You can also *gift* this subscription to someone else (including me!)...I have friends and students who would be delighted to be the recipient. 

Yours in poetry,

Emari

Tupelo 23/30: Breakfast at the Oasis

Dear Reader, 

Seven days remain! 

I have never run a marathon, but I imagine if I arrived at a sign that said "6.5 miles to go!" I'd want to celebrate and punch someone. I'm just being honest. 

At this point, I am writing strictly in response to your prompts, and I have too many, so there will be combinations. 

Today, I've tackled a wonderful title donated by Peter and Amanda Murphy of Murphy Writing of Stockton University. The poem is a kind of homage/riff/spoof of the annual Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway, which used to be held at the Grand Hotel in Cape May, NJ. I always consider this yearly writing retreat my new year, recalibrating my writing and setting new goals. I have attended for 17 years, which is almost half my life! 

Though this poem pokes fun at some gendered dynamics at any writing conference, the Getaway has been a place for me to grow as a writer and I have learned so much from the timed morning writing prompts, the daily workshops, the afternoon tutorials, and the table-side and late-night conversations. 

Here is an excerpt from "Breakfast at the Oasis" (read the full poem on Tupelo Press' 30/30 blog): 

"Before the Grand fixed the leaking Crystal Ballroom,

its spotty HVAC, back when Ballyhoo’s bar featured a ship

stranded in the center of the room, sails open to disco light

and the Deejay’s rosy oldies, a few hapless locals or

single members of a groom’s party (of course they were single!)

scouted for lovesick ladies at the annual writers retreat­–

'Oh, tell where the sidewalk ends, heart.'” 

I cannot thank you enough for following this blog and for sharing your kindness. If you would like to donate to support my project, please see my first posting for incentive amounts and make your way to the Tupelo Press donation page. Be sure to select my name from the scroll down tab titled "Is this donation in honor of a 30/30 poet?" After you've donated, be sure to email (edigiorgio@gmail.com) or Facebook message me your requests. I don't want to miss your request!

Also, if you're enjoyed reading poetry this month, you might consider a subscription to Tupelo. You'll receive 9 books for $99, which is a steal! You can also *gift* this subscription to someone else (including me!)...I have friends and students who would be delighted to be the recipient. 

Yours in poetry,

Emari

Tupelo 22/30: What Is There to Be Learned

Dear Reader, 

I will let you in on a secret. Yesterday was actually my 30th poem in 30 days because I started my own poem-a-day practice on May 23rd at Sundress Academy for the Arts at Firefly Farms. And today, as if my brain/body knew I had *met* some arbitrary numerical goal, I really struggled with writing a poem. Or it's possible that because I have so many titles/prompts to work with (thank you, my dear friends) that I don't know where to start and end up starting too many at a time, like I did this morning. 

Let's try a poem titled "Not Dead But Dead Set on Dying" (a title I love)...false start, sludge, scrap. Try again. Let's try a major revision of an old, failed poem with this new title "Breakfast at the Oasis" (another wonderful title)...blah, boring, bored with myself. Try again. 

Today's poem is after Larry Levis' "My Story in a Late Style of Fire," and it uses a title donated by my long-time best friend Lisa Hardy, who I love like a sister. 

Yesterday, one of my fellow Tupelo poets

posted on Facebook that she had a moment of clarity/realization that she is at the midpoint of her life (she contextualized this by saying that there is no way to prove this but that it was just a sudden strong thought). Similarly, on a six-mile walk two days ago, I was thinking about the span of my own life, and at 35, if I am lucky (and I mean that, I like living), I am one-third through this life (that's banking on the best of my good genes & older folks living into their 90s, modern medicine, and the mostly reasonable lifestyle choices I make). Like my fellow Tupelo poet, there's no way to prove this. Or if there is, I'm not privy to that technology. But it was a thought and that thought led to how much I've yet to learn and what I choose to keep in this life. So I think this poem wrestles with the choices we make, loneliness, and wanting to offer our best selves to those we love. 

Here is an excerpt from "What Is There to Be Learned" (read the full poem on Tupelo Press' 30/30 blog): 

"...If I am honest

with myself I love the way a substation sounds

like the ocean. Today the clouds look like x-rays

of a fractured skull and I understand wanting to stand

in the middle of the track, to jump from the trestle.

Like Levis and Holiday, like you, I’d like to make some

dignity out of loneliness, and if keep using the conditional

there’s a chance it will happen, right?" 

I cannot thank you enough for following this blog and for sharing your kindness. After my recent group email, I have too many title requests. I am going to have to write a longer poem with separate section titles. I don't know how I'm going to do that, but I will try. Of course, you can still give me five words, pick a topic/theme (though it may only be part of the poem now), provide me with a formal challenge, reserve a chapbook, or make some other request! 

Please see my first posting for incentive amounts and make your way to the Tupelo Press donation page. Be sure to select my name from the scroll down tab titled "Is this donation in honor of a 30/30 poet?" After you've donated, be sure to email (edigiorgio@gmail.com) or Facebook message me your requests. I don't want to miss your request!

Also, if you're enjoyed reading poetry this month, you might consider a subscription to Tupelo. You'll receive 9 books for $99, which is a steal! You can also *gift* this subscription to someone else (including me!)...I have friends and students who would be delighted to be the recipient. 

Yours in poetry,

Emari