Greetings!
I’ve just set up a short poll to get an idea, in numbers, as to where do we go from here. Considering that RWP will stop offering weekly prompt and new content after May 1, I thought it would be a good idea to get an idea now as to the direction that people are wanting to go in. Please answer the poll below, encourage your fellow RWP’ers to respond, and so forth. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!
-Nicole
I was shocked and saddened to read this morning that Read Write Poem will be closing down at the end of April. See the announcement at: http://readwritepoem.org/blog/2010/03/31/read-write-poem-announcement-2/. There was a part of me that, for a minute, hoped that this is an early April Fool’s joke. But I don’t think that it is.
I, for one, have to thank RWP. As of this May, I will have been part of the RWP community for two years. I have enjoyed the information and resources that RWP presented, as well as the weekly prompts, which challenged me to write more and write better. I have constantly mentioned this community when I read live at open mics, because I really do feel it has been a wonderful thing that has happened in mine and others’ poetry lives. And I am sad to see it go.
I know that there is a large contingent of readers of Raven’s Wing Poetry who come from RWP. I think that we’ve been reading each other’s work, commenting on it, offering constructive criticism when needed, and enjoying the virtual community in that exchange and reading. While I don’t know about our capability to continue the vast, expansive mission of Read Write Poem, I hope that in some capacity, we can continue the community aspect that RWP offered with each other. I don’t know if that would happen in the form of another place that offers weekly writing prompts that try to challenge us at least somewhat close to how the RWP prompts did, or if it would be more, or if it would simply be community to come together, share, and maybe collaborate.
Please, I want your thoughts and reactions. I’ve been on a wonderful adventure with poetry in the blogosphere for the last two years, and I want this to continue. I’m sure you do too. Please leave your thoughts either through comments on this post or backchannel through my “About The Poet” page.
Saludos,
Nicole Nicholson
Founder, Raven’s Wing Poetry
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Stumble It!
This poem was written for the latest mini-challenge from Read Write Poem — write seven poems about the body in the context of October. I didn’t pick a specific body part this time — I went more with the general idea of “disappearing”. Enjoy.
-Nicole
P.S. If you want to read everything else I wrote for the mini-challenge, click here.
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I can fold myself up so small. Bend my kneels, curl my back
until it cracks. Assume a flattened mantis position,
elbows swallowing themselves, wrists closing in on skin
like a pair of taciturn books. I could crush – no, compact myself
until my chicken bones break in the darkness. Knees become useless,
rotating broken legs in every direction. Arms flop, speaking limp doll dialects
until they die of gangrene. Eyes close, pull down the shades
to the light. A line in the silent black, one dimensional,
no longer speaking. The oldest trick in the book, Houdini’s envy – except
I don’t come back to tell you
that I’ve broken the void.
Written 10/11/09
©2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
This poem was written for the latest mini-challenge from Read Write Poem — write seven poems about the body in the context of October. I chose “feet” for the theme of my third poem. Enjoy.
-Nicole
P.S. If you want to read everything else I wrote for the mini-challenge, click here.
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My feet are long, fallow roads of wandering, the color of Earth
on a desert day. Thin piano wires of bone
impress their songs under my drum head skin, and hills of knuckle
rise up to stretch it across their angled and arced backs. You could take
my feet for a ride, rival the curves and turns
of a rollercoaster. These long fellows are gifts
from my father.
I’ve always tried to find shoes worthy
of their impossible lengths, grand vessels of
queenly leather of metallic shine and night sky sparkle to
encompass my royal kinks, slopes, and cracking joints. I want
open sky to house the little toes on the end of each foot
that almost curl in fetal silence into themselves, afraid
to release their faces upwards
like their other brothers and sisters. But few and far between
is the workmanship that can cradle my feet in its arms
and wear beauty on its face at the same time. Instead, Noah constructs
a million ugly arks in fake black leather just to hold them, to
interlope between my skin and the ground. I think going barefoot
is underrated — but that’s impossible
in the half-chilled depths of Ohio’s October.
If I ever find worthy vehicles of my feet that can wear
feathers, the precious gemstone children of Earth, or even
fake ruby mirrored elegance as their clothes, then I would gladly
step in and walk. But I wonder
if the vainglory of such peacockery would warrant
the heavens to drop a house
upon my head.
Written 10/9/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
