I did another live on Instagram today. You can check it out by clicking on the lovely picture below:
Day 9: Happy National Poetry Month!
Tag Archives: sonnet
Day 7: Happy National Poetry Month!
It’s 11:15 a.m. I have not written a poem to share. Nope. So I’m going to write one right now. Live…ish.
Excuse me a moment while I go find a prompt I like.
Oooh. Found one. On this website. Number 10. “Create a gallery of your heart. Take readers on a guided tour of what they might see there.” That immediately sparked my imagination. So here goes.
Heart Gallery
By Michelle Garren Flye
Watch your step, it’s showing its age
this old heart gallery of mine.
But really the cracks set the stage
and let the artwork shine!
Over here, memories of days gone—
you’ll see Mama’s picture set up high—
and the nest from which I’ve long since flown,
those who watched as I took to the sky.
Baby pictures, treasures—it may seem inane—
letters of old love, scraps of life on display…
Most of it appears designed to cause me pain—
the open book of my past I failed to file away.
I will not banish any of it from my trove,
because, above all, I feel only love.
It’s 11:45 a.m. I just finished the edits. It’s not bad. A sort of sonnet. What do you think?
Photo and poem copyright 2023 Michelle Garren-Flye
My first ghazal and thoughts about choosing constraints
If you follow my writing at all, you know I am fascinated by different styles of poetry. I’ve written haiku, sonnets, villanelle and am now tackling the dreaded ghazal. I’ve often said that if I have writer’s block, I will write haiku to break it.
So when one of my favorite e-newsletters arrived in my mailbox featuring an article about Oulipo, an organization of French novelists and poets, I was intrigued. These writers believe writing with certain constraints actually inspires creativity. For example, very restrictive forms of poetry as far as rhyme and/or length and even more daring constraints on works of fiction. Like writing an entire novel without using the letter “e”. Some of these works have been translated from French to English…also without using the letter “e”, if you can believe that.
What would it be about restricting yourself that actually inspires creativity? I can’t answer this, but I know that historically adversity can lead to great works of art. The Renaissance, for instance, was conceived during the darkness of the Bubonic Plague. Amazing works of art resulted from the pain of the Aids epidemic. Wars have always inspired great art. And the Covid-19 lockdown released a flurry of works of art, literature, and music that we are only beginning to appreciate.
Is it because we as humans have to hope that adversity creates great work? And following that, do we as artists create artificial constraints on our work just so we can burst out of it? Does restriction force something else out of us? Or is writing a sentence without the letter “e” just silly? (Or: Is it silly to try to show our thoughts without using a common symbol?)
I can only really answer to what works for me (and it’s not not using the letter “e”). Although I don’t totally agree with Robert Frost that “Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down”, I do believe that I write good sonnets…and haiku…and villanelle. Not sure about ghazal yet. What do you think?
Star Falls
By Michelle Garren-Flye
Recite poetry in a husky voice—I hear your calls!
Tell me the story of the world and the star that falls.
How is it okay to whisper it all in my ear?
Count every moment from now to when the star falls.
It won’t matter anyway, I won’t let myself care.
I’ll run away—I swear I will—run ‘til that star falls.
But wait!, you say, are you sure that’s really okay?
The moments don’t pause, though, no, not until the star falls.
You’re silent at last, peace surrounds me and I will stay.
Last chance to wish on my whisper (sun’s rising!)…and star falls.
RIP Calliope, 2015-2023. Photo by Michelle Garren-Flye. Copyright 2023 Michelle Garren-Flye.
Far & wee: The (video) audiobook
It’s one thing to tell you how special this little book is. It’s another to show you. So here I am in a one-take video, reading my book out loud and explaining it as well as showing you the pictures as best I could.
Want to look for the balloon-man with me?
A box of dreams
I do not know what I want from you. I’m just certain there is something more and the only reason I consider love or romance is because I do not yet know the other. But my soul yearns for it. Across stars and oceans I call. But all I get back is the echo of a whistle of a far away balloon man.
Yesterday my book came. Far & wee. This is my “seize the day” book. I started writing it on May 21 and today, June 15—25 days later—it’s on the shelf at my store. It’s available on Amazon. You can read it if you want.
I’ve never been real good at “launching” my books. I suck at marketing. Especially the initial teasing about what it’s about and throwing myself a big party and signing. I’m more like, hey, I wrote a book. You know, one day it’s not on the shelf at my store, the next day it is. lol.
This book is no different in that respect. Yesterday it was not on the shelf. Today it is. I’ve signed it, priced it and even put up a sign that it’s mine (I don’t usually do that). But yesterday when I opened the box, I got this feeling that this box of books was different.
It’s a box of dreams.
New poetry book announcement: Far & wee (with excerpt—sort of)
So you’ve been with me from the beginning of this thing. May 21 doesn’t seem like that long ago, right? What is that, 19 days?
I never would have thought in a million years that I would write, illustrate and publish a book in nineteen days. But I did.
I’ve often felt that I write what is given to me from…somewhere else. I write for someone else and there’s a purpose I don’t necessarily know about for my writing. I don’t know who it is out there who needs to read this book, but it’s here now. It was my obsession, pushing everything else out of the way for 19 days. Now I need to move on to finish up some other projects. Projects that took me longer than 19 days. But I think I can do it now.
Anyway, as a little introduction/excerpt to the book, here’s the actual introduction of the book as it appeared on my computer while I was laying out the book.
Balloon-man Project: Excerpt from Sonnet #12
It’s 12:30 a.m. and I have to be up at 7 a.m. My son graduates high school this weekend. I’m working between graduation events. It’s a busy weekend.
But I’m up right now because I really wanted to share something else from my balloon-man project. You know, the one that seized me by the freaking throat, picked me up and shook me until I agreed to indulge it? And now it won’t let me go.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit violent of a description for what’s going on here, but I do feel like this one came out of nowhere. I mean, I decided to write sonnets one day and bam. There it was. Twenty sonnets in two days, all connected, telling a story. And now I’ve illustrated more than half of them and I’m pretty sure I know how to lay them out in book format (a very tiny book), and I’m thinking it’ll be ready about the same time as Hypercreativity, which I worked on for months.
I’ve never had a book happen this way before.
Balloon-man project: Sonnet #10
Image
Poem: Adrift (Sonnet #15)
My heart is painful today, and I feel it is shared by so many others. But there’s also an apathy out there, convincing us that others’ blood is not ours. This is a mistake.
Adrift
Sonnet #15
By Michelle Garren-Flye
Safe on my boat of Belief, I will drift,
alone still, listening for your far song;
crimson sea all around—what caused this rift?
What action could create a flood so wrong?
Blood laps at the side of my little boat—
I work hard to avoid each splash and drip.
Something made this sea on which I now float;
An event so awful it caused hardship.
Is it right I ignore what I evade—
what doesn’t hit me will not hurt me—right?
My thoughts and prayers will come to the aid
of those visited by horrors each night.
In the end we are family in Pain
adrift on an ocean of bloody rain.
Poem 16 (National Poetry Month): Lost Days (For the Seniors)
Like many I fell for a Facebook trend recently which consisted of posting your senior photo in support of this year’s graduating class. I don’t actually have my senior photo anymore because it was a few years ago, but I do have my old yearbook, so I pulled it out and took a pic of my old photo. And posted it with some encouraging words for this year’s seniors who are basically missing out on a pretty fun part of their lives while we take our corona break.
But I started thinking. Was that post more about me than it was the seniors? Probably. I mean, I looked good at 18. We all looked better than we do now, let’s be honest. I got a lot of nice comments on the photo, too, and those are always good. But how in the hell was it supposed to make today’s seniors feel better?
So, as an act of contrition, I wrote a poem, and not just any poem, either. An Italian sonnet, which is widely regarded as a difficult form. Here goes:
Lost Days (for the Seniors)
By Michelle Garren Flye
Just a worn out page in an old yearbook,
A memory captured in a photo.
Days gone by in years long past, but lo!
Posted here now for you to take a look—
To show you we know what you forsook.
Has anyone ever been dealt such a blow?
Taking your freedom, knocking you low.
But we’re here with you, do not be mistook.
Wait! Is it possible we are in the wrong?
What is an old photo but a memory kept,
An experience savored in celebration?
This is what you’re denied all along.
These lost days are what you have wept—
While we make posts of self-congratulation.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 