It’s a new year (pretty grateful about that) and my Poetry Sisters and I have a new plan.
(Lucky for us it includes Zoom-writing together once a month — yay for poetic companionship!)
As usual, we’ve chosen a prompt-per-month. (We’ll try to remember to share them with you in case you want to write along!) For January, we went to Merriam-Webster’s Time Traveler to discover which words were first seen in print the year we were born. Those words were then the fodder for our poems!
I was intrigued by how many of the words for my year were hyphenated or compound so I used LOTS of them. In fact, every word in this poem except the bolded ones were first seen in print in 1967, just like me! It’s very different from the kind of poem I’d usually write but who cares? It was fun.
Born In 1967
The Original
Flower Child
Self Professed
Honey Bell
Born Of
Low Tech
Slow Pitch
Yada Yada
Steps Into
Full Bore
First World
Ego Trip
Makes It Through
Whacked Out
Crack Back
Hissy Fit
PAUSE
Re Format
Still Here
Mono Hull
Micro Quake
She Crab
That’s Me
Now, please go enjoy the others, here:
Tricia
Laura
Tanita
Kelly
Sara
Andi
And go check out Poetry Friday with Jan at Bookseed Studio.
OH!! And if you want to write along with us next month, here’s the plan: Roll a set of metaphor dice and write a poem inspired by your metaphor. If you don’t have the dice, try the online version here. Then, post your poem on Feb 26 (and share on Twitter as #PoetryPals).
Stay safe and well — Liz
Can I say how much I love that we all took such different approaches to finding our way and writing our poems? I love how different they all are. I love that you chose words to describe you! That never would have occurred to me. When I got to the Born Of stanza I was reminded of the poem “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon.
This is lovely, just like you.
Oh, gosh, honey bell, she-crab, POET….I adore this. And now i want to try my year again, as a self-definition.
Oh, you made it work!! You made the compound word thing really sing. I had a ton of those but it just didn’t work for me as easily, so I pitched it.
The two words two-stepping along make this both a dance and an urgent description. Rather than spinning faster and faster, though, it spins until it’s dressed and ready – like Wonder Woman with her outfit – and resolves into “that’s me,” and I love it.
You made this really sing! I love the rhythm of all those compound words and phrases. This was really fun!
Liz, I love this! You’re right…very different from your usual style, and yet captures something of you in it. That first stanza wows me. Honey bell is so close to honey chile, and it captures your southern warmth.
Trying again, honey bell….I love how you’ve structured this, and the whole staccato rhythm of a life condensed. Even the pause is genius. But most of all, I love seeing how you see yourself, with humor and grace.