The writer’s life on Poetry Friday

Image via Wikipedia

9:47 a.m.

This is this writer’s life today on this beautiful Poetry Friday:

• Kids dressed and fed and off to wherever it is they need to be today: Check
• Morning walk and shower: Check
• Breakfast and coffee: Check
• E-mail reviewed and inbox somewhat emptied: Check
• Facebook caught up on for the moment: Check (BTW, go check out my Facebook Fan Page and like me.)
• Morning pages written: Check

It’s already almost 10:00. So much yet To-D0:

• Write a poem for my poetry class and get it done quick enough to share on Poetry Friday, hosted today by Random Noodling, thus killing two birds with one stone.
• Write and post this blog post, which will not be complete until I have that poem ready to add. 
• Write and post my weekly blog post for Knot The Groom (which was due on Wednesday, so I now have to make sure I don’t post it at the same time as our other, more organized blogger. BTW, check out her Halloween wedding blog post, it’s so cute!)
• Finish grading this week’s papers from the classes I teach at Moraine Park Technical College.
• Work on my class notes, presentations, and activities for next week’s classes.
• Get out of the house, away from the computer, away from the stress and the deadlines and the what-have-you, stop worrying, open up my senses,

  

  Cover via Amazon

  and just look and pay attention to the world around me, with pen and paper in hand, and just write about everything I see, touch, smell, taste, and hear….

Now, why can’t I clear that entire list and go straight for my very last TO-DO? If only that last to-do could be my only to-do every day? I’m going to be working through the weekend again, I just know it!

OK, so enough of the morning rant, and on to Poetry Friday. Last night, I sat and read through a couple of poetry books, including A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms (which is adorable and so, so helpful!) and I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You: A Book of Her Poems & His Poems Collected in Pairs, compiled by Naomi Shihab Nye and Paul B. Janeczko (which is one of my all-time favorite poetry collections now.) In fact, since I don’t have an original poem ready to share yet this morning, I’ll share one from this collection:

With Reservations

He preens his plumes while strutting proud,
determined to impress her.
He is the darling of the crowd
that dashing fancy dresser.
But she can always change his tune
and minor key his song.
She will concede he hung the moon,
but says he hung it wrong.

~By Naomi Stroud Simmons

And now, I am off to finagle a poem from some several pages of notes I made last night after I went to bed. Does anyone else find themselves turning the lamp on every 5 minutes to scribble something down before finally drifting off to sleep late at night? I swear, that’s when I do my best writing. Anyone who thinks I don’t work full-time doesn’t know me very well.

12:33 p.m.

For whatever reason, I have put off my poem for now and have been working on my KTG blog post. I’ve been working on a series of posts on the Quinceañera, if you’re interested. Going to take a little lunch break now, I’m starving!

3:12 p.m.

I’m pulling words like teeth today. I twisted one poem-to-be until I worked the life right out of it. Just decided to put it aside for a while and try to work on a different one. Maybe my second shot will work out better. If not, maybe I can let the first attempt catch its breath and then bring it fully to life later on. Writing poems is hard work.

5:19 p.m.

Still no poem yet. I decided to take a break and do some baking to clear my mind. Big mistake.

Last weekend, I bought a big bunch of bananas so I could make some banana bread. I sat here all week watching the bananas, waiting for them to turn brown. This afternoon, I decided they were ready finally. I took out my cookbook and found 2 different banana bread recipes. I flipped back and forth, trying to decide which one to use.

Finally, I decided against the 1st recipe, turned the page in the cookbook, and started throwing ingredients in the bowl. I got down to the last ingredient: 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. I thought, “Wow, that’s a lot of lemon for banana bread… and when do I put in the bananas, anyway?” I looked all through the recipe. It didn’t call for bananas anywhere. I finally looked at the recipe title. “Lemon Bread.” Yes, I just whipped up a huge, double-batch of lemon bread, completely by accident.

My Dearest Muse, I now have two loaves of lemon bread cooling on the rack and two loaves of banana bread in the oven. Can I please get a poem now? I’ll share my goodies with you when we’re through, I promise!

~Mandy

Related articles

• Poetry Prompts – Friday Freeforall (margoroby.wordpress.com)
• Poetry Friday (booksintheburbs.com)
• between our dawns ~Dual Poetry (riverurkepoetry.wordpress.com)
• Please Vote for my Poetry. (poemsbysteven.wordpress.com)
• Poetry Saga (onemillioninone.wordpress.com)
• Poetry part II (wickedcoolflight.net)