"This work is unlike any other, in its range of rich, conjuring imagery and its dexterity, its smart voice. Carroll-Hackett doesn’t spare us—but doesn’t save us—she draws a blueprint of power and class with her unflinching pivot: matter-of-fact and tender." —Jan Beatty

Posts tagged ‘writing’

Happy National Poetry Month! What’s Broken, Dorianne Laux

What’s Broken

Dorianne Laux
The slate black sky. The middle step
of the back porch. And long ago
my mother’s necklace, the beads
rolling north and south. Broken
the rose stem, water into drops, glass
knobs on the bedroom door. Last summer’s
pot of parsley and mint, white roots
shooting like streamers through the cracks.
Years ago the cat’s tail, the bird bath,
the car hood’s rusted latch. Broken
little finger on my right hand at birth—
I was pulled out too fast. What hasn’t
been rent, divided, split? Broken
the days into nights, the night sky
into stars, the stars into patterns
I make up as I trace them
with a broken-off blade
of grass. Possible, unthinkable,
the cricket’s tiny back as I lie
on the lawn in the dark, my heart
a blue cup fallen from someone’s hands.
blue cup

Category:

Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Gratitude, Love, One Love, poetry, Poetry Month Poems, Writing

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Daily Prompt Love <3 Being Seen

15 April 2017

At some point every semester, I challenge my students to look everyone they meet in the eye, even the strangers they pass, to turn while standing in line and speak to the person behind them, in front of them, to make acknowledging other human beings around them a habit.

One of my current students asked me, sadness softening her young face, why other people won’t, don’t, look at each other, much less look each other in the eyes as they pass. We’re afraid, I told her, of revealing ourselves, of being seen. 

Make art about seeing each other, about taking the risk of being seen. 

risk-being-seen

Category:

2017 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Family, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts, Writing Through the Chakras

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Friday Call for Submissions Love <3 500 Miles, New Publication Seeking Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry

500 Miles Magazine Seeking Submissions for Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry

500 Miles Magazine is a new publication for writers who create work a little outside the mainstream. We enjoy the funny, the experimental, and the generally well written. They are currently seeking submissions in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Rolling submission process.

No bio or cover-letter is required.

Submissions are free.

Please copy and paste your work into the body of your email to: :500milesmagazineATgmailDOTcom.

If your submission is accepted, they’ll ask for your bio.

Category:

Art, Artists, Call for Submissions, Creativity, Editing, fiction, Friday Call for Submissions, Gratitude, litmags, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, publishing, Writing

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Happy National Poetry Month! The Meaning of the Shovel, Martin Espada

The Meaning of the Shovel
BY MARTÍN ESPADA
—Barrio René Cisneros
Managua, Nicaragua, June-July 1982
This was the dictator’s land
before the revolution.
Now the dictator is exiled to necropolis,
his army brooding in camps on the border,
and the congregation of the landless
stipples the earth with a thousand shacks,
every weatherbeaten carpenter
planting a fistful of nails.
Here I dig latrines. I dig because last week
I saw a funeral in the streets of Managua,
the coffin swaddled in a red and black flag,
hoisted by a procession so silent
that even their feet seemed
to leave no sound on the gravel.
He was eighteen, with the border patrol,
when a sharpshooter from the dictator’s army
took aim at the back of his head.
I dig because yesterday
I saw four walls of photographs:
the faces of volunteers
in high school uniforms
who taught campesinos to read,
bringing an alphabet
sandwiched in notebooks
to places where the mist never rises
from the trees. All dead,
by malaria or the greedy river
or the dictator’s army
swarming the illiterate villages
like a sky full of corn-plundering birds.
I dig because today, in this barrio
without plumbing, I saw a woman
wearing a yellow dress
climb into a barrel of water
to wash herself and the dress
at the same time,
her cupped hands spilling.
I dig because today I stopped digging
to drink an orange soda. In a country
with no glass, the boy kept the treasured bottle
and poured the liquid into a plastic bag
full of ice, then poked a hole with a straw.
I dig because today my shovel
struck a clay bowl centuries old,
the art of ancient fingers
moist with this same earth,
perfect but for one crack in the lip.
I dig because I have hauled garbage
and pumped gas and cut paper
and sold encyclopedias door to door.
I dig, digging until the passport
in my back pocket saturates with dirt,
because here I work for nothing
and for everything.
martin-espada
Check out Martin Espada’s website for more beautiful poems! http://www.martinespada.net/

Category:

Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Gratitude, Love, One Love, poetry, Poetry Month Poems, Writing

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Daily Prompt Love <3 What You Give

14 April 2017

Make art about service, about how the self is found in service to others. 

ghandi service

 

Category:

2017 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, fiction, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Special Call for Submissions Love <3 2nd Annual HeartWood Broadside Series Competition

SOME SPECIAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS LOVE!

HEARTWOOD BROADSIDE SERIES CONTEST

The brand spanking new issue of HeartWood comes out tomorrow! Thrilled to share amazing work from some amazing writers!  

And our second annual Broadside Competition is under way! Submit poetry, flash fiction, or micro memoir! Submit now! And share the call!

Partnering with West Virginia letterpress company Base Camp Printing, the winning entry (poetry or flash prose) will be featured on a limited-edition letterpress broadside with an original image inspired by the text.

Contest Judge: MAGGIE ANDERSON is the author of five books of poems most recently Dear All, (Four Way Books, 2017) and five edited or co-edited volumes of poetry. She was the founding director of the Wick Poetry Center and founder and editor of the Wick Poetry Series of the Kent State University Press. Anderson was also the Director of the Northeast Ohio MFA in creative writing from 2006-2009 and is the recipient of two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as grants from the Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania Councils on the Arts. Maggie Anderson is Professor Emerita in English of Kent State University and currently lives in Asheville, NC.

 

Complete Guidelines Here!

HeartWood

 

Category:

2017 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Call for Submissions, Creativity, fiction, Friday Call for Submissions, Gratitude, litmags, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Prompts

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Daily Prompt Love <3 What You See

13 April 2017

Make art about vision, about what you see, or are unable to see. 

vision

Category:

2017 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Daily Prompt Love <3 Yeahhh, the Sean Spicer Prompt

12 April 2017

Make art about willful ignorance. 

ignorance

Category:

2017 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Daily Prompt Love <3 You Have a Right To

11 April 2017

One of the greatest gifts I’ve received in this life was a single statement. A wise and caring man said to me, “You know, you have a right to peace of mind.”

The simplicity of what he said stunned me in that moment. It also revealed to me how I, for too many reasons to list, more often than not, stood in my own way toward achieving that peace.

Had a wonderful and heartbreaking conversation with my students last night about just this thing, about what keeps them from ‘peace of mind.’  Worries and expectations, the fears they hold for the future, their own and the future of our planet.  We talked about articulating these barriers, and about releasing them. 

Make art about peace of mind. 

peace of mind

Category:

2017 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Daily Prompt Catch-Up <3 Family, Ground, and Grief

8 April 2017

First Birthday party today for my grandson!

Make art about the miracles of family. 

max laughing

 

9 April 2017

Tilling in the summer garden today.

Make art about breaking ground. 

breaking ground

10 April 2017

A friend of mine lost ten family members in the recent tragic events in Syria. 

Make art about extreme loss, or extreme grief. 

grief-reaction

Category:

2017 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Family, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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