Greetings fellow poets. My apologies for posting this a day late, but Real Life caught me in its selfish grasp. I only just escaped this morning when I read a new essay about Jack Gilbert on Poets.org: Coming to the End of His Triumph: A Retrospective on Jack Gilbert by Dan Albergotti.

The intriguing thing about the essay is not so much the story of Gilbert’s life, some of which I already knew, but the introduction of poems I hadn’t read. Titles such as, “The Abnormal Is Not Courage,” and “All the Way from There to Here,” interest me. Often when I am mired in writer’s block, I find it easier to begin writing again by borrowing titles of poems and using them as the starting point, the spark, if you will.

For this week’s spark, “borrow” the title of a poem you particularly like, and write a new poem. The title may become the title of your poem, or it can be part of the text of your poem.

Here are some examples of titles (and poems) that I find fascinating:

Jack Gilbert The Abnormal Is Not Courage

Dan Albergotti In the Era of the Sentence Fragment

Paula Bohince Brutally, the Robin

Good luck. Have fun. Be creative!

Happy New Year fellow poets!

Each year, on January 1st, some of us make resolutions. For this week’s spark, instead of a resolution, write a poem that documents the beginning of something. It can be the beginning of the year, the beginning of a relationship, the beginning of a piece of cheesecake. The start of something new is intriguing and sometimes hopeful. Other times, it’s the beginning of a long and slow process of healing after sorrow or tragedy. Whatever it is, it’s new.

The front page of Poets.org leads to an essay about Poems for the New Year. This is where I found my examples for this week:

Thomas Hardy’s poem of farewell to the 19th century: The Darkling Thrush

Charles Reznikoff’s celebration of the common: Te Deum

Kobayashi Issa’s merry greeting to the New Year: New Year’s morning

Have fun and be creative. I wish you a very joyful and peaceful New Year!