Tag: creativity

Day 29: I envy you your swiftness

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painting of Mercury by John Woodrow Kelley

Hello poets & lovers of poetry! The penultimate day of our April 2024 poem-a-day challenge has arrived! For this day 29, the prompt asked us as to use as inspiration one of the ten most-used words of singer-songwriter Taylor Swift (really!) in her song lyrics. Her new album Tortured Poets Department hopefully doesn’t represent how we poets feel on Day 29 of the challenge, but we could use some of her publicity!

See the complete prompt from Maureen Thorson’s Napowrimo.net below the poem for more details. I must confess that my use of swift, swiftness, and swiftly was strictly coincidental! After all, I was writing about Mercury!

I envy you your swiftness

If only I were more like you, Mercury.

If only I were more mercurial—in the good sense,

quick-witted, sprightly, clever & ingenious.

Not temperamental, fickle or inconstant,

but swift with missives from the gods!

You wear sandals & a cap with wings

to propel you with a speed that others envy.

Like the planet that bears your name,

you travel lightning fast even escaping

Copernicus by traveling swiftly in the dark!

Not like a tree, rooted in earth,

not like a river running deep & slow,

not like me. I crawl like a caterpillar, a snail,

a turtle from the sea.  My mood sets in like

an overcast day when clouds don’t lift

until the sun burns through near sunset.

Oh, Mercury, though you be the god of tricksters

and thievery, and though the slow and steady

win the race, I envy you your swiftness!

            Jacquelyn Markham 4/29/2024

The Prompt:

From Napowrimo.net: “And now for our optional prompt. If you’ve been paying attention to pop-music news over the past couple of weeks, you may know that Taylor Swift has released a new double album titled “The Tortured Poets Department.” In recognition of this occasion, Merriam-Webster put together a list of ten words from Taylor Swift songs. We hope you don’t find this too torturous yourself, but we’d like to challenge you to select one these words, and write a poem that uses the word as its title.”

Jacquelyn Markham, poet & writer, author of Rainbow Warrior, Finishing Line Press (2023), Peering Into the Iris: An Ancestral Journey and China Baby, among other titles.

Day 26 Tango haiku & Be Brave cinquain

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Greetings poets & lovers of poetry!

Today’s prompt guided us poets to use several poetic sound techniques—alliteration, consonance, and assonance.  I added to that a couple of small poetic forms: the haiku (3 lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables) and the cinquain (5 lines of 2,4,6,8,2 syllables). Fun!

The Prompt from Napowrimo.net: “And now for our (optional) prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Traci Brimhall’s poem “A Group of Moths” provides a great example of these poetic devices at work, with each line playing with different sounds that seem to move the poem along on a sonorous wave.”

Tango Till: Haiku

Mango, mango, will

you do the tango till dawn?

Tango me all night.

            Jacquelyn Markham 4/26/24

Be Brave: Cinquain

O blue

melancholy

mood melancholy me

sun sparks diamonds on blue river

be brave.

            Jacquelyn Markham 4/26/24

Moonflower Mentoring:

Nurture Creativity
Foster Writing Practice
Inspire New Material
Guide Current Projects
Review Mentee’s Work

Dr. Markham uses a variety of approaches to suit each person’s creative process:one-on-one, workshops, and/or intensive programs.In person and virtual options available. To learn more about Moonflower Mentoring:Email: Moonflower Mentoring at jacquiepoet3@gmail.com

Day 15 Little Stamp from Aruba

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Today’s prompt from Napowrimo.net asked us to get inspired by stamps!

It took me awhile as first I went to the National Postal Museum and there was so much to learn! Next, I tried the recommended @StampsBot. Like Maureen said, there was an amazing “wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps” out there! But, still, difficult to zero in on just one. Curious how many stamps from other countries feature cats. I don’t recall any US stamps giving cats so much attention. In the end, though, it was this gorgeous palm tree and sunset that caught my eye. And now, I want to go to Aruba!

It also reminded me of a painting I did en plein air, years ago on a nearby beach. I gave it as a wedding gift to some dear friends.

Poet’s painting of island sunset.

And here is my little poem inspired by this lovely stamp from Aruba:

On this little stamp from Aruba

a fireball drops into the sea

a palette of orange red & yellow

sinks deep into the waves

yet stays in sky & palm fronds

not wanting to give up

the glorious day in Aruba

on the turquoise Caribbean

or even the quiet day

at the shore nearby

Jacquelyn Markham (4/15/2024)

Aruba from https://www.aruba.com/us

Day 2: “I knew before I knew”

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Day 2 of Poem a Day Challenge –optional prompt (from NaPoWriMo again).

“Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a platonic love poem. In other words, a poem not about a romantic partner, but some other kind of love – your love for your sister, or a friend, or even your love for a really good Chicago deep dish pizza. The poem should be written directly to the object of your affections (like a letter is written to “you”), and should describe at least three memories of you engaging with that person/thing” (NaPoWriMo).

The words that follow are attributed to Joan Didion: “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” Whether or not Didion truly said these words, I don’t know. I do know, however, the words can often be true words. Especially so in writing a poem a day with little time for processing, but only time for getting the words down.  Perhaps its a long and deep meditation on a prompt or simply a quick response that brings what has long been buried to the surface—true for me today.

image credit: https://worldoffloweringplants.com

I knew before I knew

White bells of the Lillies of the Valley spill

fragrance heavy into spring air.

I love the very shape & scent of your

melody of blossoms that seeks the cool shade.

I love the delicacy and rarity of you.

I love that you were my mother’s favorite flower &

the flower for May, the month of Beltane and her birth.

Yet, the lily of the valley’s very fragrance breaks me in two—

allows no comfort though I remember I loved

to lie in the thick grass & lily patch as a child,

perhaps thinking at such an early age that

I had already passed away like

a kitten of mine had when the dog

caught her between its sharp teeth.

I didn’t know yet about my mother’s

early death, but I felt the loss before its time

when the scent of you—lily of the valley—

covered my soul like a blanket of ecstasy.

            Jacquelyn Markham (4/2/2024)

Yes, “April is the cruellest month,” sometimes, as T. S. Eliot wrote in “The Waste Land.”  Yet, it doesn’t prevent me from bending down to sniff a Hyacinth, a Narcissus, or certainly, the Lily of the Valley—all have a sweetness almost too heavy to bear, though I do love them deeply.

And so ends Day 2.

Sparking creativity:A multi-dimensional Approach

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“The Sea,” Emile Nolde

Bonjour, Creatives!

Does your creative process need a spark? I want to share an approach that taps into your own talents and skills and hopefully will engage some creativity that has gone dormant! I am suggesting a multi-genre or multi-dimensional approach to experiencing your creativity. This approach requires a bold spirit with no bounds on your creative process. Are you ready?

Here’s the way: work with one or more genres of your choice for a multi-dimensional experience of whatever you choose to create. All that is required is a willingness to “dwell in possibility,” as Emily Dickinson did, and embrace the creative process.

First, select a favorite song, painting, poem, story, etc. Next, interpret that work of art in another genre. For example, if you are a painter, create a new painting that interprets a poem or a photograph or a story. A poem may inspire an oral interpretation performance, a dance, a music composition, a drama or even a puppet show!

Sam and Friends, 1955, by Jim Henson

For fun, I explored an interpretation of music with composing and flute playing inspired by Emily Dickinson. My first impromptu musical composition reflected the playfulness of the lines “Two butterflies went out at noon/And waltzed above a stream./Then stepped straight through the firmament/And rested on a beam.” You can imagine the fun I had in playing those two butterflies at noon! When my effervescent energy ran out, I shifted to a minor key for the more foreboding lines “Because I could not stop for Death,/He kindly stopped for me;/The carriage held but just ourselves/And Immortality.” Not to dwell too long on that heavy energy, I decided on the sensual and mysterious lines of “Wild nights! Wild nights!” Click here for the poem provided by The Poetry Foundation including a 33 second recording!

Emily Dickinson image, courtesy of the Emily Dickinson Museum

So, I am delving into the poem “Wild nights! Wild nights” in a new way with a musical tone poem to illustrate how this genre bending exercise illuminates the poem with music.

To do this, I chose to use the key of G major because of its key signature with one sharp (F sharp). Note: this may vary from an F to an F sharp, depending on the source. While many “new age” followers are aware of the penetrating power of F#; others may not be, and actually the theory of F# opening the heart chakra goes back to the chanting of monks and is not an arbitrary choice. For this reason, my new experience of Dickinson’s familiar poem became an exploration of the key of G and a repetitive F# and a rhythm that I felt matched the wild waves and emotions of the poem.

Let me say a bit about the “tone poem”–in musical terms.

Dan Farrant at hellomusictheory.com, traced the first use of the phrase “tone poem” to 1828 when the composer Carl Loewe used the word Tondichtung, which means tone poem in German. And interestingly, the piece he composed was inspired by a poem by none other than the dapper Lord Byron! Again, according to Dan at hellomusictheory.com, these musical tone poems (also called symphonic poems) have two essential elements. They are: freer of form (than a concert overture) and inspired by another creative piece or by nature. George Gershwin’s “American in Paris” is a jazz influenced tone poem that truly does tell a story! Have a listen.

-a jazz-influenced tone poem by Gershwin

The tone poem suited my experience of Dickinson’s “Wild Nights,” yet I wanted to go deeper, so I created a tiny watercolor to further interpret the poem. It emerged as a colorful abstract image, along the lines of expressionism, like the emotional intensity of a watercolor by Emile Nolde, a German Expressionist known for “the vibrancy of color.” (See his painting “The Sea” above.)

It’s important to note that you need not be a professional in any genre to add a multi-dimensional element to your creative process. I am certainly not a professional composer, but I can expand my creativity by adding an exploration of music to poetry.

As a creativity mentor, I am confident that this process can help to spark your own original voice. Enjoy your creative spark, dear creatives!

Jacquelyn

Tips on Honing your Creative Vision Plan

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Suzanne Valadon, 1930

Bonjour creatives!

How is your Creative Vision PlanTM evolving? Are  you pleased with your vision statement and your mission statement? Are you feeding your creativity?

Remember that your vision statement is futuristic and imaginative. Your mission statement is more practical—what you are actually doing or what you want to be doing. 

I am happy with both my vision and mission statements, but it did take me some time and tweaking to get there. I even cut pictures out of magazines to create a “vision collage” to make my vision concrete and real. Are you a visual artist or visual learner? This approach may help you.

Finally, with journaling and collaging, I honed my vision statement as follows:

My Vision Statement: To feed my creativity in all genres and mediums. Keep writing and publishing while nurturing streams of income. Work to insure my legacy remains for future generations.

Clearly, my vision is futuristic, even beyond my lifetime—to my legacy. Also, it’s quite general which leaves me lots of leeway with anything I wish to do that “feeds my creativity.”

Next, you have the challenge of writing your personal mission statement. I find this step a bit more difficult as it involves the doing! What am I doing? What do I want to do? Our mission statements guide our everyday life and what we plan to do as well as what we are doing.

Next step, once you have settled on your mission statement, break it into achievable goals and tasks. If you missed my blog on creating your plan, check it out here on July 31, 2023, “Five Steps to Your Creative Vision Plan” for more on this process.

Next steps: Here is the real challenge (at least for me): Staying true to your goals. Good news! They aren’t carved in stone! Adjust as necessary.  I am finding that I need to trim my goals a bit and also confession: I did not complete a detailed timeline though I did focus on short term goals through the end of the year. As I refine my plan, I am going to add more detailed tasks and a timeline to keep me on track. 

My first goal is the most fun: “Do something creative everyday!”

One of my large watercolors evolving-do something creative everyday!

My second goal is to keep Rainbow Warrior (my latest book of poetry launched in May, 2023) alive and visible. So, I will read a poem or two tonight at the local open mic and share a few lines here with my readers.

Photo & words by poet; lines from “Myth of the Infinite Sea”

And finally, dear readers, please feel free to make comments below about how my suggestions on a creative vision plan worked with your own process.

Sharing the process can be empowering for all!

Happy Visioning!

Five Steps to Your Creative Vision Plan

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photo by the poet

And I/like the moth orchid/

open my petals to the moon

tides swell in me/I wax/I wane

She gives birth/The orchid blooms

My child-self takes form/Ink flows like blood

“Full Moon” by Jacquelyn Markham, from Rainbow Warrior (2023 Finishing Line Press, reprinted with permission)

The waxing moon is in Capricorn until around midnight, July 31, ET (NY) and slides into Aquarius on August 1, Lunar Lammas, a super full moon, the first of two August supermoons! So, wow! lunar energy in abundance as we wind down the summer in full Leo season (in the western hemisphere.)

A new moon rises in Leo on August 16, great energy for focusing on implementing your vision for yourself.

Before we spin around August and enter the moon in Aquarius though, we have a little time to finalize tasks of the Capricorn moon, including setting clear short-term goals (astrological guidance from the We’Moon calendar, learn more here: We’Moon). So, how about a plan for yourself and your creativity?

Does this sound dreary to you creatives out there? Does the phrase Strategic Plan make your eyes glaze over? I understand, but it’s really more rewarding & creative than you might think.  Some years ago as an arts consultant for Kentucky Peer Advisory Network (KPAN), I traveled to arts organizations large and small and assisted them with grants, board development, marketing, and yes, strategic planning! That was a great gig except for the driving on mountain roads without guard rails and the long roads to western Kentucky (I was living in Lexington at the time). But, I digress. As an arts consultant, however, I did learn the importance of having a plan to focus your creativity.

My way of making this process of creating a Strategic Plan more fun is to think of it as a *Vision* for my creative life. So, still in the middle of moon in Capricorn, I set about to work on my Vision Plan and finished the details as the clock slipped into today, July 31, while the moon is still in Capricorn.

What about  you, dear readers? Want to give it a try? I focused my plan on short term goals from now until December 2023. Here’s the step-by-step process:

Step 1: Write your vision statement. Your vision statement is futuristic and should inspire you. Mine is only three sentences long and I’ve written it in gold ink at the top of a new page in my journal.

Step 2: Next, write your mission statement which differs from but grows out of your vision statement. There are many resources on this process of writing a mission statement (search Strategic Plan) but think simply. What is it you do or want to do everyday? Focus on the present. Keep it brief.

Step 3: Now, short term goals that fit within your vision and your mission. I settled on five, but worked through several pages of writing to see the difference in the goals and the tasks it would take to accomplish them. You could focus on three (a nice number) or more if you are energetic, but I suggest no more than seven. Can some of the short term goals be moved to long term goals, for example?

Step 4: The details, the tasks, the baby steps! What tasks will be needed to meet these goals? (You can break up tasks to smaller baby steps, too.)

Step 5:  Create a timeline and in January 2024, review and revise for the new year!

Now that  you have carved out the details of your Vision Plan, enjoy the three lunations of August and start to collaborate and network while the moon is full in Aquarius.  And always, always, celebrate the fullness and beauty of the full moon and your own accomplishments coming to fruition. 

            And remember to celebrate your vision plan for the creativity in your life!

Creative Guidance from Moonflower Mentoring!

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Aligning creativity with New Moon in Cancer

Aloha dear readers!

It is officially the new moon here in Eastern time in the US of A. I have a question for you that I pose to myself each day: how can I spark my creativity in alignment with the earth, the moon and the planets?

Today, July 17, the new moon is in Cancer and the wonderful We’Moon calendar published by Mother Tongue Ink (an essential part of my daily life for more than three decades) notes that during the Moon in Cancer, we reconnect with our emotions. We can get “defensive” or “nourish ourselves,” the 2023 We’Moon continues (p. 203).

As I sat at my writing desk, my neighbor decided it was a good time to use a loud leaf blower so close to my window I thought he was working in my yard! Oooohhh!  I shall not get defensive, I thought! I will nourish myself. So, I turned my music up loud and fixed a lovely meal and glass of iced mint sun tea! Yum. And guess what? Now there is sweet silence as I put my musings together, in hopes of sparking your creativity as well as mine!

A lovely meal while the leaf blower passes. . .

The Circle technique, part of my original journal method, moves us away from linear thinking. So begin by drawing some circles on your journal page (or a blank piece of paper). Label three to work with the energy of the new moon in Cancer: Circles of nourishment, circles of sadness, circles of joy (see image).

Next, write around the circles, thoughts, images, ideas.  Circle one, circle of nourishment, ways you could nourish yourself. Circle two, circle of sadness, some emotions of sadness you are feeling. Circle three, circle of joy, what gives you joy?

images by Timmi M. Weingartz, created for Reclaiming Yourself: A Journal Keeping Approach to the Goddess Within by Jacquelyn Markham, c. 1991

Next, do it! Nourish yourself with some of the lovely things you could do for yourself. Is it calling a friend? Fixing a yummy salad and enjoying it? Taking a well-deserved nap or walk if your weather permits? Just, do it!

Now, you move on to your circle of sadness and circle of joy. Select one sad feeling and one joyful feeling. Write for five minutes on each feeling in an automatic writing fashion (sometimes called freewriting).  Most importantly, don’t stop, just write (set your timer). If your mind goes blank, simply repeat your name, colors, birds, flowers or the last word you wrote. It’s that easy!

After this circling, you may want to circle more or circle back to one of your other feelings or move forward with a poem, a painting, a reflection, or simply be satisfied that you have begun the process of creating in synch with the moon. You may create something–a poem, a story, creative prose, art–from these early musings or may you may circle back around to pick up the threads.

As of midnight eastern time on Tuesday the 18th, the moon moves into Leo and that gives us about 2 ½ days to “let our light shine” (We’Moon, p. 203). Signing off to elaborate on my circles of sadness & joy and to continue to nourish myself.

Creatively yours, Jacquelyn (Moonflower Mentoring)