SONGWRITING

I have been listening to blues and jazz. Reading the bios of many of the musicians, the majority of them are songwriters. Songwriters may be an understated genre but it is a part of the writing community. 

The lyrics written incorporate tone, imagination, storytelling, poetry, etc. They elicit emotions that stir up passions. A lost love. A place. Freedom. Spiritual healing. Songs bring up a time in our past when we can remember where we were, what were doing, who were with, etc. 

Let's give a shout-out to all the songwriters whose words and lyrics touched us like nothing else could. 

BACK TO THE PAST

I wrote about my youthful days in Times Square. Back in the 1960s 1970s, there were adult bookstores, peep shows, sexcapades, and X-rated movies. I was a weekend denizen, observing the madness that when on. 

Now Times Square has been Disneyfied and cleaned up. I would what happened to some of the folks who called the place home. I am writing a story about a person who returns a half-century later and finds someone he knew back in those rough and tumble days.

FAMOUS POETS BORN IN OCTOBER

Amiri Baraka

John Berryman

E. E. Cummings

John Keats

Denise Levertov

Eugenio Montale

Sylvia Plath

Ezra Pound

James Whitcomb Riley

Ntozake Shange

Wallace Stevens

Dylan Thomas 

Louis Untermeyer

Virgil

EDITING

 

WORDS OF WISDOM

The process of editing is what I enjoy most-putting the pieces together and making sense out of them.

~Chrisstian Marclay

EDITING

I do enjoy editing. 😉 It can make one crazy because there's always way a writing can be made better. I've reedited pieces written years ago. I say to myself why didn't I see this before? 

Learning to write is an ever evolving process. I learn new words, experience new adventures, and put what I have learned into practice. 

POEM

This poem is fitting for the last day of summer.

 

JOURNEY'S END

I knelt down to pray

It was the end of the day

Another season has come to an end

No more lessons to comprehend.

The summer has come and gone

It won't be very long

That another will return

Very cold and taciturn.

The bus waits for me

The number is seven thirty-three

For I must venture west

It will turn out best.

There my journey will end

With my brothers and sisters to tend

Seasons are like flowers 💐 

They last for only a few hours. 

THE RAILS OF LIFE

 

I have been posting railroad tracks on my Facebook page. Just like with roads, the tracks point 👉  to a destination.  Writing is like that in that one is headed to a new place.

I can imagine what rail travel was like when railways were being built. You didn't know what you 😏 might discover. An unknown destination. Writing is similar to those rail excursions in that new adventures await. Western novels were popular at once as they told of the rugged exploits of folks who were willing to venture into the unknown.

As a writer, it's my job to turn over those unturned rocks. To the readers they want you to take them to new places. It's what I love about this craft. I can see why it is never mastered. It's good to stay hungry 😋 and travel along the rails of life.

WORDS OF WISDOM

 WRITE EVERY DAY

I DREAM

 

ACTIVE MIND

My writing has been all over the proverbial map. Poetry, stories, a few haikus, etc. I was fighting off an illness yet my mind has been very active. Ii will need to organize my time and what needs to be done. 

WORDS OF WISDOM

 

FAMOUS WRITERS BORN IN SEPTEMBER

Truman Capote

Agatha Christie

Roald Dahl

William Faulkner

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Malcolm Gladwell

Jenny Han

O. Henry

Stephen King

H. L. Mencken

Mary Oliver

Gertrude Stein

H. G. Wells

William Carlos Williams

WRITING A LONG POEM

I am writing a prose poem about my time spent here over a half century. I first came here in 1968. Washington Square Park Washington where all the young folks came. Hippies, performers, orators, radicals, and musicians hung out here. I may have been a few ghosts also, as this was once a burial ground.

I came down here a couple of days ago thinking there was an art festival (my mistake). No festival so I sat down and surveyed the happening going on. There has always been a spirit of freedom and expression here. Thought things have changed, the spirit is still there. 

Being there conjured up the feelings I had when I caroused a few other areas. The idea 💡 to write a long poem came during the 🌉 night. I have about thirty lines and contemplate writing more. 

A WRITER'S JOURNEY

 

A writer's journey can be a long trek, not know what we may encounter. But that is the fun of it. To reach new horizon. Discover new experiences. To tap into the corners of my heart I never touched.

OBSCURE POET

 

Anne Reeve Aldrich, Poet and novelist. (1866-1892)

WORDS OF WISDOM

 

ONE STORY, TWO GENRES

 

This sounds challenging as I've never, to my knowledge, have done this.

SAME SOUND, DIFFERENT MEANING

Berry, bury

Creak, creek

Die, dye

Knead, need

POETRY EVENT

 

My spouse and I attended a poetry reading and comedy improv event last evening hosted by the Amateur Comedy Club last evening. A friend read some thoughtful and poignant poems. The building above dates back to 1850, a former carriage house.

It has been a few years since I gone to a poetry reading. I am looking forward to doing it again.