We Have A Winner! And We Have A Writer's Drought Poem for Poetry Friday!

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Howdy, Campers!

Happy hot and glorious summer!  I'm loving this hotter-than-usual Southern California summer: lying on hot cement by the pool in a wet bathing suit, barefeet, no sleeves, long days, bright mornings, driving with all the windows down, sleeping with all the windows open, taking Eli to the dog park early because he's black and brown and otherwise he gets too hot to romp like a pony, cold drinks with just the right kind of crunchy ice...I can go on listing all the things I love about summer.

Speaking of lists, we have a winner of Sylvia Vardell's book, THE POETRY BOOK OF LISTS!  If you were on vacation, Sylvia was our Mystery Guest Author on August 3rd.  It was very exciting.  And so is announcing the winner, who is...dum-dah-dah-dum...Carl Scott!   Yay, Carl!

And now onto the topic we TeachingAuthors have been discussing:

GETTING THROUGH TIMES OF DROUGHT
OR HOW I FILL THE WRITING WELL. 

(Sorry...I didn't mean to shout.)

Mary Ann posted about finding at least three things to write in her journal each day that trigger her curiosity.  Carmela posted that she replenishes her writer's well by taking herself on an artist playdate. And Carmela tells us about her friend, Leanne Pankuch, who writes a page a day.  

My contribution is the following poem, inspired by our topic.

DROUGHT
by April Halprin Wayland

We writers,
we've been through Hard Times.
Dry times.
The Long Drought.

Dry?  Oh my.
We place our plates upside down,
glasses bottom side up,
so the winds won't blast dust into 'em.

Our typewriters go thirsty on parched parchment.
We've got scrawny stories—or none at all.
Ideas simply
evaporate.

We hear that on the outskirts of Amarillo,
crows built a nest from barbed wire—
the only thing they could scavenge
from burned-out fields.

Those birds made a nest
from barbed wire?
Well, Sir, then so can we.
And then: we'll crow.

poem © 2012 April Halprin Wayland.  All rights reserved.

WRITING WORKOUT: Vitamins

Raise your hand if you take vitamins.  Now look at the vitamin bottle.  Do the directions say: take one when the mood strikes you?

I challenge you to write something, anything, every day, even if it's small, even if it's crummy. The trick to doing this consistently, for me, turned out to be connecting with a writing buddy.  You may remember that I write a poem a day and send each one to my friend who sails around the world in a trimaran.  Well, Bruce is now writing a poem a day, too, and sending them to me.  It's a lovely circular thing. 

One brilliant poem a day?  Ha ha.  Some rare days the poems are wonderful.  I give those a star.  Some days they're just okay.  Poetic possibilities in waiting.  And some days, wandering in a desert, or depleted by Real Life, I can only squeeze out what Bruce and I call a PHP--a Place Holder Poem.

So every day, take your vitamins.  Write a page or a poem.  And walk out your door into the world feeling virtuous.  You are a writer.

Thanks to Andromeda at A Wrung Sponge for hosting Poetry Friday!
(Note from Carmela: Andromeda's roundup didn't come out until Saturday.
Meanwhile, Mary Lee was kind enough to post one at A Year of Reading) 

posted by April Halprin Wayland