If you need more ideas, use your life. My bat walk this morning. Chelsi's annoying line in the girls' washroom. Write down bits and pieces of what you overhear on the bus, in the lounge or learning commons, while listening to your family talk.
Make time to write. Away from social media, the pressure of more math problems, projects. Write at the beach, on the roof, in a cafe, on the bus, in the shower (be creative here), in math class. You get the picture?
Writers write. The worst thing on paper is better than the best idea in your head. Put it all down. Let the voices float through your head. Pay no attention to the "OOOO, I'm a great writer" and pay no attention to the "OOOO, I'm a terrible writer" voices that will inevitably arise.
Tonight: Edit two poems. Check the criteria. Edit some more. Choose a title. Put your name on it. Type it up. Print it out. Arrive tomorrow ready to submit two new poems.
Also, Laisha Rosnau will be our first writer this year. Here is a link to read a little about her: The writer, Laisha Rosnau
Here is a review of her second volume of poetry entitled Lousy Explorers Poetry Review
Here is a sample poem: Sample Poem
Someone Else’s North
We mark papers and hire sitters and drink to once upon
when we ranged north, spent summers in tents, biked
from Yukon to Alaska alone. Now, we apply for more grants,
allow ourselves to be stream-fed scraps of gossip.
Even in daydreams, we have the same décor: the animal skull
hung off-centre on a white wall, an iconic chair, vintage globe,
the taxidermied bird, for godsake—all ironic, or not.
Who is this we? you ask. Why am I roping you into this?
This is no mountain I’ve climbed alone, this dailiness,
these details. We are all complicit. A friend closes a door
behind a grad student and you don’t say anything, then or later.
Before we documented everything, I had nothing but memory
to mark my solo ascents. Halfway up Montana Mountain,
I heard the rasp of breath first then hooves severed
the icy skein of snow before I looked up from my climb
to catch the sidelong glance of a caribou as it ran by.
I can see its large, glossy eyeball roll toward me,
hear the whir of insects alighting on my exposed skin
until I climbed high enough that I was through them.
That is someone else’s north now; my polestar shifting
as my compass trembles like a pulse. Friends appear
onscreen, well-linked and adorned with witticisms.
Our time-lines flicker, back-lit. We’re all amateurs—
our history, our cartography as looped and twisted as string.
- See more at: http://arcpoetry.ca/?p=7421#sthash.AxoW8brU.dpuf
We mark papers and hire sitters and drink to once upon
when we ranged north, spent summers in tents, biked
from Yukon to Alaska alone. Now, we apply for more grants,
allow ourselves to be stream-fed scraps of gossip.
Even in daydreams, we have the same décor: the animal skull
hung off-centre on a white wall, an iconic chair, vintage globe,
the taxidermied bird, for godsake—all ironic, or not.
Who is this we? you ask. Why am I roping you into this?
This is no mountain I’ve climbed alone, this dailiness,
these details. We are all complicit. A friend closes a door
behind a grad student and you don’t say anything, then or later.
Before we documented everything, I had nothing but memory
to mark my solo ascents. Halfway up Montana Mountain,
I heard the rasp of breath first then hooves severed
the icy skein of snow before I looked up from my climb
to catch the sidelong glance of a caribou as it ran by.
I can see its large, glossy eyeball roll toward me,
hear the whir of insects alighting on my exposed skin
until I climbed high enough that I was through them.
That is someone else’s north now; my polestar shifting
as my compass trembles like a pulse. Friends appear
onscreen, well-linked and adorned with witticisms.
Our time-lines flicker, back-lit. We’re all amateurs—
our history, our cartography as looped and twisted as string.
- See more at: http://arcpoetry.ca/?p=7421#sthash.AxoW8brU.dpuf
Someone Else’s North
We mark papers and hire sitters and drink to once upon
when we ranged north, spent summers in tents, biked
from Yukon to Alaska alone. Now, we apply for more grants,
allow ourselves to be stream-fed scraps of gossip.
Even in daydreams, we have the same décor: the animal skull
hung off-centre on a white wall, an iconic chair, vintage globe,
the taxidermied bird, for godsake—all ironic, or not.
Who is this we? you ask. Why am I roping you into this?
This is no mountain I’ve climbed alone, this dailiness,
these details. We are all complicit. A friend closes a door
behind a grad student and you don’t say anything, then or later.
Before we documented everything, I had nothing but memory
to mark my solo ascents. Halfway up Montana Mountain,
I heard the rasp of breath first then hooves severed
the icy skein of snow before I looked up from my climb
to catch the sidelong glance of a caribou as it ran by.
I can see its large, glossy eyeball roll toward me,
hear the whir of insects alighting on my exposed skin
until I climbed high enough that I was through them.
That is someone else’s north now; my polestar shifting
as my compass trembles like a pulse. Friends appear
onscreen, well-linked and adorned with witticisms.
Our time-lines flicker, back-lit. We’re all amateurs—
our history, our cartography as looped and twisted as string.
- See more at: http://arcpoetry.ca/?p=7421#sthash.AxoW8brU.dpuf
We mark papers and hire sitters and drink to once upon
when we ranged north, spent summers in tents, biked
from Yukon to Alaska alone. Now, we apply for more grants,
allow ourselves to be stream-fed scraps of gossip.
Even in daydreams, we have the same décor: the animal skull
hung off-centre on a white wall, an iconic chair, vintage globe,
the taxidermied bird, for godsake—all ironic, or not.
Who is this we? you ask. Why am I roping you into this?
This is no mountain I’ve climbed alone, this dailiness,
these details. We are all complicit. A friend closes a door
behind a grad student and you don’t say anything, then or later.
Before we documented everything, I had nothing but memory
to mark my solo ascents. Halfway up Montana Mountain,
I heard the rasp of breath first then hooves severed
the icy skein of snow before I looked up from my climb
to catch the sidelong glance of a caribou as it ran by.
I can see its large, glossy eyeball roll toward me,
hear the whir of insects alighting on my exposed skin
until I climbed high enough that I was through them.
That is someone else’s north now; my polestar shifting
as my compass trembles like a pulse. Friends appear
onscreen, well-linked and adorned with witticisms.
Our time-lines flicker, back-lit. We’re all amateurs—
our history, our cartography as looped and twisted as string.
- See more at: http://arcpoetry.ca/?p=7421#sthash.AxoW8brU.dpuf
