NAPOWRIMO 2011-Writing Prompts #5-Yesterday

Hello NAPOWRIMO POETS!  I hope you are still with me.  Today, I have a prompt for you that asks you to plumb your memory and use your senses. Divorce those digital photos you have and search around your home for an old photo.  From the time when you had to take your photos to the shop and trust that you had done well.  Or, from the time when Polaroid was king.  Find those old photos of yours and tell us the story of that photo.  You can use good old american free verse or you can stick with a structured approach. Heck, you could start your own structure if that's what you'd like to do.  MAKE IT WORK!  (post,share, link!)  Blessings! And find an open mic silly!





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NAPOWRIMO POEMS-2011 #4/30

Here's a bit of encouragement for #4/30

Poetic Definition #4

by Ieisha McIntyre

Ephemeral: (adj.)The leaf, once green,

now ghost white

dust in flame.

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NAPOWRIMO 2011-Writing Prompts

Let's Catch up- Days #1-4

Hello NAPOWRIMO poets! If you are like me, you just wanted to make it through April fools and may have forgotten all about poetry.  Well, if you did don’t worry. Here are three writing prompts to get you caught up and one to get you back on track for Monday April 4th.  Don’t forget to LINK and SHARE!

Prompt #1- FOOLERY

Since this one should have been for April fools, which I confess to loathe.  Let’s write a little poem that some how gives shape to the way that you feel when you feel foolish.  Try to focus on the “giving shape” part of the prompt.

Prompt #2- Found poetry

1. Take a moment and look through your most recent favorite magazine article. 
2. Cut that article out of your magazine.
3. Now, cute phrases, words, sentences out of that article.
4. Rearrange those words, phrases, sentences until you have your newly found poem.
5. POST IT!

Prompt #3- Sunday Walk

1. Take a walk!
2. Walk around your apartment, block, backyard, bedroom.
3. Notice what you notice.
4. Whatever you noticed the most of, write about it!

Prompt #4

Let’s focus on just one word. Flip through the dictionary, preferably a rather large one, an let your finger land on a random word.  Accept the challenge of writing a poem based on and/or involving your newly discovered word.

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NAPOWRIMO 2011

 Hello Everyone!  Its NAPOWRIMO time again.  I love April just for the fact that it is spring, poetry, and new discoveries all rolled into one.  I hope that you are ready for another journey into poetry and discovery of your poetic self.  I am!  I'll be posting poetry writing prompts to get you caught up and on track for the rest of this month.  I'll also post links to other sites who are doing NAPOWRIMO as well.  I hope you take the time to search out an open mic in your area or even start one.  Take that poetic shyness, push it to the side and let your poetry shine through!  Muster your courage and give your poetic gems a chance to be heard.

Stay tuned for poetry and prompts! (link, share, post, poem!)



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Something New

I haven't placed any new poetry of mine on this blog for a while.  So I thought I would share a little something from my meditation this weekend. I've only included a moment. You can take it as you receive it. Nothing earth shattering but just a moment.  But then, as we know, it only takes a moment for one's world to shatter.  It only takes one moment for one's world to heal. Enough, here it is. Enjoy.

The End

by Ieisha McIntyre

She winced; 

a birds feather 

on a wire. 

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The Solo Book Club-The New Jim Crow Meeting #1

Adaptation and Transformation in Racism


I stated a few weeks ago that my next book for The Solo Book Club would be Michelle Alexanders’s The New Jim Crow.  I decided that I would share just a few quotes from the chapters as I go along. I’m also going to making comments about how I felt and what those quotes caused me to think about it. So here goes the first installment of quotes, thoughts, and feelings.  Let me know if reading these has encouraged you to read the book yourself and make your own understandings.  I’d like to hear what you think.

Quote #1:

“Any candid observer of American racial history must acknowledge that racism is highly adaptable.  The rules and reasons the political system employs to enforce status relations of any kind, including racial hierarchy, evolve and change as they are challenged. The valiant efforts to abolish slavery and Jim Crow and to achieve greater racial equality have brought about significant changes in the legal framework of American society -- new “rules of the game,” so to speak.  These new rules have been justified by new rhetoric, new language,  and a new social consensus, while producing many of the same results. This dynamic, which legal scholar Reva Siegel has dubbed “preservation through transformation,” is the process through which white privilege is maintained, though the rules and rhetoric change.”(21)

This quote hit me so hard. I have spent a good amount of time lately thinking about the adaptation and transformation that the people of the African Diaspora go through; Sometimes to reinforce our strength, sometimes to survive, sometimes simply because we can.  I have never thought that there was adaptation and transformation occurring on the other side of equality as well.  After reading this short passage it seems silly to not have thought that.  But I suppose it was simply a blind spot of mine.  And we all have those. But, think.  We are all involved in this ever changing cycle and struggle to gain more privilege on one side and on the other to gain equality.  But if we don’t take the time to educate ourselves in what has previously occurred, we will repeat the past, and we will repeat the cycle.  

¹ Reva Siegel, “Why Equal Protection no Longer Protects: The Evolving Forms of Status-Enforcing Actions,” Stanford Law Review 49 (1997):1111; see also Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Romation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (New York; Routledge, 1996), 84-91.

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African Diasporic Voices - Adaptation

adaptation-(People and cultures evolve as the traditions and memories we carry with us creatively engage new surroundings and other cultures.)

Today, I continue my postings on the Museum of African Diaspora’s “I’ve Known Rivers” project. This week I challenge you to look at the topic of Adaption. 

Children of the African Diaspora have always had to adapt in order to survive.  Very often that adaptation has led to a new level of thriving. At other times, the adaptation has led to destruction.  Adaptations made in the face of survival are not always the best choices.  They are just adaptations.  Think of the flames that lit up our major cities when The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.  Think of the destruction of our inner city neighborhoods with the addition of the different drugs and controlled substances. Think of the explosion of African-Americans in professional fields in the 70’s and 80’s, and the increase of African-American artists and writers during the new deal arts programs. 

All of these adaptations have their own merit.  Some might see that they provide a “good” some might say that they are a social “ill”.  What do you say about adaptation?  (Link, Subscribe, Share, Post comments!)

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African Diasporic Voices-MOVEMENT

I hope you have been working on the topic of Movement. I have.  Have you ever thought about movement  in ways other than the physical?  Have you ever thought about a change in thinking as a form of movement?  Its funny, but I haven't.  Isn't interesting the blind spots we have?  Anyway, I was searching through my Youtube subscriptions and found this Tavis Smiley interview with Forest Whitaker.  (I love me some Forest!)   Listen to what Forest says about movement and story near the end of this segment.




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African Diasporic Voices-Movement

African Diasporic Voices - - Theme #2 Movement:

Movement-(Individuals, families and communities move continuously, sometimes seeking fresh prospects, sometimes forced by slavery, war or famine. Always, our movements reinvent us, remixing the possibilities.)

As children of the African Diaspora we have gone  through constant and continuous movement.  Whether we are trying to find our way back home, trying to create a home where we have arrived, or just trying to understand and define who we have become in a new place and reestablish our origin story for the new generation coming, we are a people of transformation.  We are constant primarily in each generations almost involuntary need to redefine ourselves.  The most obvious example is found in our naming of ourselves. 

Taking a quick look at the naming of our racial/ethnic groupings,  the process seems almost a sort of adaptation of the naming ceremony.  First Negro, then Colored, then Black, Then African-American, Afro-Caribbean, then Afro-Indian, and now with the influx of African Immigrants, many of our youth are beginning to establish whether they are African-American (descendents) or simply calling themselves, Black American.  Just as our music comes from the pulse of our movement from rural to urban, so too does the naming of ourselves and our culture.  And the change can happen so quickly.

In the most recent winter Olympics, Cheltzie Lee, a young women with an African-American mother from Louisiana and a Chinese father (born in Bangladesh) who has grown up in Australia, represented Australia.  Could she have developed to such an advanced and honorable place as an Olympic Ice skater in America?  I don’t know.  But what I do know is that the movement,  from American to Australian is clearly significant.  How significant? I'll leave that to you to decide.

(I know the commentary is in russian, but I liked the camera angles.)


Are you someone who feels a significant difference in your life and how others see your blackness, african-ness due to your geographical location? 


THINK ABOUT IT. TALK ABOUT IT. POEM ABOUT IT! (link, subscribe, share, comment!)

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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 14 (poem)

Here is my response to the Day 14 writing prompt. I made these little buggers hard didn't I? Hm, funny.  I'm working on the other two.  Blessings Lonely Hearts!  I'll be back this weekend with content directed toward African-American History so look for Diasporic Voices posts in the coming weeks!

Where’s the Love?

by Ieisha McIntyre

I feel my love is no where.

And then,

a new breath enters my lungs and 

there is possibility. 

And then,

a small warm paw.

And then, 

a call from an old friend.

I feel my love is no where. 

And then,

friends become bored.

And then, 

family dies.

And then, 

there is no ring.

I feel my love is no where.

And then,

God shows his face.

In the eyes of a stranger,

In a baby in the supermarket,

In the smile looking back at me from a mirror.

There is my love.

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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 14

Hello Lonely Hearts Poets!  I hope this journey has been helpful for you in combating the lonely heart blues.  I know that it has helped me to write about the different aspects of love and to help me see Love in more than the traditional way.  For today's writing prompt I'd like us all to think about not the love that we wish for but that love that we HAVE in our lives.  WHERE IS IT?

Writing Prompt #14:

Where is the love in your life?  Are you loved by a pet, friends, parents, siblings, a child, perhaps you have a beloved teddy bear.  Or is your love for something or someone higher than yourself?  Whatever or whomever it is, where is it?




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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 11 (poem)

Hello Lonely Hearts!  Here is my poem for the Day 11 Writing prompt.  I don't know if I will have the chance to get to days 12 and 13 before tomorrow night, but I will put up the prompt for Valentine's Day  in a few moments so that you may have all day tomorrow to ponder what you would like to write.  Please keep up the good work!  I see readers visiting from all over the world.  Know that you are not the only lonely heart out there.  But you just might be the only one placing it in poetry.

heal love power

by Ieisha McIntyre

Let me lay my hands and my heart on you,

Lend you my ears and hear your sorrow. 

Let me wrap my arms around you, 

warm your skin, help it release the pain.

Let me love the places within you

no one has yet seen.

Take your trembling hands from your eyes, 

And let you see the way that

You can heal the little boy within you.

Bring back the possible you once dreamed of while mimicking the sounds of fire engines and cowboy calls. The little boy who made

his mother’s robe into his future doctor’s lab coat.

The man who would fight to hold on to his hope.

Let me love you through -- be the light in your lantern. 

Look my way sojourner, 

let me lead you from the cave.

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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 13 Writing Prompt

Hello Lonely Heart Poets!  It is less than 24 hours until Valentine's Day and some of you may be feeling blue, others of you may be feeling victorious.  Victorious that you have been able to keep up the hope and the love in your heart through poetry.  Personally I view this journey in a number of ways.  One of which is the willing of love into your life.  Call it wishful thinking, call it the law of attraction, call it magic if you wish.  But whatever you call it, the desire is that it ends in love.  More love for yourself, your family, friends, humankind.   Our writing prompt for today will focus on the magic of love.

Writing Prompt #13:

The magic of love can take us away to fantastic places.  While we may never leave the confines of the house, a restaurant, a movie seat, we are transported by love.  The magic of love is that, unlike other situations, we are not alone in our journeys through time and space.  Our lovers come with us in a serene moment of connection.  This is that magic moment that we all yearn for. Take your time. Remember that special moment? Help us to understand it through poetry! Blessings Lonely Hearts! Keep Writing! Post! Link! Subscribe!






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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 10 (poem)

Here's your Day 10 Writing prompt poem Lonely Hearts! Slowly but surely I'm getting these guys done.  I hope that you are doing well in your writing too.  I'm still thinking about a challenge prize.  If you place your poems or pieces of them and a link to your site in the comments section then I'll see what I can do. Keep your heads up and Keep the Love flowing!

Love’s Anaconda

by Ieisha McIntyre

I slip through tall grass, slip into waters, slide up the 

trunks of trees, and all in search of you.

All in search of this love. 

But I can’t help my nature, 

I know I will surround you.

Encase you in my bliss,

Let the warmth of my embrace subdue your other promptings. 

Let the beating of my heart synchronize with yours.

Lull you into submission,

Make you unaware our love’s grasp

upon your body, your life. 

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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 9 (poem)

Day 9 Lonely Hearts poem is up!  I'm slowly catching up.  I might even make it before midnight!  But I'll take it one at a time.  Let me know what you think.  I think after this one, for the remainder of Feb. I'll do an African-American History Month challenge.  Perhaps I'll even have a prize for that one.  A little one. I think of something.

Teaching 

by Ieisha McIntyre

The routine,

the challenge, 

the victories, and the failures.

All between dawn and dusk. 

All the hours governed by bells.

All the days, measured down to the minute.

No matter how many 

minutes are counted

the unexpected,

and unpredictable looms.  

The dusty chalk, the pencil shavings, 

papers, 

and red pens. 

The tools of learning made ready,

a bell, it begins again.

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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 8 (poem)

Day 8 Lonely Heart's Poetry Challenge: Here is my poem based on the Writing prompt for Day 8. I hope you all have a good read.  I hope writing these poems are helping you as much as they are helping me.  I think that if we walk with love instead of run from it, we will have a better chance at drawing the spirit of love to us.  Keep Writing Lovers!

Sister

by Ieisha McIntyre

You are the one who knows

 the secrets Momma doesn’t.

The one who helped me sin a little.

The one who helped me heal a little.

You made me laugh at mistakes and rejoice

in my victories.

You are the one who dried my tears and 

shielded my shame with her love. 

You set me on a different path.

You pointed to the signs on the road,

helped me learn to read them.

We held each others hopes 

the same way that we hugged, 

and promised ourselves

we would make them come true.

Now,  I hold your hopes forward.

My lantern.  As I walk on my way,

You are my light, my joy, my memory of love,

My Sister.

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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 11 & 12 Writing Prompt

Hello Lonely Hearts!  Here are your writing prompts for Feb. 11 and 12th.  I'll be posting my poems before the end of today.  I hope you are keeping your heads up and hearts full of hope and love for all humankind.  As we all watch from near and far and witness Egypt's fight for freedom, we are also watching an example of what can happen when those with weaponry choose love over violence.  We watched as soldiers kept their word not to fire, as minority Egyptian Christians used their bodies to shield praying Moslems.

http://www.good.is/post/protesters-are-awesome-look-at-this-beautiful-photo-of-christians-protecting-praying-muslims-in-egypt/

Your Writing prompt #11 is your opportunity to write a love letter to "the other".  Whomever the other is for you in your community.  Take a moment and meditate upon the goodness that they bring into your community.  Write it down.  And, don't forget to put it in the form of a poem.




Have you ever thought that if you had super powers that you might use them to find the love of your life?  Telepathy to find out if that person you like really likes you.  The ability to fly in order to make a long distance relationship easier.  The ability to stop time?



Writing prompt #12:  What would you super power be?  How would you use it to bring love into your life and to nurture it?  Good Luck Lonely Hearts! Keep Writing! Valentine's Day is almost here.





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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 7 (poem)

Hello Lonely Hearts Poets!!  I've managed to sneak a little time and get my poem written in response to the Day 7 writing prompt.  I've placed it below.  Feel free to let me know what you think.  Link, Subscribe, Share! Keep Writing Lovers.

Footpath to Joy

by Ieisha McIntyre

I.

My God - 

I may not be 

worthy of love.

My God - 

I may not have 

a soul worth saving.

But, 

who will come for

me when I die?

II.

If you love me -

I will look the other way,

When you love someone else.

If you love me - 

I will forgive you 

When you are not enough.

Why,

are you never

enough?

III.

My God,

I am Rapunzal

without hair in her tower.

My God,

I have made this tower

of pain.

Where,

is the key to

my joy?

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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 10

Boy, oh Boy! Do you know how you feel when in love?  Perhaps a bit like an animal? Do you have an idea of what that animal might be?  If you do, try writing a poem about it.  Let us know how your love roars, chirps, purrs, flys, swims. And when your love does what it does, with what level of passion is it executed?



And here you have a little Mumford & Sons inspiration to help you along. I LOVE THIS BAND!


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Valentine’s Day Lonely Hearts Love Poetry Challenge DAY 9

Hello Lonely Hearts Poets!  You all are doing an amazing job. I'm typing right along with you. And will post my poems for Day 7-9 by Friday.  While I know that is not the ideal, I know many of you are working a day job like myself. It is this lonely winter stretch after the holidays that can really get to a soul.  So why don't we give ourselves a moment to write a love poem to the day jobs we have?  Or the day jobs we wish we had, or aspire to have.



 I LOVED THIS SONG WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL!


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