Kim Addonizio says writing form poetry can teach you economy and structure and take you unexpected places. But what if you have no sense of rhythm? Can you still write a sonnet? LW Lindquist wraps up our Ordinary Genius book club this week with enough iambic pentameter to make you scream.
Ordinary Genius: Myths and Fairy Tales
Terrible things happen in fairy tales. Even in the watered-down Disney versions, stepmothers try to poison their stepdaughters, children are lost in the woods and captured to be eaten, young women are imprisoned in towers. LW Lindquist leads our latest book club discussion on Kim Addonizio’s Ordinary Genius.
Ordinary Genius: Why the Chicken Crossed the Road
By this time, I’m ready to ask the chicken question. I’ve been scratching around for an angle, and even as I type this, I don’t have one. But Kim Addonizio tells me I don’t have to know where I’m going when I start writing, and even goes so far as to say it might be […]
Ordinary Genius: Entering Poetry (part 2)
My entry into poetry did not happen in a night. Oh, sure. It may look that way. One day I was calling poetry “cryptic nonsense” and practically the next, posting a lengthy poem on Facebook about lumberjacks, kitchen knives, Twinkies, and the persuasive powers of semi-colon eyelashes. Now, she’ll never take the credit for it—no, […]
Ordinary Genius: Entering Poetry
The other day I stumbled onto an old Google Talk conversation with a friend, from about a year ago. The conversation went something like this: Friend: I lurked at the Tweetspeak Twitter party last night. Me: I can’t do the Tweetspeak. Too confusing. Friend: I was lost. I’m too literal. Me: L.L. tagged me on […]
Ordinary Genius: Book Club Announcement
You could say I’m playing around with writing a sonnet today, as long as your definition of “playing around” is broad enough to include tapping aimlessly on my desk to The Guess Who’s Bus Rider. Our Canadian columnist Matthew Kreider loaned me one of his famous Ticonderoga pencils this weekend. It keeps a terrific desktop 70s beat, […]