https://fictionkitchen.berlin/2020/01/11/whats-your-superpower/?fbclid=IwAR1JJJDrkwOzlPIlyj_Ep0RkndfNyTEslO38FmSTAz-KYBLL_bWXpmq9QLc

Terrific new flash–

Briyanna Hymms

Day6 – Moonrise

1. Better Better,
      i liked you best;
      have you come up with an excuse for me?

2. I Like You
      though i think we keep dancing
   —in circles

3. What Can I Do
      except stay in my routine?
   —i’m not going to break my own comfort for you

4. I’ll Remember
      all the missed moments,
   —all the stolen stares

5. Whatever!
      stop this, you’re leaving soon!
   —he gave no hints anyways

6. Be Lazy
      be cautious, be careless, be myself
      maybe the cycle will never break

7. Hi Hello
      yes, it started this way
      you never asked me my name then

8. I Loved You
      but perhaps its the same way i loved
   —everyone who came into my heart

9. When You Love Someone
      doesn’t it show in your eyes?
   —i thought everyone could read mine

10. All Alone
       in this sterile room
    —i have so much space to think

11. Pouring
       out all my thoughts onto graph paper
    —i’m trying to reach a conclusion

12. I Need Somebody
       i needed a body
    —it would be unfair if i “loved” you

13. I’ll Try
       to stop myself from going farther
    —beyond just physical affection

*

Note: Hymms’ poem relies on song titles from Day6’s album, Moonrise. For more on this strategy, view this blog-post:
https://poemsforthewriting.com/2017/01/04/musical-echoes-1/

https://philadelphiastories.submittable.com/submit/91255/theme-issue-community-tradition-winter-2020

On the theme of community and tradition–deadline November 1.
Note guidelines, including writers should have regional connection.

Cento Stitched from Spoken-Word Poems

As I elongated each minute
This adventure became a tragedy
And to celebrate I’ll plant a tree.
We going make it out the mud.
Ideas piled up bodies on the ladder to discovery of nothing
Choked by the void between you and me.
You see the covers of the cold-blooded and the unfazed:
Didn’t you know the world would hate you
Before you even knew there was something
Inside you worth the hating?
But flowers still thrive in the same ground
Where the dead are buried
In a box collapsed under the strain of my last hopes and dreams.
Nobody will know the extent of your hurt.
They’re all so much happier than you.
How do you look from their point of view?
Time for some water.
More drunk isn’t hotter.
To what do I owe the days?
*

By Sarah Goldberg, Tommy Begley, Eliot Precetti, Henry Williams, James Gosfield, Michelle Zhong, Io Zhong, Wills Martin, Weid Hassan, Julia McNeill, Graham Myhill, Josh Rouzer, Seth Lobo, and Elliot Richards.

Explanatory note by Lynn Levin, Drexel University: We covered rap poems and spoken-word poems in my advanced poetry-writing class at Drexel University the summer of 2019. The class presented their poems in an improvisational fashion. We began by having one student read his poem. The class listened carefully to the poem, and then the student whose poem related in some way thematically or imagistically to the first read her poem. We continued in this fashion of reading by connected texts until all the students had shared their work. As each student read his or her poem, he or she was asked to write one line from the poem on our cento-building sheet. Then I typed up the lines on the cento sheet. What emerged was an intense poem of philosophical and emotional angst. I borrowed this improv and cento technique from Hayden Saunier’s poetry troupe No River Twice.

Susan Smith Nash interviews Lynn Levin and me about our teaching and the new edition of Poems for the Writing. Thank you Relate, and Life Edge.

Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Second Edition) is now available.

This new edition contains six new chapters and scores of new example poems.

A variety of exercises plus writings by: Alicia Askenase, Brenda Bailey, Christopher Bursk, Karen Chase, Grant Clauser, Samuel Cook, Blythe Davenport, Janice Dawson, Jim Ellis, Daniela Elza, Emily Dickinson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Joanna Fuhrman, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Leonard Gontarek, Luray Gross, Lauren Hall, Christine Hamm, Laurel Hostak, Kevin Hughes, Marke Kane, Briyanna Hymms, Miriam N. Kotzin, Aimee LaBrie, Joanne Leva, Harriet Levin, Lynn Levin, Diane Lockward, Alina Macneal, Dawn Manning, Erin McCourt, Bernadette McBride, Kelly McQuain, Jerry Mirskin, Mirna Norales, Amir Or, Meg Pokrass, Lisa Prince, Don Riggs, Melika Riley, Josh Romley, Karen Schauber, Susan Smith Nash, Anna Strong, Benjamin Teperov, Rina Terry, Heather H. Thomas, John Timpane, John Vick, Marshall Warfield, Katrina Wehr, Amberlyn Wilk, Devin Williams, Jacquiley Wong, Peter Wood.