Category: Intervals

Compulsion! A Week in One Day?

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Intervals, Writing and Not Writing1 Comment

Those of you who know me personally, know that my monkey mind just cannot stand the thought of something incomplete.  I never finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled.  The novel is 535 pages in length, and I quit with 120 pages to go.  Stopped.  At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.  I found the novel exhausting and frustrating, and finally reached a point at which I decided no “conclusion” was going to be satisfactory to me.  Now, at that time, I was the already-exhausted mother of a toddler.  I needed “beach lit,” not Ishiguro’s astonishingly complex, mysterious Sartre-like journey.  Anyway, at the time, I knew quitting it was the right thing to do … and the fact that I did quit haunts me to this very day.

So here we are:  I have been absent from this blog for several days, the second such period of quiet, and I had committed to myself that I would write or share a poem every day, using William Packard’s book, The Poet’s Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Prose, as a jumping off point.

Well, please don’t think I have been neglecting poetry.  In fact, I was too tired to write here on Sunday because of preparation for an upcoming ensemble reading that I have been asked to be part of (more on that later), and I have also been neck deep dealing with the poetry that is “family.”  Enough, however!  I must set this thing aright.  I said there would be 30 posts in April, and 30 posts it shall be.

Watch this space …

April 22, 2010 (and Happy Earth Day)

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Intervals, My Poetry, New Things, Poetry, ReadingLeave a comment

Today’s device from William Packard’s The Poet’s Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Devices is

Macaronics:  The use of foreign words to enrich the texture of DICTION in a poetic line.  The most common practice of macaronics is the mixture of vernacular worlds with Latin words, but macaronics can be any combination of two or more languages in any given passage.

I tried to use today’s device as a forced writing exercise, comfortable in the notion that poets all over the country are doing something similar, either through a collective daily writing prompt, or some other self-imposed practice.  In other words, what follows is a draft – but I’m sure it isn’t the only draft on the internet today!  Thanks for reading! Continue reading “April 22, 2010 (and Happy Earth Day)” →

April 9 Poem: Taking a Break

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Intervals, My Poetry1 Comment

Hi all. I am taking a break from the Dictionary prompt today, because today was a travel day, and I am just about out of creative energy.  I did want to post a poem, however.  So with no device in mind, I give you the following poem written a couple of years ago.  Thanks for reading!

Still Life
(by Suzanne Baldwin Leitner)

She sits with no list
of things to do
no phone calls
to make
or receive
no bus to wait for
no door to listen
for or at or through.
No one to see.
Windows – glass and wood
separate her from the world
and she separates bottles
from cans, bottles and cans
from their contents,
content with numb
ticking of a clock
she won’t wind.
When she was busy
her days flew
and her nights were brief
resting places
for her mind, her fast-talking
mind. The hours
stacked neatly and quickly
one by one the way cards
stack neatly and quickly
one by one when shuffled
by the deft hands of players
taking turns dealing, too fast to see
the sly wink of Jack
or stern look of Queen
or haughty stare of King
or lonely perfection of Ace
or the scrolling and symmetry
or craft of numbers.
This day’s hours are like the turning
of pages of a magazine, glossy
slick, slow;
but there are no pictures.

The Tuesday Project: Update with Pictures

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Intervals, New ThingsLeave a comment

The Tuesday Project that my mother and I have embarked upon together is going quite well.  By “quite well,” of course, I mean we are having a blast.  Some things I have learned thus far:  I cannot paint.  My mother can paint.  I don’t knit very well.  My mother knits fairly well.  Knitting makes us both laugh for no apparent reason (of course, when you see our knitting, you may laugh too!).

We are off by a week because the painting took us so long, so we won’t start our next project until next week.  For the next few weeks, my mother is going to teach me the ancient art of Tai chi (we were going to cook, but neither of us really wanted to do that – presumably, there will be no dishes to clean up after we practice Tai chi).

To see some pictures of our efforts, click on “Read the rest of this entry.”  Please keep in mind that we are not claiming to be good at these things we are trying to learn about by putting our hands to them: that’s exactly why I am showing you these pictures.  Maybe it will inspire some of you to try a new process, regardless of the “success” of the outcome.  Continue reading “The Tuesday Project: Update with Pictures” →

Knowing and Taming The Enemies

On By Suzanne B. LeitnerIn Fiction, Intervals, My Poetry, Poetry, Writing and Not Writing, Your Poetry8 Comments

One of the most frustrating things for a writer is not writing.  In my case, I sometimes sit down at my desk or in one of my favorite chairs with good intentions, but the phone rings or I remember the clothes in the dryer or I decide to check out The Weather Channel … in other words, nothing happens.   Why not?

For me, the reasons vary, and it depends on what I am trying to write.

I somehow ritually rid myself of the fear of putting down a terrible poem.  In my world, I no longer write terrible poems – they are “drafts.”  My friend Scott Douglass once said to me, “I have yet to meet the perfect poem.”  Scott meets a great many poems, not only as a poet himself, but also as an editor and publisher, so I found his statement to be quite comforting.  I still do. Continue reading “Knowing and Taming The Enemies” →