Today’s title is from the Genesis creation story (1:19, to be exact). The evening and morning seemed to merge for me on this fourth day. Noisy elevator folks again made it difficult to get to sleep at a decent hour (though not as late as Friday) and being jolted awake early by the hotel’s fire alarm made the transition to the day fuzzy, at best. I was up early enough to run before it got too muggy, however, and then was out and about poemifying myself (yes, that’s a made-up word - you may borrow it…) for the rest of the day into evening. A long fruitful day, though certainly not as long or fruitful as creating the firmament of the heavens and dividing day from night.
Read
Not much, I’m afraid. It was a writing kind of a day. I am hoping to do some reading online this evening of some writers mentioned in lectures today.
Listened:
Florence and the Machine - Ceremonials
Kooks - Junk of the Heart
Kaiser Chiefs - The Future is Medieval
Aimee Mann - Lost in Space
Wrote:
In/After the AM Lecture on Flash Fiction:
- a 100 Word piece called “Looking for Clues”
- a series of flash vignettes written as footnotes to a memoir (prompt from guest faculty lecturer Robert Siegel)
- a free write list poem called “If the Body is a Temple”
In class:
- a free write poem on the prompt “a group of women”
- a free write (using more or less constraint than the first piece) on the word “juggling”
- a “slalom gate” exercise where phrases where placed randomly on the page and we had to write into, around and out of them
- a free write about a talent that had to make five negations or shifts in one page
- A free write based on a ridiculous list of things we had to weave in including, but not limited to, the mention of a deceased pop star and a metaphor involving insects
- a homework piece with its first line taken from a NY Times Arts Review -”Part of the trouble is Ms Faulkner’s odd, distracted manner.”
Nine drafts in one day. This is why I love Iowa. I would say at least four of them are viable, and two are definitely things I will work on. Now I am REALLY tired and really ANGRY that the Cubs are beating the White Sox, so I will hopefully get some sleep tonight and be ready to tackle day five. I will leave you a literary baseball image that will hopefully bring the Sox some luck – if you build it, they will come.
If you build it, they will come.
