Overheard Conversation & Inspiration

Today a group of writers known as the Poetry Sisters has published poems inspired by overheard conversation; Mary Lee Hahn has the links. Y'all know I love it! Thank you for the shout-outs, Sarah Lewis Holmes, Michelle Kogan, and Carol Varsalona. I'm still working on my own compositions in this particular genre and trying to get them published. Most journals want unpublished work and count blogs as publication, so I haven't been able to post them here. Argh. 

That said, I do have something super fun to share: poet Bernadette Mayer's extensive list of journal ideas ("write once a day in minute detail about one thing") and writing experiments ("Write a work gazing into the mirror without using the pronoun I"). It's housed at the University of Pennsylvania's Electronic Poetry Center. Penn is the home institution of one of my all-time favorite classes, "Modern and Contemporary American Poetry," on Coursera. (It's free. Take it!) Mayer is one of poets whose work we study. In the introduction to a series of essays on the poet, the journal Post45 says, "If the last half century has a poet of daily life — of its dreams, babies, children, jokes, meals, sex, love, labors, and writing — she is Bernadette Mayer."

Irene Latham has the entire Poetry Friday roundup at Live Your Poem. Photo, ST: Mural by Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada for Street Art Mankind, NYC, 2019.

Comments

[Carol Varsalona]

Thank you for the links, Susan. Best of Luck with your writing endeavors.

[Laura Purdie Salas]

Thank you for that link, Susan! When we Poetry Sisters met to plan 2022, we realized we had brought several ideas from...you. In order to not rip you off over the entire year, we left several off the list. :>D Thank you for the inspiration, and I'm crossing my fingers for your overheard collection!

[Susan]

Carol, thanks so much! If I don't find individual homes for the poems, I may put them together as a chapbook. We'll see. Have you submitted yours anywhere?

Laura, yay! Thanks for the good wishes on the poems; I just need to find the right spot.

[Mary Lee]

Thanks for inspiring our "overheard" poems this month and for a post full of rich links to bookmark and explore (especially loving the journal ideas to unlock my morning pages)!!

[Susan]

Mary Lee, absolutely. You are welcome. I've been meaning to share this Bernadette Mayer writing-prompt list forever.

[Bridget Magee]

Yay for getting your 'overheard' work out to publishers. Fingers crossed someone picks up on your 'poetic conversations'. ;) Thanks for the writing prompt links, as well.

[Susan]

You're so welcome, Bridget. I appreciate the good wishes on the work! Fingers crossed.

[Irene Latham]

How exciting to be pursuing publication of your "overheard" work! I love chapbooks!

[Elisabeth]

Thanks for the links and the suggestion for the Coursera course - I'm looking forward to checking them out!

[Susan]

Thank you, Irene. The one overheard convo poem was published, and I am hoping some of the others find a home, too!

Elisabeth, that course is wonderful! I finished it in the fall of 2019, but people stay around and participate in the discussions.

[Michelle Kogan]

Thanks for all these marvelously rich resources Susan, I'm looking forward to spending time with the list of journal ideas, and hopefully fitting in the class sometime. BTW I love the mural image, it's Fantastic, especially the eyes—And good luck on your book too!

[Susan]

Michelle, thanks so much! And you're welcome for the resources. My pleasure!

I probably have enough poems for a micro-chapbook, so we'll see...

That mural is crazy big, right in midtown Manhattan. It's very impressive.