Cigar Box/Binder

(c) 2010 James Ciletti On my desk is a cigar box. Inside: word and picture treasures. Several times a week I take the cigar box to the dining room table and flip through the numerous magazines and mail order catalogues, and newspapers. I cut out words and phrases, even pictures that show a story. Anything that gives my mind or feelings a "buzz." These go into the cigar box. About once a week I glue one item at a time on individual sheets of paper. And then they go into a three ring binder, entitled, Power Prompts. WHY? I'll tell you in a minute. First, here are some of the sheets in my Power Prompts binder: "When heartburn turns to hope." Great line/theme for a song. "Verbatim" A small picture of a man in the foreground, his back to me and he is facing a woman in the bg and she has an extended hand to him and her mouth is open. (what's the story here?) "My artificial tears." Wow! a line for a theme of public faces/private lives. "Creation myths." "Start taking creative risks" "The boldest." These are, essentially, prompts for writing, each at the top of their own page. For an instant writing assignment when I give a workshop, I can hand these sheets out at random to participants and ask them to respond to the prompt and write free-style. The pages also are good for "morning pages" or "evening pages." Actually, for prompting a writing spurt at any time of day. Sometimes, in workshops, where I have a large stack of magazines, art mags, sport mags, etc etc, I have students cut out their own words and paste up a "found" poem with words and phrases along a theme they pick. Sometimes, with art catalogues, I cut out many pictures and lay them out and have students pick the picture they want to write a story to. I tell them to pick a picture that has "heat" for them. Thus, they start out with their writing geiger counter buzzing. Cigar box? Any contaner will do. Start cutting and pasteing

Postcard Poems

When I gave a workshop to the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation summer students at Colorado College, I handed out postcards with stamps on them and showed the art students how they can easily combine their visual art talent with words and send beautiful images and inspiring words to friends and family. The results of what they created were lovely and we mailed them out. One student mailed her postcard poem to me. She had visited an old Hispanic church in the San Luis Valley and wrote this on her card: "this church feels like soup, blurred, and engulfed in nostalgia, pious dust." This is an easy way to share your poems -- make your own postcard poems. Write out one of your short poems on a postcard, get crayons or colored pencils, or pen, (colored gel pens are great for this) and put a colored border on the card etc, small flowers in the corners, whatever, and mail it to a friend. Be as creative as you want, glue small images you can cut from magazines, even cut out words and paste them on. You can color the entire side of the card and them hand print your poem on it. Each postcard poem is a one-of-a-kind artwork and gift to your recipient. I buy cover stock at Office Depot and cut my own post cards to size so they are within the .28 cent postage size, 4.25 x 5.5. If you want to make a bigger postcard go to USPS.com for size limits and postage required, bigger ones cost .44 cents to mail. Use one whole side for your poem and artwork and one side for your address and stamp. If you want to send a message as well as the poem, draw a vertical line down the middle of one side and on the left, write to your recipient, and on the right, stamp and address just like a picture tourist post card. Be sure to send one to yourself too. Cheers.

Read To One Another

Sharing ideas with my wife Mary, she mentioned that sometimes she does not have enough to talk about on phone calls but wants to stay connected with her daughter or others. So I suggested that she have one of her favorite passages ready from one of her favorite authors, and to read something to the person on the other end of the phone call. We all love to be read to, so reading to someone, even on the phone, can be a deeper and meaningful connection. Read what? Thoreau? Or a Comic Strip from the newspaper, a quote from a hero -- artist, or go to the Internet or book of quotations and you'll find numerous inspiring quotes and messages to share and talk about. Texing? Try a rhyming couplet to someone you love.

Gulf Poems etc

Catching up on Blog comments, I encourage you to go to www.poetsgulfcoast.wordpress.com and read Joe Hutchinson's poem and others by poets who are exercising their talent to continue awareness of the Gulf tragedy. And, here is the introduction to my book of poems, Sunfire. Word Mirrors How easily, almost thoughtlessly, we arise at the crack of dawn, stretch open our sleepy eyes, massage our groggy face, rub a hand through our hair and brush our teeth. We dress, check the mirror to see if our tie is straight, or if our skirt's the right length. Do my shoes match? And what about shaving? Putting on Eyeliner? Without a mirror? Forget it. Faced with the face of ourselves, we know what to do, what to fix, or leave alone. Faced with the face of ourselves, we know how to make our private face public to enter the world. So too with thinking and writing. Without reflection, what a smear of red lipstick our thoughts will be; without verbal investigation the bleeding cuts in our ideas; and so too, the darkness in our hearts, without words to express and know our feelings. When we find and use words to express our core emotions and thoughts we are expressing our core identity. Want to know who you are? Walk into the garden of yourself? Then, look at the reflection of yourself in the mirror of your words. We need a mirror to see our spine, the back of our head, neck, etc. So too we need the mirror of our language to face the face of our thoughts. Our words show us where the tie of our opinion needs straightened; the lipstick of our politeness needs daubed; facing the face of our thoughts and fears and joys, values, dreams and prayers, we can see who we are, inside, within our spirit. Thus, our words, written in thoughtful reflection, can mirror back to us an emotional knowledge from the deepest vaults of our self, our core identity, and our spirit. Our words mirror our heart. For me, the ultimate joy of poetry, and all of the arts, occurs when our creativity reflects and celebrates the human heart. Then, we know who we are.

"Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt stars." Gustave Flaubert in Madame Bovary.

Reading Neruda.

July 21, 2010: After the downpour last evening the wet air is rich, palpable, succulent. So todayI am reading the sensate and succulent poetry of Pablo Neruda, especially, I Have Gone Marking The Atlas of Your Body, and Ode to Olive Oil. You'll find lots of lovely poems by Neruda, all over Google sites. And at www.poets.org "The only time you look down on someone is when you offer a hand to help them up." Gabriel G. Marquez

Social Activist Poet

July 20 Yesterday I met with the Colorado Springs Justice and Peace Commission to begin discussions and to explore how we might integrate poets and poetry into the mission of the Commission. Some ideas include sharing poetry at Commission rallies, producing an organized event with artists and poets, and musicians, for creating awareness for peace, social justice, etc. YOUR IDEAS/SUGGESTIONS are most welcome -- pass them on to me at jimciletti@comcast.net. Thank you.

After reading in the paper that a young woman, under 18, in Saudi Arabia, was sentenced to 80 lashes, I have not been able to write about sweet experiences. The lashes, on her legs? Back? Enough to make her flesh look like what we grill on the barbeque? I did not want this, my poetry blog, to bring up political, sociological, moral issues as such, but this -- in 2010 -- well, I'm working on an 80 line rant.

The Sixth Sense

Good morning to all. This morning I shared with a young art student, a painter, thoughts about our senses, and how, while we have our five physical senses, sight sound taste touch and hearing, that are gateways to the outside world, that we also have a "sixth" sense. The "sixth" sense is meta-physical, internal, even philosophical. The sixth sense is what I reach for in a poem. The sixth sense is what I am writing about, in layers, in a poem. We have many "sixth" senses: A sense of joy, a sense of beauty, a sense of ugly, a sense of love, a sense of bravery, a sense of weakness, on and on. The sixth sense is what has made me sniff out the poem in the first place, what has made me write the poem. Like in my Haiku: Robin in the tree Reflected in the fountain. Black cat lunges. Splash! The sixth sense of "irony." How I can easily be fooled by my illusions, dive into them, and come up soaking wet. A sixth sense of foolishness. Etc etc. This morning, smelling the coffee percolating, a sense that as soon as I can sip a cup, all will be right with the world. So be it. Jim P.S. I have a few copies left of my latest book of poems, "SUNFIRE" and you can order a signed copy directly from me for $14 plus $2 postage. Send $16 to Jim Ciletti, 1215 N. Union Blvd. Colo Spgs CO 80909, or call Hooked on Books bookstore, 719-596-1621 and they can take your credit card info and mail the book to you.

Fish Oil

Dear Myles, Did you see the fish and birds, the turtle, in Time? Bejesus! Washed up on a black beach, this big fish -- face smeared with oil, eyes popping, mouth stuck open in a last breath, death-gasp? This bird's head and face dripping with oil, one eye glazed, tears of oil? That turtle, fossilized in a cement of oil? As if scorched by fire, the pelican is an icon of death. Do I have any idea what this is like? The final oxygen air bubbles raking though my feathery gills? My muscles twisting into cramping pain? I thrash and thump my tail on the black sand. I have to, want to, yes, die. I must die with this fish. Feel the oxygen deprivation and suffocation tighten around my throat. My eyes bulge out. Death forces itself into my body. Oh, the ache in my brain, a hot nail piercing behind my eyes. I gasp, shudder, twitch my gills. Thick oil skims through: clogging, choking oil. I thrash my head. My eyes sting. Oil chokes my throat. In weak, powerless spasms, my tail arches. Eyes glazed, I feel the waves wash me farther up the black shore. Even the hungry, shrieking gulls reject me. Dark, bubbly surf nudges me forward, forward, away from the great sea of my birth. I am dying. Exhausted. My tail flops down onto a funereal bedspread and coffin of black sand. Yes, I must die with this fish and with every oil soaked bird. Choke with every turtle. Stand, painted black with the pelican. Then, and only then will I change and demand real change from our leaders and money-power-brokers. Imagine: all those money-eyed brokers on the stock market floor, coated with oil; their dollar bills gasping for air; Our politicians in congress, mouths choking with oil, staring at one another, unable to blink their oil-glazed eyes. Tomorrow: I awaken in this gulf of ocean seas. I am the Great Mother. Rising up, I stand over all the waters and hold my swollen, pregnant belly. All the babies within me, all the sea turtles, algae, fish, shrimp, plankton, crab, the seahorses and seaweeds, even the wetlands, will be born lifeless, stillborn, black and blue with oil. So be it, Myles. Your friend James Ciletti