Author Amok's 2014 Poetry Project

Hey, Writerly Friends. Tomorrow is February 1. You know what that means? Birthday month!

My birthday buddy.

Last year -- in order to celebrate the big day, practice writing, and give something back to others all in one go -- I did a big poetry project. I bought a stack of vintage postcards. Every day from January 1 until my birthday, February 22, I wrote a poem in response to a random card.

You'll find a list of all of the poems and posts here.

Friends like Teacher Dance blogger Linda Baie were good enough to send me spare postcards. I went to see an antique postcard exhibit in Boston. We had guest bloggers. Each postcard and poem went out to a Writerly Friend.

It was a blast. And now I have an enormous collection of postcards to use and share as writing prompts.

The postcards took me out of my poetic box -- stretching me to write about subjects I wouldn't have spent time on, or even thought of, without a prompt.

So, what's up for this year?

It's been such a gray, cold winter. We need a spark of something colorful.

Amethyst is February's birthstone.
It's also a Pantone® color name.

Have you ever walked into the home improvement store and felt the magnetic pull of the paint cards drawing you, like some DIY Bali Hai, to its radiant shores?



As you pulled lemony yellows, juicy oranges, and gloomy grays from the display, were you as thrilled by the names of the colors as you were by the colors themselves? ME TOO!

I now declare this year's birthday extravaganza The Pantone® Poetry Project.

Pantone® is a trademarked color system. You can read the company's history at Wikipedia. Or visit the Pantone® website to learn about their color of the year, Radiant Orchid.

Every Friday throughout February, I will post a sampling of Pantone® colors with their names. You are invited to write in response to the color (see suggested writing prompts below).

Anything Goes: a snippet, a couplet, some free verse, a sonnet, a prose poem, flash, whatever may dash through your Writerly brain.



Leave your contribution(s) in the comments -- with the color you are writing in response to. Or send it to me via email at (all one word) "mrs poems at gmail dot" etc. Prefer to post your Pantone response at your own blog? Great! Send me the link and I'll be sure to include it.

I'll post our rainbow of samples every day in February, or at least several times a week.

I've got my handy dandy Pantone® Artist and Writer's Notebook ready for sketching.

Find it at Chronicle Books

Ready? Here are the first week's colors:

Week 1 Colors

Apricot Illusion

Peyote, Dark Earth, Cosmic Sky

Monument, Purple Reign

Hushed Violet, Demitasse

Zinc, Bronze Mist, Aloe

Kombu Green, Sugar Coral

Jazzy

Apricot Illusion
Pantone® 14-1120

Sugar Coral
Pantone® 16-1640

How do you find your way in to a color?

Here are some prompts to try:

• Color response: a memory, object, image, or something else.
• Language response: a memory, object, image, or something else.
• Sensory response: What does this color smell, taste, or sound like to you?
• Build a room: Imagine you are in a room painted this color. Describe where you are, how you feel, and what you see.
• Wear it: Imagine you are putting on an article of clothing in this color. What happens when you walk out your front door?

Thanks in advance for playing along. Remember to share what you come up with in the comments or via email. See you over the rainbow!

Here's some Aloe to soothe you.