Author Amok's 2015 Sound Poem Project

Hey, Writerly Friends. February is almost here. You know what that means. It's time for our annual daily writing workout!

For the last two years -- in order to practice writing and give something back to others during my birthday month -- Author Amok has hosted a big poetry project.

In 2013, I wrote every day in response to vintage postcards. (Find the list of postcard poems here.)

In 2014, over a dozen poets joined me for the project. We all wrote in response to Pantone paint colors. (Find the list of Pantone poems here.)

Before I get to this year's project theme, guess who else has a birthday coming up...

It's Tabatha of the blog The Opposite of Indifference, who happens to be the winner of last week's featured book giveaway. Tabatha will receive an ARC of HUSH, DON'T TELL NOBODY, by Kyle Doty. Happy birthday, Tabatha!

Every Friday throughout February, I will post a week's worth of sound clips. Where possible, I will give the link with no description. What you hear is what you get.

You are invited to write in response to the sound (see suggested writing prompts below).

Important note: The point of this exercise is to practice the habit of writing regularly, even if it's just for one month. I post the responses as they are sent in so that we can focus on generating ideas, rather than on polishing for publication

Prose writers, you are welcome to join us! Use the sounds to create a 100-250 word writing sprint. Are you working on a novel? How would your protagonist react to hearing the day's sound?

Leave your contribution(s) in the comments -- let me know which sound 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 audio response at your own blog? Great! Send me the link and I'll be sure to include it.

I'll post our poems and other written responses every day in February, or at least several times a week. Whoever shares the most poems this month will get a prize! (Last year, Diane Mayr won a snazzy Pantone paint notebook.) 

This year's prize is a spoken word CD from Gargoyle literary magazine.

Here are the week 1 sounds. Purists -- if the link includes a video, minimize the page and you can listen to the sound without visual distraction:

Sunday, February 1

Monday, February 2

Tuesday, February 3

Wednesday, February 4

Thursday, February 5 

Thanks to Renee LaTulippe for the suggestion.

Friday, February 6 

Matt Forrest Esenwine, I love this recommendation.

Saturday, February 7: Listener's Choice -- pick your endangered sound.

How do you respond in writing to a sound?

Here are some prompts to try:

·                 What does the sound make you see? A memory, object, image, or something else.

·                 Sensory response: Does this sound trigger your sense of smell, taste, or touch?

·                 Build a setting: Where could you be when listening to this sound? 

·                 Become the sound: Imagine that you are the animal, object, or person making this sound. Write a persona poem in the voice of the sound-maker.

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

Since it is Poetry Friday, here is one of my favorite poems about sound.

Paul at These 4 Corners is hosting today's
Poetry Friday links. Thanks, Paul.
Happy birthday to all my fellow Febs!

If you're curious about some of the websites I used to find sounds, read this post.

Announcing: Author Amok's 2015 Poetry Project

Happy New Year, Poetry Friday friends and readers!

This week's host is my dear friend, Tabatha,
at The Opposite of Indifference.
Stop by to join the poetry party.

Our first week back to school has been filled with snow, ice, delayed openings, a day off, semester exams, and single digit temperatures. Forget the nice, warm blanket. What I really want to snuggle up with is a routine.

If the winter doldrums and disruptions are affecting your writing time, let's get back on track together.

Every February, Author Amok is home to a daily writing prompt project.

In 2013, I wrote in response to vintage postcards.
In 2014, thirteen other authors joined me in writing poems and short prose reactions to Pantone paint colors. We wrote 115 original poems during the month of February.

Since we've written in response to visual prompts for the past two years ... cue drumroll...

The 2015 Poetry Project is

writing in response to sounds.

I hope to post links to the 28 sounds, selected from a variety of online sound archives, by January 25. My main sources for the sounds will be:

• The Macauley Library, a scientific archive of wildlife recordings.
• The Museum of Endangered Sounds, which preserves sounds of old technology.
• Soundscapes, The British Library's storehouse of sounds "pertinent to a place." (This site includes great weather sounds from specific locations around the world.)
• Work with Sounds, a European archive of the sounds of work and industry.

I need your help!

Between now and January 25, I have to come up with 28 prompt-worthy, writing-inspiring sounds for the project. I'm taking suggestions. If there is a sound clip you think would be perfect for this project, please post a link in the comments.

Here's an example -- from the Poetry Postcard project -- of how a sound clip can help inspire a poem or short prose piece.



Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-22ZuQyAJ4

Thrush Lane (Postcard 18)
by Laura Shovan

That thump

on our glass door –

a thrush. It let me

scoop it whole

into my palm,

stroke its

dappled breast,

make it calm.

I spoke to it

of taverns

crowding

the Drosselgasse

with song.

The thrush replied,

Tut-tut,

oh-lay oh-lee,

chortling

to the quiet

afternoon. 

You can find the original post here.

And here are is a little Martian sound poem to get you thinking:

There Is Absolutely Nothing Lonelier

by Matthew Rohrer

There is absolutely nothing lonelier
than the little Mars rover
never shutting down, digging up
rocks, so far away from Bond street
in a light rain. I wonder
if he makes little beeps?

Read the rest of the poem at Poets.org.

You can listen to the sounds of the Mars Rover's 13-mile journey is this time lapse video from Space.com:

I can't wait to hear your prompt suggestions. Here's one I like: Angel Chimes.

Wet Weather or Aqua Haze? 2014 Poetry Project

Writerly Friends, yesterday, my friend Patricia VanAmburg left this comment on the blog: "If tomorrow is still wet weather, I have this [poem, below]." 

When I saw that today's Pantone ® Poetry colors were Wet Weather and Aqua Haze, I -- like most of us on the East Coast -- was hoping to see a little Aqua Haze in the sky. After all, the past week had been warm enough to melt most of Maryland's snow.

Would Day 9 be Wet Weather

Pantone ®  16-5101

or Aqua Haze?

Pantone ®  15-5209

Alas, Patricia correctly predicted more wet weather. Here in the Baltimore 'burbs we had a fresh inch of snow this afternoon, which looks lovely and slippery this evening. The only Aqua Haze I've seen outside is my puffy blue winter jacket.

Here is Patricia's Wet Weather poem:

Wet weather lashes
mascara into cheeky
silt and salt puddles.

by Patricia VanAmburg, posted with permission

I don't know if Diane Mayr (Random Noodling) also knew we'd be getting snow today, but her Wet Weather poem suggests feathery snowflakes falling from the sky.

Since I was stuck inside today, I amused myself by looking at photographs of the tattoo I will never get. Here is a rough draft of a poem featuring Aqua Haze -- and a few other Pantone® Project colors past, present, and future.

Notes for a Tattoo
by Laura Shovan

Two koi might circle my ankle
in an Aqua Haze, one
Amberglow orange,
the other lunar white,
swimming opposite currents
of the same tendon river.

Or an asteroid belt
might ring my ring finger,
something discrete --
its Meteorites hidden, sparkling
beneath my wedding band.

A phrase in script,
deep Oxblood Red:
Mischief Managed,
or "Off with her head!"
Who would be curiouser
and curiouser enough
to read the words
scrolling round my wrist?

Or cheeky enough to find
the lightning bolt I've longed
to strike on the skin
of my left hip. Imagine
the Wet Weather -- raindrops
drizzling down my leg
until they reach that pool
of Aqua Haze, two koi
swimming lazy currents
up and down my ankle.

NOT my tattoo.
See waktattoos.com

I've been intrigued with the idea of a poem about the tattoo one does NOT have ever since I heard Mark Doty read his poem on the subject, "My Tattoo." Read the poem here.

We are all ready for some sunshine, and I won't let you down. The colors for Day 10 of the Pantone Poetry Project are:

Day 10: Amberglow

Pantone ®  16-1350

Day 10 Golden Glow

Pantone ®  15-1050

If you'd like to learn more about this project, or want to try writing with us, read my introduction to the 2014 Pantone Poetry Project. I hope to see you, and some golden skies, tomorrow.

Week 1 Wrap Up: 2014 Poetry Project

Hello, Pantone® Poets. I'm still working on a jazzy little ditty for today's color. Something about a pair of raspberry-tinted dancing shoes, perfect for dancing to:



All this month, we are writing in response to Pantone's dizzyingly extensive paint colors. You know the ones. Among the home improvement store's aisles of wood and metal, the paint cards glow like a double rainbow of writerly inspiration.

If you'd like to learn more about the project, read the introductory post. Then, check out the week one contributions (links at the bottom of this post).

Before I preview the colors for next week, let's give a big, Jazzy raspberry to Diane Mayr for her poem, "Odie's Dance Studio for Seniors." Diane managed (hysterically, wittily) to work in eleven of this week's fourteen "inspiration for writing" colors into her poem.

Odie's Dance Studio for Seniors
by Diane Mayr

Allo, Vera! You're just in time!
You missed the bronze god
who was here earlier.  He wore
a little demi-tassle. Lord, it
nearly made my eyes pop
out of my skull! That jazzy
combo of 70-year-old
skin and silk would have
made you positively
green with desire. It did me!

(Put your handbag away!
You can pay Odie later, Vera.)

Oh Lordy, Sugar, you
gotta learn to corral your
passion for purple!
Are you having illusions?
Purple reins, lilac pasties,
and a amethyst boa, with
violet hush puppies?
A MONUMENTAL mistake!
Next time, add a little apricot.
It'll make the whole outfit pop!

(Oh, here's Odie, now!
Quick, Vera, get in line!)

Posted with permission of the author.

Line 1: Aloe
Line 2: Bronze Mist
Line 4: Demitasse
Line 6: Jazzy
Line 10: Kombu Green
Line 12: Peyote
Lines 13-14: Sugar Coral
Line 17: Purple Reign
Line 19: Hushed Violet
Line 20: Monument
Lines 16 & 21: Apricot Illusion

Inspired to put on some dancing shoes,
throw on your own "amethyst boa" and
head out for a colorful night on the town?
Find this Jazzy little number at Etsy.

I finally grabbed some time to try on those Jazzy dancing shoes. Right now, I am listening to Libba Bray's novel The Diviners in the car. I usually prefer Bray's satirical novels (Going Bovine, Beauty Queens) to her paranormal work. But I'm all wrapped up in the flapper culture of The Diviners -- a YA paranormal mystery set in 1920s Manhattan.

My two favorite characters are modern girls, bobbed hair and all, Evie O'Neal and Ziegfeld Girl Theta Knight. For this poem, I imagined these two teens peering longingly into a shop window.

Jazzy
by Laura Shovan

Give me brand new shoes
in a jazzy  hue --
raspberry leather
with a peacock feather
to grace the sleek toes,
and wherever I go
my steps will be light
as a bird in its flight.

Ziegfield Girl Geneva Mitchell, 1921

I invite you to write with us in the upcoming week. Leave your poem or written response to a color in the comments and I will -- with your permission -- include it in a post.

Here are the colors for the next week:

Day 8 (Saturday): Peach Pearl, Meteorite

Day 9 (Sunday): Wet Weather, Aqua Haze

Day 10 (Monday): Amberglow, Golden Glow

Day 11 (Tuesday): Tarmac

Day 12 (Wednesday): Green Milieu, Whisper Pink, Turbulence

Day 13 (Thursday): Burnt Russet, Paprika

Day 14 (Friday): Oxblood Red

Day 10: Amberglow
Pantone ®  16-1350

Day 12: Green Milieu
Pantone ®  16-5806

Day 9: Aqua Haze
Pantone ®  15-5209

I hope your weekend is more Aqua Haze than Wet Weather!

Have a Jazzy Poetry Friday, Sugar

Writerly Friends, not only is it Poetry Friday, but it is also Day (6 and) 7 of Author Amok's 2014 Poetry Project.

Hooray! Renee is hosting today!
Stop by No Water River for a list
of this week's Poetry Friday posts.

Last year, I spent February writing in response to vintage postcards. This year, my poetry prompt is paint colors. All this week, fellow poets have joined me, writing in response to the Pantone®  color(s) of the day.

Visit this post for a full description of the project, including sample writing prompts and instructions on how to share your colorful responses.

Officially, today's color is Jazzy. This is a color with BIG personality, well-suited for my brother's birthday celebration.

But I missed a day in there somewhere, so you might also write in response to the Day 6 colors, Kombu Green and Sugar Coral.

Day 6: Kombu Green
Pantone ®  19-0417

Day 6: Sugar Coral
Pantone ®  16-1640

I was stuck on these two colors at first. My notes are like this:

Christmas Cactus
Sugar sculpture of fish and coral crashing
Papaya?
MOSS
Pink Ladies, Cape May

And then, a very Sugar Coral memory bubbled up from a long ago trip to Hawaii. I was really surprised where this poem took me.

Guavas

by Laura Shovan

We came upon them in the wild.

I was all like, “Eat of the fruit.”

And he knew me, this new husband,

and would not eat. We sat on rocks

near a stream and I bit into the fruit,

its innards sugar coral, its seeds

in jellied pouches, like reptile eggs.

“See?” I said. “It’s good. It’s fine.”

But still he would not eat.

The trees were dark as seaweed,

kombu green. We were oceans

away from home, married two days,

maybe three. I pulled off my clothes

and slipped into the water,

which had come down

from the tip of a volcano.

I was all like, “It’s fine.

A little cold. Come in.”

I may have splashed him, playfully.

He sat on the rocks, my husband,

thinking he could still refuse,

thinking he could change the story.

Poet Patricia VanAmburg's amorous couple was inspired by the same color (Sugar Coral), but has a few less issues than the newlyweds in my poem.

Sweet Tarts

by Patricia VanAmburg

Pinky called Coral Sugar

Because she was his dish

Coral called Pinky Sugar when

Ever he granted her wish

Pinky and Coral spooning

Under a sugary moon

Their rendezvous ballooning

Into the late afternoon

Tabatha Yeatts (The Opposite of Indifference) has this meditation on one of today's colors as a symbol of writer's block.

Writer's block is kombu green,
or maybe white, or in between,
with a dash of crumple
wadded up in a bin,
and just enough room
for your brain to get in.

by Tabatha Yeatts, posted with permission.

Ready to be inspired by color? Leave your poem in the comments. I will update this post throughout the day.

Reluctant to dive in? Read some of this week's colorful poems:

Day 1: Apricot Illusion

Day 2: Peyote, Dark Earth, Cosmic Sky

Day 3: Purple Reign, Monument

Day 4: Hushed Violet, Demitasse

Day 5: Aloe, Bronze Mist, Zinc (Featuring Margaret Simon's poem "Annunciation" from her beautiful book Illuminate.)

Later today, I will post the amazing Diane (Random Noodling) Mayr's poem using ALL of this week's colors. It's a little risque, so you may want to come back when the kiddos aren't around. (That way, no one will ask why you're laughing hysterically. And you won't have to explain about the tassels.)

Along with Diane's poem, I'll post a list of next week's colors. Put your Jazzy dancing shoes on, and I'll see you later.

Up next...

Day 8: Peach Pearl
Pantone ®  14-1419

Day 8: MeteoritePantone ®  19-4008