Prompts

 Yo-Yo Ma . . . Prompt #389

Today’s writing prompt is a poem. You can write on the theme or mood of the poem, a stanza, a line, or a word to inspire your writing. Just Write! Yo-Yo Ma by Donna Emerson He played twenty years ago at Tanglewood. We sat in the first row, still as the moment after rain. Air full of ozone under an enormous white tent for his perfect baroque bowing, for his move into the music, his calm, restrained stroke.   People stood in the aisles. Yo-Yo’s strong bow arm reached front, his body tilted back. His face, shoulders, then body transformed into his cello and song.   His excited strumming. Plucking like a mad man. His confident leaning, his fond embrace of his old cello. We stopped breathing in the piano parts, our breaths pure when they burst out during the double fortissimo.   Fully felt notes. Deep bells on tops…

Prompts

A Letter to My Sister During Drought . . . Prompt #388

Today’s writing prompt is a poem. You can write on the theme or mood of the poem, a stanza, a line, or a word to inspire your writing. Just Write!   A Letter to My Sister During Drought by Donna Emerson In this fourth year of drought, California trees begin to fall. Orchards of almonds lie on their sides near Fresno. Rows of apricot trees black, bent.   Remember when we listened to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons? Only one season here: red summer hum. Our cedars shrivel. We are ankle-deep in flat brown leaves.   Even my wrists are wrinkled. I’ve heard about your illnesses, which you said your guru would protect, though he died five years ago.   It’s been fifteen years since Dad’s memorial, twenty since mother’s, when you changed your name, wrote your last letter “releasing me from your life.”   I know you can’t see the water…

Just Write

Pretty Owl Poetry

  Pretty Owl Poetry is an online quarterly journal publishing new, emerging, and established writers in poetry, flash fiction, and the visual arts. POP accepts experimental and traditional forms, and flash fiction masquerading as poetry, all with a lyrical quality. Submission Guidelines.

Guest Bloggers

Writing About Difficult Times In Your Life

Guest Blogger Nancy Julien Kopp writes about a topic I am passionate about: Healing through writing. WRITING ABOUT DIFFICULT TIMES IN YOUR LIFE When life hands us situations that hurt, we sometimes want to push it away, hide it in a closet. It’s too hard to bring it forth and try to deal with the misfortune. There are so many events in our life that create deep wounds and leave scars—the death of a spouse, losing a child, being in a terrible accident, losing a home to fire or a tornado, a difficult romance and break-up. The list could go on and on. I believe that writing about whatever happened has benefits. It is cathartic for the writer and can be a help to readers who have gone through a similar situation. You’re a double winner if you aid both yourself and those readers who have been through something difficult….

Book Reviews

Fog Valley Winter by Frances Rivetti

Sometimes a book is so good, it needs to be shared: Fog Valley Winter by Frances Rivetti is exquisitely written and to be savored. This “Farmstead Fireside Companion” is, indeed, a comfort read. Frances has an amazing ability to turn research fact into a delightful work of art. I highly recommend Fog Valley Winter and look forward to reading future books by Frances Rivetti.