By Toni Partington
In my last column I wrote about the integration of
roles. The concepts of integrating your role as a poet with other life roles. I
suggested that compartmentalizing your life may keep you from tapping into the
poetry juice that’s all around you. The key to integration is to see ourselves
as a mix of roles, characteristics, and talents and to allow these to live
together instead of segmenting them to proper place and time.
When I speak about blending the elements of my
life I’m literally considering how the various aspects of life, relationships,
work, play, and interests inform my writing. The application of blending in the
craft of writing starts by manifesting experiences into words, phrases, lines,
and ultimately, whole poems.
A sure way to see this materialize is to do a free
writing exercise. Start with blank paper. Describe what you were thinking or
doing today, before you started to write. Then, work backwards, what happened
before that, where were you, who was there, what did you say? Continue on, be
specific and detailed.
What were your surroundings, how did they look,
smell, feel? What about right before that? Write until you feel a natural
stopping place. Read it once to yourself and a second time out loud. Now, go
back and circle words, lines, phrases, or make notes in the margins. You’ve
written about what you know and now have words that can be shaped into
something else.
I have several themes in this free writing that
can lead to at least one poem. I can expand, embellish, remove, twist, or keep
it straightforward. I can play with tenses, create sensory cues, make it about
nature, love, or family. I can break a sentence into parts – shape lines, omit
extras. This short piece draws from the images of a single morning.
Imagine yourself blending the elements of everyday life. Don’t be shy about exploring where these elements may take you.
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Toni Partington lives and works in Vancouver, WA. Her poetry has appeared in the NW Women’s Journal, the Anthology of the River Poets’ Society, VoiceCatcher 3, the Cascade Journal, and others. Toni’s other work includes career/life coaching, editing services for new and emerging writers, and grant writing. This winter she joined the editorial collective for VoiceCatcher 4. She holds a BA in Social Work and an MA focused on Literature and Literary Editing. Before that, Toni was a high-school drop out, pregnant and then married at age 16 whose life came faster than it should have and toughened her into a self-described survivor. Today, her circle includes family, friends, dogs and poets, not in any particular order.
Blog: www.poettone.blogspot.com
Email: tpartington@earthlink.net
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