Writing Poetry for Everyday Life &break;&break;"Poetry is just the evidence of life," says Leonard Cohen. "If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash." &break;&break;You don't need an advanced degree to reap the rewards of a rich poetic life–writing poetry is within the reach of everyone. Poet Sage Cohen invites you to slow down to the rhythms of your creative process and savor poetry by: &break;&break; Offering explorations of the poetic life and craft &break; Inspiring a feeling of play instead of laborious study&break; Weaving together lessons in content, form, and process to provide a fun and engaging experience&break; Inviting you to add poetry to your creative repertoire &break;&break;Writing the Life Poetic is the inspirational companion you've been looking for to help you build confidence in your poetic voice. It takes poetry from its academic pedestal and puts it back into the hands of the people. &break;&break;Join the conversation with other poets at: www.writingthelifepoetic.typepad.com.
Whether or not you are a poetry lover, you will be so glad you found this book. Its liberating. Louise Hay, the New York Times best-selling author of You Can Heal Your Life I love Nancys poetry. Her words convey urgent messages from the Soul. Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of Excuses Begone "Sit back, let these words flow through you, and feel the magic of healing and aliveness contained in the pages of this book." Cheryl Richardson, the New York Times best-selling author of Take Time for Your Life Inside this book you will find the poems that became the steppingstones along my path of love, loss, grief, searching, awakening, freedom, becoming whole, and owning my voice. I offer these poems to you with the hope that they serve as an inspiration and invitation.
Take Control of Your Writing Life! The creative process can be treacherous, even for the most experienced writer. Facing the blank page, staying inspired, sustaining momentum, managing competing priorities and coping with rejection are just a few of the challenges writers face regularly. The Productive Writer is your guide to learning the systems, strategies and psychology that can help you transform possibilities into probabilities in your writing life. You'll sharpen your productivity pencil by learning how to: • Set clear goals—and achieve them • Create a writing schedule that really works • Discover what keeps you writing, revising, and submitting • Carve out writing time amidst the demands of work and family • Weed out habits and attitudes that are not serving you • Organize your thinking, workspace, papers and files • Increase your odds of publication and prosperity • Use social media to build an author platform • Get comfortable going public and promoting your writing • Create a sustainable writing rhythm and lifestyle • Accomplish what matters most to you Create the writing life you most desire. The Productive Writer will help take you there.
A beautifully illustrated book from Cleo Wade—the artist, poet, and speaker who has been called “the Millennial Oprah” by New York Magazine—that offers creative inspiration and life lessons through poetry, mantras, and affirmations, perfect for fans of the bestseller Milk & Honey. True to her hugely popular Instagram account, Cleo Wade brings her moving life lessons to Heart Talk, an inspiring, accessible, and spiritual book of wisdom for the new generation. Featuring over one hundred and twenty of Cleo’s original poems, mantras, and affirmations, including fan favorites and never before seen ones, this book is a daily pep talk to keep you feeling empowered and motivated. With relatable, practical, and digestible advice, including “Hearts break. That’s how the magic gets in,” and “Baby, you are the strongest flower that ever grew, remember that when the weather changes,” this is a portable, replenishing pause for your daily life. Keep Heart Talk by your bedside table or in your bag for an empowering boost of spiritual adrenaline that can help you discover and unlock what is blocking you from thriving emotionally and spiritually.
Praise for Saeed Jones: "Jones is the kind of writer who's more than wanted: he's desperately needed."—FlavorWire "I get shout-happy when I read these poems; they are the gospel; they are the good news of the sustaining power of imagination, tenderness, and outright joy."—D. A. Powell "Prelude to Bruise works its tempestuous mojo just under the skin, wreaking a sweet havoc and rearranging the pulse. These poems don't dole out mercy. Mr. Jones undoubtedly dipped his pen in fierce before crafting these stanzas that rock like backslap. Straighten your skirt, children. The doors of the church are open."—Patricia Smith "It's a big book, a major book. A game-changer. Dazzling, brutal, real. Not just brilliant, caustic, and impassioned but a work that brings history—in which the personal and political are inter-constitutive—to the immediate moment. Jones takes a reader deep into lived experience, into a charged world divided among unstable yet entrenched lines: racial, gendered, political, sexual, familial. Here we absorb each quiet resistance, each whoop of joy, a knowledge of violence and of desire, an unbearable ache/loss/yearning. This is not just a "new voice" but a new song, a new way of singing, a new music made of deep grief's wildfire, of burning intelligence and of all-feeling heart, scorched and seared. In a poem, Jones says, "Boy's body is a song only he can hear." But now that we have this book, we can all hear it. And it's unforgettable."—Brenda Shaughnessy "Inside each hunger, each desire, speaks the voice of a boy that admits "I've always wanted to be dangerous." This is not a threat but a promise to break away from the affliction of silence, to make audible the stories that trouble the dimensions of masculinity and discomfort the polite conversations about race. With impressive grace, Saeed Jones situates the queer black body at the center, where his visibility and vulnerability nurture emotional strength and the irrepressible energy to claim those spaces that were once denied or withheld from him. Prelude to a Bruise is a daring debut."—Rigoberto González From "Sleeping Arrangement": Take your hand out from under my pillow. And take your sheets with you. Drag them under. Make pretend ghosts. I can't have you rattling the bed springs so keep still, keep quiet. Mistake yourself for shadows. Learn the lullabies of lint. Saeed Jones works as the editor of BuzzfeedLGBT.
Longing itself is nothing but the heart s open spaces, writes Mari L Esperance. And in the open spaces at the heart of these poems is a mother who has disappeared. In a world of war and displacement, illness of the mind and body, imprisonment and violence both historical and personal, the poet leads her readers through a landscape of loss. In unadorned language, she draws readers into the interplay between articulation and silence and finally offers a vision of redemption.
Following the success of several recent inspirational and practical books for would-be writers, Poemcrazy is a perfect guide for everyone who ever wanted to write a poem but was afraid to try. Writing workshop leader Susan Wooldridge shows how to think, use one's senses, and practice exercises that will make poems more likely to happen.
Mark Doty's prose has been hailed as "tempered and tough, sorrowing and serene" (The New York Times Book Review) and "achingly beautiful" (The Boston Globe). In Still Life with Oysters and Lemon he offers a stunning exploration of our attachment to ordinary things-how we invest objects with human store, and why.
“Join Heller on her quest to help save the world, one poet at a time.” — from the foreword by Susan G. Wooldridge Write a Poem, Save Your Life helps writers of all ages and experience levels navigate their way through all aspects of life. With writing prompts, tools, encouragement, and moving student examples, Meredith Heller gently guides us in the art of using poetry to figure out who we are and what matters to us and to heal the deeper issues many of us face, such as depression, addiction, health and body image issues, low self-esteem, trauma, gender and sexual identity issues, and home and family problems. Along the way, we learn that writing poems helps us believe in ourselves, make positive life choices, and find direction, purpose, and meaning.