I was walking past someone who was standing and looking at a presentation. Still looking over his shoulder, he started to walk and almost bumped into me. (I put my hand up, kindly and defensively.)

Has this happened to you?

Is it my imagination, or is it happening more and more—people walking along without looking where they’re going?

I blame it on cell phones. We’ve become accustomed to sending our attention elsewhere.

And yes, I’ve been guilty of this, too, so every new encounter serves as a reminder to me.

Enough with the rant—how is this about writing?

It’s about being observant—but it’s also about intention. When you look where you’re going to go, that sends a signal to the people around you (oh, she’s probably going to move in that direction). It communicates your intention.

Writing benefits from intention. You don’t need to tell everything at once or spoon-feed the reader. And in those first drafts, you don’t have to know where you’re going. I’ve heard that it’s better not to know—and I believe it. But by the time you get to the final version, you need to know where the writing’s heading, every twist and turn, each surprise leap—the where and the why. That will help you figure out what you can and want to leave out, what you need to keep. I think intention can help provide that spine Dean Young spoke of and hold all your wildest imagery together.

What do you think about intention? How do you hold your poems together?

Have a safe weekend. Look both ways, and then look where you’re going.

like fireflies, radiation stars

I went with the prompt to write an ekphrastic poem. I’m going to wait on the cento-style poem–maybe until the end of the month or longer, to see whether different lines resonate more with me, to see what’s changed.

30 first lines and one last

In other years, I’ve listed titles–but because we were working with sequences, I have only six (and my favorite one’s going to have to change–darn.)

So this year, I’ll post the first lines, and the last line of the month.

The cloud as news drifts invisible

The dread cloud floating across the earth

Half your life going on, and how does it sound,

The front door says my name

Body hostage to such subatomic mysteries

Like balloons, light and ready to pop, your fears

The earth like a bear turning in her sleep holds her elements close,

After the fire’s out at the core and hope for return extinguished–

Power down, and water fills in. Call it solid,

The sea shoulders in, cuts off the pumps, the cooling water.

If weeds can burst and flourish here

On a peopled street, the world in petal light

That sky came from somewhere you knew,

One robin chiding from the pine

Find at home this shadow–familiar,

Enough to trust my voice,

Hands build a new nest, their backs marked

The shape of a cup or a tower–her eyes fly away

that frantic afternoon, the minutes in their own mysteries,

Look in one gone window to see

I pictured one tumbler by the sink, rinsed

For now the windows hold

You follow like a fish the strong pull home,

Follow the headlines to Mesopotamia,

Soot shapes chasing you till morning–

It doesn’t really matter that she cries

Tell us what they mean

Next to emptiness, that hollow waits for a god,

Nine hundred kinds of sadness

Clouds roil in like storm surf

Night seeps up from the depths.

The writing events

What did you choose to write about?

For my first event, I wrote about Chernobyl. For the second event, I wrote about Fukushima. In the third, I tried to connect them.

What I wasn’t able to fit in (yet): Stalker, Godzilla.

What’s next

First, I need to set these aside for at least a month or two–give them time to percolate and give myself a chance to catch up on laundry and housecleaning and family time.

Then, I want to dive much more deeply into research. For me, writing about an event turned out to be a lot more like investigative journalism–of which I have no experience. I need to learn a lot more about Ukrainian (and Soviet) and Japanese culture. And then there are all the facts, which are either slim or slippery or both–especially on the Internet. I also think that–even after all this–I haven’t connected with the real reason this has haunted me. I can tell you about it, but I don’t think I found the right experience in my own past. So that will be some personal research.

And, writing out these first lines–alone, without context–I can see that I really want to tense some of them up. (I really wanted to use “tension” as a verb there.)

How about you? What did you learn in NaPoWriMo this year?

What are your plans for May?

• Write another ekphrastic poem.
• Create a poem made up of lines from your other poems. Like a cento, but drawing from your own writing this month. You can use first lines or last lines or your favorite lines throughout the month, or whatever line in a poem fits. Play with the order. Enjoy.

I hope you’ve had a fun poetry month. And many thanks to Mary, who has hung in here with me and shared such wonderful lines.

Favorite line

My favorite line from yesterday’s poem:

that tug toward your past and the weight of other

What was your favorite line from the poem you wrote yesterday?

For today, write a prediction. Write it in the future tense (writing in the future tense always lends a kind of seer tone to the voice, a prognostication).

Favorite line

My favorite line from yesterday’s poem:

nine hundred kinds of sadness and no hope.

(Clearly I need a prediction–something positive!)

What was your favorite line from yesterday’s poem?

Write a poem that weaves the myth into the reported and explore the connections.

Favorite line

My favorite line from yesterday’s poem? I’m going to cheat and give you two:

wind laves another world. Cleanliness
next to emptiness, that hollow waits for a god.

What was your favorite line from the poem you wrote yesterday. Share it in the comments.