Hello, everyone.
Peter Bland was born in 1934 in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. He lives in New Zealand, where he writes poetry and acts.
Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco, California. She teaches creative writing at New York University.
One theme we can identify from the first poetic text is beginnings. Write about the start of something, how it commences.
A theme from the second poetic text is coming of age. A woman who has reached adulthood sleeps in her childhood room.
You could write about becoming an adult.
The structure of the first poetic text is in short lines. You could attempt to limit your lines to only a few words each.
The structure of the second poetic text features the first-person 'I' voice. You could write using the pronoun 'I'.
Six words to attempt to incorporate into your writing from Bland: breathe, invent, leave, imagine, other, ancient.
Six words from Olds: hug, object, second, slow, wild, corrected.
If you have a copy of The Exercise Book (Manhire, Duncum, Price & Wilkins), turn to "#76: Easy As ABC" for an additional challenge.
That's all. I hope you are inspired to write today.
First things first
by Peter Bland
eyes open, breathe in, you’re
here again, with the sun
booming down and cicadas
stirring. Be still. Don’t
invent what doesn’t
need to be done. You’ve
lived too much of your life
in blind panic. It’s time
to leave that to massed ants
on the porch, or bees
going mad among
ripe daffodils. What
a blessing it is
to always be given
as much life as one
can imagine! But who
imagined this? OK,
so you’re only passing through
but what a wonderful
sense of occasion
repeating itself
day after day
because it knows
no other way, and this
is how it is among
massed ants and crazy bees
and a selfish heart
trying to take it all in
with an ancient, ignorant,
desperate yearning.
First Thanksgiving
by Sharon Olds
When she comes back, from college, I will see
the skin of her upper arms, cool,
matte, glossy. She will hug me, my old
soupy chest against her breasts,
I will smell her hair! She will sleep in this apartment,
her sleep like an untamed, good object,
like a soul in a body. She came into my life the
second great arrival, after him, fresh
from the other world—which lay, from within him,
within me. Those nights, I fed her to sleep,
week after week, the moon rising,
and setting, and waxing—whirling, over the months,
in a slow blur, around our planet.
Now she doesn’t need love like that, she has
had it. She will walk in glowing, we will talk,
and then, when she’s fast asleep, I’ll exult
to have her in that room again,
behind that door! As a child, I caught
bees, by the wings, and held them, some seconds,
looked into their wild faces,
listened to them sing, then tossed them back
into the air—I remember the moment the
arc of my toss swerved, and they entered
the corrected curve of their departure.