The Poet's Log / James Navé -

I Saw a Ghost: The Brown Mountain Lights

Posted on February 26, 2012 by imaginativestorm

No moon guided the way to the edge of Linville Gorge that night about ten years ago when I decided to go see the Brown Mountain Lights. From the gorge far below, the river echo inside the calls of tree frogs.

A mile across the gorge, few flashes, like oversized lightening bug floated on the slopes that rose and curved across the star peppered sky.

The wind picked up. A group of tourists not to far away laughed and shouted happy to be on the edge of the gorge. An hour passed.

Then without a sound, the ridge line across the gorge shimmered like fluorescent fur on a fox’s back. The light increased until the whole ridge glowed for miles. The saddle of the ridge swelled and boiled until a magnificent pulsating orb rose like a helium moon on fire spitting and dripping and throbbing. It floated in the sky for a good three minutes. And just a fast as it rose, it sank back down and the gorge went black again.

As I stood there watching the stars settle back over the ridge and felt the cool air on my warm skin, I wondered, had a large orb the size of the moon just appeared over the ridge, hung in the sky, then sunk back into the mountains like something that had never happened? You tell me . . .

Creativity is a DNA Imperative: Free NYC Artist’s Way Class

Posted on February 9, 2012 by imaginativestorm

Greetings from Union Street in Brooklyn. Spring is coming soon. Until then, here’s an interesting idea to ponder:

Creativity is a DNA imperative. It is impossible for us to not be creative. We make things by nature.

What do you think? True or False?

I’ll be exploring this idea and more in my free Artist’s Way class at the NY Open Center on Tuesday night February 21, 2012 from 7:30-9:00. Register here.

On the following Tuesday, February 28, I’ll begin teaching a six week Artist’s Way course which will take us into springtime and bannana split territory. Affordable? Yes. Register here.

Please share this with your NY friends: The Artist’s Way: NY Open Center.

Thanks a million for your help

Perform Naked: You can do it with your clothes on.

Posted on February 2, 2012 by imaginativestorm

A couple of days ago, I was standing on the subway platform at Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn. The electronic sign above the tracks announced the train’s arrival in two minutes.

Since, I’d been thinking that performing naked made the difference between an exciting public reading/presentation and a boring one, I decided to synchronize the recording of my thoughts with the arrival of the train.

I stood close to the edge of the platform. Watch what happened: “Perform Naked!”

Join me for my upcoming Imaginative Storm Increase Your Creativity Writing Workshop via Telephone Wednesday evenings February 8, 15, 22. 7:00pm – 8:30pm EST. Register here.

Snowbound in Mosier, OR

Posted on January 27, 2012 by imaginativestorm

I’ve been visiting Arlene Burns in snowbound Mosier, OR for the past week. Last night after supper, Arlene asked me to read some of my revised work, “Looking At Light, 100 Poems in 100 Days.”

We settled in front of her wood stove. I asked her to make comments. I began with poem # 20 JUST PAST KATE’S HOUSE.

“This morning at 9:45 am, Scott Donaldson, my surgeon, clipped the nickel staples from my belly. He left a small raw wound the size of an iris at the bottom of the scar. I will keep it clean.”

Arlene stopped me on the third sentence. “When you say ‘Iris at the bottom of the scar,’ do you mean you had a flower at the bottom?” I explained that I’d meant the iris of an eye. “Then why don’t you say ‘eye’ instead of ‘iris?’”

She was right, “eye” was more accurate than “iris.” An eye is soft, wet and vulnerable, just like my wound, which was indeed the size of an eye. So out went the “iris” and in went the “eye.”

The current version follows. If you’d like to read the original version first, it’s on my blog: http://www.jamesnave.com/?p=881

JUST PAST KATE’S HOUSE, April 20 100/20

This morning at 9:45 am, Scott Donaldson, my surgeon, clipped the nickel staples from my belly. He left a small raw wound the size of an eye at the bottom of the scar. I will keep it clean.

Now my healing will be unseen like the Leprechauns that dart across the bogs of Connemara. The Sky Road is a good place for Leprechauns. So too are the rocks overturned along shore just past Kate’s house where wild ponies gaze at fluttering grass and moss covered gates bang to the rhythm of rain, old boats, and sea songs.

Do Leprechauns laugh when we sing off key?

===========================

Feel free to send me your thoughts on how you revise.

Join me for my upcoming Imaginative Storm Writing Telephone workshop which I’ll be teaching 3 Wednesday evenings, February 8, 15, 22. 7:00pm – 8:30pm EST, http://www.increaseyourcreativity.com/.

On the same page, watch my six minute video on The Imaginative Storm creativity process, http://www.increaseyourcreativity.com/.

Happy Trails.

Why Write Poetry?

Posted on January 12, 2012 by imaginativestorm

Why write poetry? Because we all gravitate towards the beautiful, the romantic, the lyrical. Why say, “ I stood at the crossroad and didn’t know which way to go,” when you can say, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler?” Why say, “I’m so into you” when you can say, “I’ve got you under my skin. I’ve got you deep in the heart of me?”

You write poetry because it’s inside your imagination, your blood, and your soul. Poetry stretches back to the oldest records of language. Even modern poems contain echos of grunts, howls, and growls that quicken your pulse.

Grunts, howls, and growls may not come to mind whey you think of poetry. You might possess a more formal construct, like the one that your professor, who wore the same shoes everyday, imposed on you when he made you write essay after essay on exactly “what the poet meant.”
Fortunately, this approach is becoming less and less common, thanks to the storytellers, the spoken word artists, and the risky poets who experiment with language in ways that seem old and new at the same time.

Anyone can learn to write poetry–it’s simply a matter of getting your rear end in a chair and practicing the craft with determination, a commitment to dive in, and the willingness to take risks. It requires dancing with your words until they make you sing, or weep, or both. This is how you become a poet.