Most of my published writing is my body of twenty (so far!) middle grade and young adult novels of mystery, suspense, ghosts, and time travel. I've had some essays and articles published in magazines over the years . . . but I've never really tried poetry. Until just a couple weeks ago! I've been teaching a First Year Writing course to my college students this semester in a departure from Creative Writing, and I thought that along with trying their hand at research papers, persuasive writing and narrative essays, we would try poetry. I had them pick one of their earlier assignments for the course and turn it into both a series of Haiku AND a Shakespearean sonnet. Astonishing results! (Imagine a sonnet about Blockchain...and Haiku about public art installations...). I wrote right along with them, and enjoyed the challenge. So much fun!
Visions from an airplane have always fascinated me, especially at night. That's when the imagination flies just as high as the place. Who's living at that solitary light in the desert?
As for writing poetry, when I was think of writing novels (managed to finish five), the weight of all those words and characters overwhelmed me. So I put the essence of the story into poems. It was fun and relieved me of the onus of filling up paper to express a simple idea. Since writing for Substack, my poems have become so verbose, I actually turn some of them into vignettes or short-shorts. I guess there's a format to accommodate any idea that comes along.
You have a gift of shaping words into a glorious, soulful dreamscape, Tonya. Take a bow! Anything you write I want to read ~ I love that you are picking up the poetic frontier with something you wrote in the past. That's beautiful.
Most of my published writing is my body of twenty (so far!) middle grade and young adult novels of mystery, suspense, ghosts, and time travel. I've had some essays and articles published in magazines over the years . . . but I've never really tried poetry. Until just a couple weeks ago! I've been teaching a First Year Writing course to my college students this semester in a departure from Creative Writing, and I thought that along with trying their hand at research papers, persuasive writing and narrative essays, we would try poetry. I had them pick one of their earlier assignments for the course and turn it into both a series of Haiku AND a Shakespearean sonnet. Astonishing results! (Imagine a sonnet about Blockchain...and Haiku about public art installations...). I wrote right along with them, and enjoyed the challenge. So much fun!
Your poem is beautiful and moving. Especially "You are a point of light."
Visions from an airplane have always fascinated me, especially at night. That's when the imagination flies just as high as the place. Who's living at that solitary light in the desert?
As for writing poetry, when I was think of writing novels (managed to finish five), the weight of all those words and characters overwhelmed me. So I put the essence of the story into poems. It was fun and relieved me of the onus of filling up paper to express a simple idea. Since writing for Substack, my poems have become so verbose, I actually turn some of them into vignettes or short-shorts. I guess there's a format to accommodate any idea that comes along.
lovely, Tonya
Damn. This is easy to love.
The poem reminds me of a quiet little Amy Rigby love song, “Sleeping with the Moon,” though the poem does a great deal more than the song.
As Damon said, this poem is easy to love. Loss and all the places it takes you. Thank you.
If only all humanity could be viewed as points of light? But I'm a dreamer.
You have a gift of shaping words into a glorious, soulful dreamscape, Tonya. Take a bow! Anything you write I want to read ~ I love that you are picking up the poetic frontier with something you wrote in the past. That's beautiful.