Dragonfly's Poetry & Prolixity: Write Now

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Write Now

I wrote my first poem at age 14 with a cartridge pen. It was a love poem and the start of a lifelong love affair with ink pens and poetry. I wrote for 20 years with Schaefer Cartridge Pens (still available at Hobby Lobby). They're the pens on the right. My best poems were written with the red one in blue ink. Then I discovered German made Pelikan Fountain Pens. (On the left.) They're the best pen I've ever used. The green Pelikan pen is a wide nib highlighter. I highlight in advance reader copies of books that I get from Amazon and authors to review. It's a blast to use. I'm glad I saved and splurged on the Pelikan pens. I plan to pass them down to my grandchildren.

There's also my little pink Japanese Tasche cartridge pen...It writes sweet Haiku. xo

"You can't write poetry on the computer." ~Quentin Tarantino

When dragonflies leave

At autumn's first appearance---

Butterflies appear! ~Marion

3 comments:

Kelly said...: I loved cartridge pens when I was a teenager, too! I still have one somewhere around here, but I'm actually more of a pencil person. :) I like "real" pencils AND mechanical ones, my favorite being the drafting pencil I used all through college. I still use it to work the crossword, cryptoquote, and Sudoku each morning.; October 16, 2015 at 9:57 AM
Maude Lynn said...: I love that Tarantino quote. For me, it's true. I have to write my poems in longhand first.; October 16, 2015 at 10:59 AM
Marion said...: Kelly, I love mechanical pencils with dark lead for numbers and drawing. The bookkeeper in me hated sharpening pencils so much. LOL! xo

MZ, I love that you write in longhand. It's a dying art. My 3rd grade grandson uses an IPad at his school!!! He knows more about computers than I do. :-) xo; October 16, 2015 at 1:04 PM

I Love Lorrie Moore!!

“You’re not a poetess, I hope,” said the English geologist next to her. “We had a poetess here last month, and things got a bit dodgy here for the rest of us.”

“Really.” After the soup, there was risotto with squid ink.

“Yes. She kept referring to insects as ‘God’s typos’ and then she kept us all after dinner one evening so she could read from her poems, which seemed to consist primarily of the repeating line ‘the hairy kiwi of his balls.’”

From: “Birds of America” by Lorrie Moore, page 266, ‘Terrific Mother’

Miranda July's Best Book:

"Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise." From: "No One Belongs Here More Than You Stories by Miranda July", Page 11

A Dreamy, Drug of a Book

"The minute you land in New Orleans, something wet and dark leaps on you and starts humping you like a swamp dog in heat, and the only way to get that aspect of New Orleans off you is to eat it off. That means beignets and crayfish bisque and jambalaya, it means shrimp remoulade, pecan pie and red beans with rice, it means elegant pompano au papillote, funky file z'herbes, and raw oysters by the dozen, it means grillades for breakfast, a po' boy with chowchow at bedtime, and tubs of gumbo in between. It is not unusual for a visitor to the city to gain fifteen pounds in a week---yet the alternative is a whole lot worse. If you don't eat night and day, if you don't constantly funnel the indigenous flavors into your bloodstream, then the mystery beast will go right on humping you, and you will feel its sordid presence rubbing against you long after you have left town." ~Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume", page 240