Motivation Mondays: Prompts and a One-Person Writing Retreat

Hi loves! How is your 30/30 going? You can follow my poem-a-day shenanigans here . I would love to read yours, too.

Here are some prompts if you need them! If you want to suggest prompts or just say hi, you can write to me here: serotoninfactory@gmail.com.

The first two prompts are from John Beck,whose Friday Love Poem we can look forward to on May 13. John says:

“1. Pick a rhyming poem form (sonnet, sestina, etc) - select your rhyming words semi-randomly, then make it work. Don't worry about meaning, just rhythm and rhyme.

2. Write in response to a favorite (or least favorite) poem or song.”

3. Go over to Radius and find out how to write a made-up (but still magic) horoscope. (Also it’s a great place to submit political poems and other things!)

4. This is the one I’m writing for today, courtesy of my poems’ soulmate, Cristen O’Keefe Aptowicz.  

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So last weekend, one of my favorite pals was having the blues. I couldn’t do much about it, but I suggested something that almost ALWAYS makes me feel better when I’m all complicated/overwhelmed/lonely: a one-person writer’s retreat:

1. Set aside 4-5 hours—as much time as you can, but usually an afternoon will do it.
   
2. Turn off your phone and computer and don’t turn them on again until you feel better.
   
3. Get a stack of poetry out of the library or just catch up on the ones you have around the house.
   
4. Read, dawdle, write, draw, generally just do whatever you want. Sometimes I like to de-clutter on these sorts of days, but maybe that’s just my own kind of fun.
   
5. But no poetry chores, like submitting or writing cover letters or anything. those things usually cheer me up too, but for now, it’s just about listening to yourself and filling the proverbial well.
   
6. If something bores you, put it down and find something more fun.

You’ll feel refreshed and less lonely, and maybe you’ll even have some new poems.

Motivation Mondays: Jealousy is a Map

Then there’s more TV and writing, plus looking up old boyfriends on the internet, or looking up writer friends and begrudging them their successes (also on the internet).

-Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

(You can go here to read the whole poem.)

The first time I heard that line, it was such a RELIEF. I was always worried that I was the only one feeling a disloyal stab whenever one of my pals beat me out for a NYFA grant or got to meet Mos Def or whatever. (I realize that sentence is kind of braggy-by-association, sorry.) The feeling of oh-no-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life-anyway is overwhelming sometimes. The matter of successful friends is complicated and sticky, but I think it’s really best to learn to see your friends’ successes as a victory for you as well. (Cristin, incidentally, is the most generous successful person I know. She has really helped me to feel like my voice counts. It was my New Years resolution to do whatever she says, and that’s turning out pretty well, I think.)

There’s even a word for being happy for someone else’s gain: mundata. (Translated from Sanskrit). I learned it from Jen “Flash” Andrews on TBTL, the day they were feeling a little sting about their pals Garfunkel and Oates getting a Showtime show.

Julia Cameron says that jealousy is a map to what we secretly want. So in addition to practicing mundata, it’s a good idea to ask yourself if you’ve left yourself out of some part of whatever your friend just got…did you try for it? Can you try for it again?

It also occurred to me embarrassingly recently that if someone is accomplishing something you’d like to do, it’s okay to ask her how she got there. Maybe even to ask for help.

Friday Love Poem: Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz!

(Doesn't she look superhot in this picture?)

For extra enjoyment, listen to the poem on IndieFeed! Ode to My Morning Cup of Coffee I buy you every morning at the same place. They know me there, and have the cup ready before I even approach the counter. Some days the subway acts up, and I run so late that I don’t have time to pick you up. We categorize those days as being “bad.” Life without you, coffee, wouldn’t be a life at all. It would be: a terrible fog, a slow-motion movie about the wind, the world’s driest muffin choked down with a paper cup of warm water. It would be me actually kicking a trashcan after yelling at a fax machine when the truth is I’m the one who keeps dialing the wrong number. I need you, coffee, and I don’t think that part of our relationship is unhealthy. It’s good to need things in your life and I need you, morning cup of coffee, I need you so much. You don’t even know. Look at me! Look at my eyes! Do you see how serious I am? Coffee, I would take a bullet for you. I would wear your burns like a badge of honor. I would punch a tea bag in the face, and not shed a single tear. CRISTIN O'KEEFE APTOWICZ is the author of five books of poetry (Dear Future Boyfriend, Hot Teen Slut, Working Class Represent, Oh, Terrible Youth and Everything is Everything) as well as the the author of the nonfiction book, Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, which Billy Collins wrote “leaves no doubt that the slam poetry scene has achieved legitimacy and taken its rightful place on the map of contemporary literature.” Born and raised in Philadelphia, Aptowicz moved to New York City at the age of 17. At age 19, she founded the three-time National Poetry Slam championship poetry series NYC-Urbana, which is still held weekly at the NYC’s famed Bowery Poetry Club. Aptowicz is currently serving as the 2010-2011 ArtsEdge Writer-In-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and was recently awarded a 2011 National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. For more information, please visit her website: www.aptowicz.com