Inspiration...when you least expect it

I wasn't looking for a new story idea.

A friend invited my kids and me to a gallery exhibit called "Kate Clark: Mysterious Presence" at Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane after school. (My friend's an artist; she does stuff like take her kids to galleries after school.) My kids were into it, and it was free, so off we went.

Whoa.

Three life-size antelopes greeted us head-on...and they had human heads.

"Ceremony"

Artist Kate Clark uses traditional taxidermy techniques to create animal sculptures. Then she sculpts a face from a human model, attaches that to the animal bodies, and uses the animal's skin to make the creature look real. It's disconcerting at first, but also weirdly lovely. She humanizes the animals, and animalizes the humans, by creating these magical chimeras.

"She Gets What She Wants"

As I walked among the sculptures, I noticed each face was different, which got me to thinking about their personalities. What would they say? How would they interact with one another? Where do they live? What if someone found the place in the deep forest where these creatures lived?

And boom. Story idea. 

I felt like the story was already written, and I just needed to remember it, or find it. Then I realized, no, I need to write it. 

Now I'm haunted by these magical creatures and what they want to say to me. I'm not ready for their stories just yet--I still have a bunch of others to work on--but then again, who am I to turn away anyone who wants their stories told?

Got poems? Submit!

Literary Mama's Poetry department is once again accepting submissions!

After a February in which we caught up, we are now ready to read poems from March 1 to June 1. Our submission guidelines give an idea of what we're looking for. In a nutshell:

We publish poetry that has some element of the unexpected–whether it’s the language, the imagery, or the emotion—yet feels honest. Do you have a poem that acknowledges the intensity of motherhood?

A few years ago, our former poetry editor, Sharon Kraus, and I posted some information about our process, which has changed a bit. We no longer put together theme-based issues (other than Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Desiring Motherhood in October). Now, both Erin (our editorial assistant) and I read every poem, striving to respond to poets within three months. But in terms of what we look for, and how we publish, the basics are the same.

In the second part of the interview with Sharon and me, we discussed writing and revising tips. Here are a few of my favorite suggestions for revitalizing a poem that seems stuck:

A few revision tricks for poems:

• Break it into couplets, triplets, quatrains
• Rearrange stanzas randomly
• Turn it upside-down: rewrite the poem with the last line first, first line last
• Remove all adjectives and adverbs
• Add back the adjectives and adverbs, but describing different words
• Replace all -ing words and all forms of "to be" (is, are, am, being, be)
• Examine your adjectives. If you’re using “tiny” to describe an infant, your unconscious is doing you a favor: look harder, look more closely. Underneath that word is the thing you really mean to name.
• Free associate around the parts you do like and go back to the drawing board

Can't wait to see what you come up with! And remember, if you get a rejection, revise and resubmit!

February: Poems to love

This February's poetry on Literary Mama seeks the sublime in the everyday.

In "A Good Day," Heather Taylor Johnson asks, "Are you aware outside the sun yawns?"

Ashleigh Brown explains in "Cold Coffee" that "A woman drinks cold coffee because / the daily prayers of tangled laundry and crumpled homework are / sacred."

"Woman's Work" for Danelle Lejeune entails "swinging / the scythe back and forth through air / and tall grass."

And even the playground can inspire, as Heather Angier demonstrates in "Yard Duty":

                each
sweat-glittered body
     sparking
              laughter
under a punishing sun—

I'm particularly proud of this issue, as it is the first one I curated on my own. From theme to selecting individual poems, this represents a labor of love. Let these four poets offer a way of looking at the places we visit daily as miraculous in their own ways.

Please enjoy, and let the poets know how their poems affected the way you view your day.