Category Archives: golden shovel

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 03 (a collaborative series)

This is an invitation to all of you poets (or potential poets, which is all of you) out there to join me in a new collaborative series I’m calling “Get Your Golden Shovel”. Here is how it works.

Each Saturday in February (as an initial experiment and then I’ll decide whether to continue), will be Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll post a prompt consisting of one or two lines from a well known poem on Saturday, then we all will create a new poem using the Golden Shovel form and share it with each other. I think it will be very interesting to see how different each of our pieces are despite pulling from the same source of material.

What is the Golden Shovel form, you ask? The Golden Shovel form was created by the poet Terrance Hayes, whose poem “Golden Shovel” (from his 2010 collection Lighthead) is based on Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” which references the phrase “Golden Shovel”. Check out the “rules” here. There is also an example provided.

If you missed the earlier prompts, check out all the contributions from the community in the Week 1 Round-Up and Week 2 Round-Up. Feel free to contribute yours anytime. They were great poem line prompts with lots of creative potential.

Here’s our third prompt. Enjoy!

Golden Shovel No. 03

“I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight”

After Apple Picking by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

You can either post on your own blog and link to the prompt post so that we can all see it and further share, include it in the prompt post’s comments section, or post on twitter and tag me (@montyvern).

While there is not a hard deadline, the intention is to share your Golden Shovel poem during the prompt week before the following Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll target posting my own poem along with some of yours with links in a round-up post ahead of the following week’s prompt.

That’s it! I’m looking forward to seeing what we all come up. It should be a bit challenging, but hopefully fun.

Be well,

Monty

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 02 Round-Up

Last Saturday I posted the second “Get Your Golden Shovel” prompt as a collaborative project for our writing community. In this round-up, I share my golden shovel poem as well as those that were contributed by the community.

What’s a golden shovel poem? It’s a poetic form originally created by Terrance Hayes. Check out the rules here.

I want to give a big thanks to each of you that were willing to give this week’s challenge a try:

T.B.C

Eric Drury (The Thoughtful Beggar)

Catherine (reflections of an unquiet mind)

Sam “Goldie” Kirk (one day at a time..)

Kathleen

Golden Shovel No. 02

“Cocoa in pods and alligator pears.”

The Tropics in New York by Claude McKay

Sun-Bleached Blond

By Monty Vern

Skin bronzed to a rich cocoa,

Hair sun-bleached blond, tied up in

Long braids hanging down past her ear pods

And

Shoulder straps, to the dancing twin alligator

Tattoos glistening beneath the dribbling juice of ripe pears.

Guests’ Poems:

I scraped the barrel and got all the cocoa,

The colour so dark I could have dived straight in,

I dropped vanilla…

By T.B.C.

“Mammals and Reptiles”

Humanity on the beach in Cocoa

driving on the outs and in

We also travel in…

By Eric Drury

I remember her skin, it looked and tasted like cocoa

In the shadows I hide to see her chest rise as she breathes in

She knows it well; me and her, we are like peas in their…

By Catherine at reflections of an unquiet mind

“Working From Home”

On my lunch break, I stand on my porch with a cup of cocoa in my hand.

Just one more look at the scenery before I have to go back in.

I think back to the days of cubicles…

by Sam “Goldie” Kirk

Delicious! Cocoa

Seduced from pods

And finding

Tongues

Of alligator

Under the shack

Where massages mysteriously happen

In

Zihua

Like sweet whispers of pears.

(Shhh!)

By Kathleen

I found this line both challenging and inspiring. I love what we all did with these colorful words. Once again the diversity is amazing, which is my favorite reason for doing creative collaborations. You all inspire me. Thank you!

Ready for Get Your Golden Shovel No. 3?

Be well,

Monty

Daily Droppings: “You Won’t Believe It”

Special thanks to Sandra from What Sandra Thinks who created a series of daily prompts for the month of February which are the source of inspiration for this series.

The prompt: “you won’t believe it”

ANNOUNCEMENT!

I’m excited to introduce my new work-in-progress project – a children’s picture book. It’s still in it’s prenatal phase and there is no due date, but I’ve got a cover ready and it’s development is in progress. Can you believe it?

This cover inspired by the title piece “Apples Eating Zebras”, first published right here on Monty’s Blahg.

Be well,

Monty

We Will Move Mountains

A golden shovel poem from:

“When you investigate mountains thoroughly, This is the work of the mountains.“

The Mountains and Waters Sutra by Dogen (translated by Shohaku Okumura)

We Will Move Mountains

written and illustrated by Monty Vern

The question is not where or when;

You

Query there and then, but we must investigate

Our role in the now; seeing through these stone mountains

Density, and lighting up the deep oceans’ darkness thoroughly;

Exhausting each probability, this

Is

The

Work

Of

The “we” in us; Together we will move mountains.

Be well,

Monty

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 02 (a collaborative series)

This is an invitation to all of you poets (or potential poets, which is all of you) out there to join me in a new collaborative series I’m calling “Get Your Golden Shovel”. Here is how it works.

Each Saturday in February (as an initial experiment and then I’ll decide whether to continue), will be Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll post a prompt consisting of one or two lines from a well known poem on Saturday, then we all will create a new poem using the Golden Shovel form and share it with each other. I think it will be very interesting to see how different each of our pieces are despite pulling from the same source of material.

What is the Golden Shovel form, you ask? The Golden Shovel form was created by the poet Terrance Hayes, whose poem “Golden Shovel” (from his 2010 collection Lighthead) is based on Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” which references the phrase “Golden Shovel”. Check out the “rules” here. There is also an example provided.

If you missed the first prompt, check out all the contributions from the community in the Week 1 Round-Up. Feel free to contribute yours anytime. It was a great poem line prompt with lots of creative potential.

Enough said. Here’s our second prompt. Enjoy!

Golden Shovel No. 02

“Cocoa in pods and alligator pears”

The Tropics in New York by Claude McKay

You can either post on your own blog and link to the prompt post so that we can all see it and further share, include it in the prompt post’s comments section, or post on twitter and tag me (@montyvern).

While there is not any hard deadline, the intention is to share your Golden Shovel poem during the prompt week before the following Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll target posting my own poem along with some of yours with links in a round-up post ahead of the following week’s prompt.

That’s it! I’m looking forward to seeing what we all come up. It should be a bit challenging, but hopefully fun.

Be well,

Monty

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 01 Round-Up

Last Saturday I posted the first “Get Your Golden Shovel” prompt as a collaborative project for our writing community. In this round-up, I share my golden shovel poem as well as those that were contributed by the community.

What’s a golden shovel poem? It’s a poetic form originally created by Terrance Hayes. Check out the rules here.

I want to give a big thanks to each of you that were willing to give this first experiment a try:

@gigglingfattie (No Love For Fatties)

Kathleen

Edward V. Fuller

@midlifecatlady64 (MidLife Cat Lady)

Sam “Goldie” Kirk

Eric Drury (The Thoughtful Beggar)

The Dreamgirl Writes

Golden Shovel No. 01

“Time says hush. By the gong of time you live.”

The Gong of Time by Carl Sandburg (Honey and Salt)

Hurry, Hurry, Hush

By Monty Vern

Rushing waters of our time;

Ebbing tide says

Hurry, hurry, hush.

Un-lived memories race by;

Yanked away by the

Quickening gong

Of

Our impatient time;

Shh! Will you?

Let’s pause a moment to live.

Guests’ Poems:

It’s just now about that time

He leans close as he says

Drowsiness fills the apartment with a…

by No Love For Fatties

It is time.

No one says

“Hush”

by the by.

Even the

ringing gong

of

So much time.

Not even you,

by the days you

live.

by Kathleen

Pangs mean it is time

The body says

Now hush

We are close by

Near to the

reverberating gong

Thinking of

passed time

with you

Honoring you by how we live

by Edward V. Fuller

Ah, The days of Time

The wind, it Says

It’s time to Hush

And listen, By

Focusing on The

Sound of the church Gong

Which reminds you Of

How much Time

There is Left

For you to Live.

by MidLife Cat Lady

‘There’s no time,’

she says.

‘Hush,’

I reply and just walk on by.

Because…

by Sam “Goldie” Kirk

In youth we confidently flirt with time

As it goes on we must do what it says

Wrinkles gained with a quieted…

by Eric Drury (The Thoughtful Beggar)

And here is one with a twist on the form (after all, creativity rules over rules):

Friends are chosen family, so choose wisely

For they come to know you intimately…

by The Dreamgirls Writes

How cool was that! I love seeing all of the different takes on this. If you want to give this line a try feel free to leave your poem in the comments below (or link your post to this one).

Thanks again to each of the guest contributors. Stay tuned for next prompt coming soon. Everyone is welcome to join in.

Be well,

Monty

Apples Eating Zebras

Here is a new Golden Shovel poem. I admit I’ve become a bit addicted to this form (here are the rules in case your unfamiliar).

Ars Poetica (an excerpt)

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleave-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs

by Archibald MacLeish (1892 – 1982)

The following is a Golden Shovel poem from the first line “A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit”

Apples Eating Zebras

Apples eating zebras and z’s to a

I cobble together words in a poem

Making nonsense I should not but should

Gobble up wobbles and play vocab tricks to be

Escaping tricky corners with palpable

Tight and twisty turns and

Flamboyant gestures of an eloquent mute

Breaking forms with made-up rhymes as

A wanna-be unknown poet throwing a

Bucket of colorful words upon a globed

Canvas and calling it a bowl of fruit.

Apples Eating Zebras

What a fun one? Want to give the Golden Shovel a try? Join the “Get Your Golden Shovels” collaboration. Here is a link to this week’s prompt.

Be well,

Monty

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 01 (a collaborative series)

This is an invitation to all of you poets (or potential poets, which is all of you) out there to join me in a new collaborative series I’m calling “Get Your Golden Shovel”. Here is how it will work.

Each Saturday in February (as an initial experiment and then I’ll decide whether to continue), will be Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll post a prompt consisting of one or two lines from a well known poem on Saturday, then we all will create a new poem using the Golden Shovel technique and share it with each other. I think it will be very interesting to see how different each of our pieces are despite pulling from the same source of material.

What is the Golden Shovel technique, you ask? It’s a poetic form originally created by the poet, Terrance Hayes. Check out the “rules” here. There is also an example provided.

Golden Shovel No. 01

“Time says hush. By the gong of time you live.”

The Gong of Time by Carl Sandburg (Honey and Salt)

You can either post on your own blog and link to the prompt post so that we can all see it and further share or include it in the prompt post’s comments section.

While there is not any hard deadlines, the intention is to share your Golden Shovel poem during the prompt week before the following Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll target posting my own poem along with some of yours with links in a recap post ahead of the following weeks.

That’s it. Today’s the the first prompt. Feel free to give it a try with the prompt line above if you want to get your feet wet.

I’m looking forward to seeing what develops from this. It should be fun!

Be well,

Monty