Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Write on Wednesday - We are learning to make fire

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 23 - Write the words of Margaret Atwood at the top of your page "We are learning to make fire". Set your timer to 5 minutes. Write the first words that come into your head after the prompt. Stop when the buzzer rings.

Write On Wednesdays

A leaping, licking, luscious thing.
Flickers fly from heated skin, fireflies dancing in the wind.
Easy now.
Don’t look away, sparks turn to flames with a glance, a caress, a murmur.
A voracious, vicious, vibrant thing.
Feed the blaze, don’t let it wither to ash carried far and distant by the wind.
Don’t drown it in a hurricane of tears.
Embrace it, be consumed by it, care for it.
Be bold.
Grab the frenzied warmth with both hands, let it catch your heart ablaze.

Be sure to check out the other WoW posts here.

11 comments:

  1. Reading this melted my heart! It's beautiful Lillie! You're a natural poet!
    My favorite line is "Flickers fly from heated skin." Such vivid imagery with very few words. Great job!

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  2. Wow. What an exercise! Really get that gray matter working.

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  3. so descriptive and passionate! i like the changes in pace... easy now...be bold...
    good stuff Lillie!
    Kate

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  4. Oh, I LOVE a bit of poetry and you do it so well!

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  5. Thank you all so much for the kind comments! I didn't want to post this at all...it was tough. I have zero confidence in my poetry. You guys made my day :)

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  6. This was awesome. I drank in every word. It was powerful, with a touch of vulnerability throughout. Wow!

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  7. I loved the alliteration throughout. Great job at that, Lillie.

    The poem is excellent. It is vibrant and full of energy, allowing the reader to feel the attributes of fire it is describing, yet it remains strangely calm in the midst of what it is describing, which is by its very nature chaotic and violent.

    I think my favourite verses are "A leaping, licking, luscious thing." and "A voracious, vicious, vibrant thing.". And the words "Be bold" make for an excellent pre-final stop; they feel like a full stop, like a line break, almost like the flipping of a page, giving strength to the final verse. All I can say in the face of this is "wow".

    / Rain

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  8. Beautiful! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. "Grab the frenzied warmth with both hands" really grabbed me. Nice work.

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  9. This is so great! It's the exact way I look at fire. Fabulous writing.

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  10. Explodes like a good fire should, your writing is filled with emotion.

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