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Hacking (Up a Lung)

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 30, 2015

HDay 8 – “H” as in Hacking (Up a Lung)

Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But illness happens to all of us. (Writers aren’t invincible, contrary to popular belief.) The daily grind of poetic progress comes to a daily grinding halt. Be it due to the seasonal cold going around, or the full-blown flu, or food poisoning (I certainly hope not), we can’t be healthy 100% of the time. And when that happens, well…let’s just say it can really be a damper on your creativity, causing some unnecessary frustration.

As I write this, I’m perched atop a bar stool in a local coffeeshop. It’s a sunny spring day and the afternoon couldn’t be more promising. But my head is foggy from days of being suffocated by mucous, my extremities are exhausted from fatigue, I keep sneezing every three minutes, I’m mouth-breathing, my eyes are watering constantly…to any bystander I must look like I’m having a really bad day. But really, I’m just sick. And this is the first day I’ve been well enough to venture out of my house in the last week and attempt some writing. (Apologies if this blog post amounts to nothing but random yammering in the end. I’m unpredictable today! Weee! And this only proves that illness muffs up your writing routine, and you just gotta roll with the punches sometimes. — That was my wonky and weak thesis statement, professor, if you’re reading this…)

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The Greats of Poetry

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 24, 2015

GDay 7 – “G” as in “the Greats of Poetry”

Today’s post is a tribute to the Greats of Poetry. I’d like to take a moment to thank the brilliant men and women who came before us, paving the rough road so that we can have an easier go at it…learning from their failures and successes…studying and understanding the whys as to what made them so “great” in the first place…before attempting to carve our own path of originality on the road less traveled in hopes to create something worthy of standing stacked amongst their vertical names in bookstores for generations to come.

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F*ck Expletives in Poetry

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 22, 2015

FDay 6 – “F” as in “F*ck Expletives in Poetry” (*gasp!*)

Before anyone gets all up in arms about swearing or not swearing, know that I am not a nun when it comes to colorful language, but I also do not house a sailor’s tongue in my mouth–each with reason. I’d like to think I’m in a good place in regards to profanity in poetry: on the fence, smack dab in the middle of opinion. And since this is a strangely-heated topic in “social media writers’ circles”…I will keep this short and sweet.

I’m stating my conclusion, my sole point, at the start of this post: Expletives are unnecessary in poetry 99% of the time. But if you dare to swear in a poem in that 1% moment…it had better be placed perfectly and must serve a purpose other than to make you sound tough or edgy.

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Editing Poetry

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 21, 2015

AtoZ E logoDay 5 – “E” as in “Editing”

I will do my best to keep these next few posts as brief as possible since I am in dire need of catching up on this challenge. *cheers from the crowd* (You’re welcome.) 😉

As much as I love editing (I know, it’s sick and perverse), I won’t exhaust this topic. It has been discussed time and time again, debated even more so, and I think we can all agree that Editing is the necessary evil to poetry…less evil and more necessary, in my opinion. But let’s be honest–there are so many opinions about editing floating around in the writing community, so, for this blog post, I figured I would keep it relatively simple and outline the three basic types of editing I have personally experienced and witnessed in the poetry-writing process. Of course, I think there are variations of the following examples, and everyone has a preferred editing style, but I think we can all agree that these encompass the universal spirit of what we experience when revising our babies. 🙂

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Day Trips & Adventures

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 20, 2015

DDay 4 – “D” as in “Day Trips & Adventures”

 Confession:   This may be one of my favorite posts for this entire A-to-Z Challenge…

Why? Because as a full-time poet/writer/editor, the days when I am able to cut loose from my daily grind (yes, I have one, too, haha) and just GO–creating my own adventure according to the pull of my Wanderlust Muse–those are the days where I feel most alive and full of creative ammunition. On those days I am able to recharge my old, poet-soul and breathe in life, living in the spirit of possibility and, most importantly, inspiration.

Sometimes I plan my Day Trips. And sometimes…Adventure yanks me out of my house before I even know what happened. I don’t think I am the only Creative who is haunted by the siren song of Experience, which dictates our every word placed to page. And experience comes from adventure–from living with a purpose. We draw from our own experiences and knowledge when creating poetry. But how does one gain that kind of experience and knowledge? Not holed up at the writing desk, that’s for sure. You need to get out. Go out. Spread out. Speak out. Reach out. And live out your days to their fullest extent. That’s what Day Trips are for. They get you out of the house, away from reading about life on the screen or in books and actually experiencing it in order to write about it. These adventure days feed our insatiable craving for poetic material, and are crucial to our process. They don’t have to be extravagant or far-reaching…they just have to be fulfilling according to your unique need.

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Community

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 11, 2015

CDay 3 – “C” as in “Community”

Community–the word has numerous definitions, but generally speaking, a community is a group of people with something in common, be it geographical, social, economical, professional, or a matter of general interest(s). Without question, our lives are filled with people, in general, yes? And those people make up our collective “communities” that influence us and help us through this grand scheme of Life. Whether your “people” are from school, church, work, social settings, friend groups, family, etc, each person contributes to each unique Community you have.

When it comes to poets and writers, I wholeheartedly believe that our individual Poetry (or Writing) Community is not only extremely valuable to our writing process, but also very practical and conducive to our overall well-being as Creatives. I see our peers and colleagues as a bonus to our Self. Sure, our family members and day-to-day friends (important and wonderful people!) are typically kind enough to support our poetic endeavors, but, just like any niche or obscure profession, nine times out of 10 they are prone to missing the mark when it comes to understanding our needs as poets…and that’s okay! That deep-thinking, musing, confusingly creative side of us is simply tough to comprehend if you’re not also a poet. But on the flip side, it is incredibly comforting and healthy to find yourself a handful of like-minded writers with whom to collaborate creatively. Here’s my thinking…

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A-to-Z Challenge Theme Reveal

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 11, 2015

Albeit a bit delayed since I jumped on the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge at the last second (quite literally…I explain more in my previous post), but as my hiatus comes to a close, I present my finalized list of topics I will be writing about under my theme of “Poetry”–with each post accompanied by a related poem. I hope this whets your appetite–I know I’m definitely excited about discussing these topics with you guys! (And yes, haha, I’ll be playing a little catch up once my feet are back on home soil.) Thank you so much for reading along! On Poetry… A –…

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Quick Update 04.10.2015

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 11, 2015

First things first: I simply want to thank you all for continuing to follow along on this writing journey of mine. But I also wanted to give you guys a quick update on my goings-on since I know I have ‘mysteriously disappeared’ for the week… Indeed, I am still participating in the A-to-Z Challenge for my blog. However, as briefly mentioned when I first blogged in the series, I signed up at the very last minute after some persuasion by another writer friend, and, in addition to being late to the party, the timing was very unfortunate as the challenge began…

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Busking

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 3, 2015

Day 2 – “B” as in “Busking”

BDay 2 of the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge, and on to the letter “B.” Which, today, is for “Busking.” This word is not widely-known, and that’s perfectly understandable. I had no clue what busking was until this last year. It is a very archaic term–let’s shed some light on it with an education moment, brought to you by (of course) the letter B….

In the Oxford Dictionary, “busk” is defined as the following:

[to] play music or otherwise perform for voluntary donations in the street or in subways (Oxford Dictionary, 2015).

To simplify that and make it tangible, a busker is basically a street performer, selling their talent on the street for public donations. The Oxford Dictionary goes on to explain a little bit of the “busking” origin:

Busking used to take place not in shopping centres but at sea. The word busk comes from Italian buscare or Spanish buscar, which both mean ‘to seek’. Its earliest use in English was in the nautical sense ‘cruise about, tack’. This became extended to mean ‘go about selling things’, and then, in the middle of the 19th century, ‘go about performing’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2015).

While that’s all fine and dandy, you’re probably wondering what busking has to do with my blog challenge theme of Poetry. And that’s fair. But what many people don’t know about me is that busking has everything to do with Poetry if you’re in my little corner of the world, and that is precisely what I wish to share with you in this post.

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Alpha

Published by Rhetorical Redhead on April 2, 2015

Day 1 – “A” as in “Alpha”

AAs per some persuasion by a dear friend and colleague, I have signed up to take on the A-to-Z Challenge for the month of April. Since I hurriedly signed up this evening with mere hours to spare, I feel prompted to use the only theme that immediately came to mind: Poetry…for National Poetry Month, but also because, for some bizarre reason, my genre of poetry writing has taken off these last few months and it has manifested itself in the most wonderful ways (which will be explained in a later post).

On that note, for Day 1 of this Challenge, I am using “Alpha” for my “A” post. It is no coincidence, I think, that exactly one year ago today, I embarked on the best journey of my life–April 1st, 2014 was the day I quit my full-time job to pursue my writing career. It was my beginning. My true genesis. My Alpha. And looking back over the last 12 months, I can see a series of tiny yet significant events that led up to this very anniversary, and I am now pursuing poetry (surprisingly, out of all the genres I love to write) more than ever because of that precise series of events. It all feels so surreal and crazy, but I have never felt more alive nor more at peace with myself and my life than I do now.

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