And here is that more!
First, a little bit of housekeeping. If you’re interested in receiving the daily prompts by email, look for the little “Subscribe” button toward the bottom right of the page. This is something we’re testing out for the very first time, so bear with us if it’s a little wonky!
Our featured participant today is off the lined page, where the response to Day One’s glossary prompt brings us a brings us not just musical terms, but vibrant images and a whirling sense of movement.
Today’s daily resource is the online collection of the Georgia O’Keeffe museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The museum’s wide-ranging and eclectic collection includes not only at images of O’Keeffe’s famous paintings, but pictures of things that she owned, photos of her, etc. I’m not sure what particular use there is to me (or you) in knowing that Georgia O’Keeffe owned a McIntosh 240 6L6 Stero Tube Amplifier, but here is the very amplifier in question! Perhaps you’ll find more inspiring this painting of a clam and mussel shell nestled together, which reflects the blend of minimalism, spareness, and sensuality that is characteristic of her work.
And now for our daily prompt – optional, as always. Anne Carson is a Canadian poet and essayist known for her contemporary translations of Sappho and other ancient Greek writers. For example, consider this version of Sappho’s Fragment 58, to which Carson has added a modern song-title, enhancing the strange, time-defying quality of the translation. And just as many songs do, the poem directly addresses a person or group – in this case, the Muses. Taking Carson’s translation as an example, we challenge you to write a poem that directly addresses someone, and that includes a made-up word, an odd/unusual simile, a statement of “fact,” and something that seems out of place in time (like a Sonny & Cher song in a poem about a Greek myth).
To the Moon, I Guess
Moon, you are a glimmerous thing,
like a piece of silver that forgot it was
meant to be a coin,
tossed somewhere between two worlds,
shining and unsure,
the way I feel when I step outside
and see your face in the sky.
You, who were once a goddess in a toga,
now stuck in my playlist,
like “I Got You Babe” on a Sunday morning,
the kind of love song that gets played
while the world still sleeps.
I think you know this fact, Moon—
you have forgotten how to be human.
You don’t cry. You don’t blink.
You just hover there,
looking down at us like a mother
who no longer cares about the dishes,
but will always remind you
to wear a coat in the winter.
Tell me, Moon,
does it feel strange,
to be this old and still
so obsessed with light?
When you used to be fire,
now you’re just a reflected dream.
And yet, you glimmerous,
flickering like a lonely flame in a dark room,
still worthy of songs we don’t know how to forget.
- Oizys.
I Got You Babe, Sonny and Cher, Top of the Pops 1965