It’s Poetry Friday! Tara is hosting at A Teaching Life.
Thanks again to everyone who stopped here — sometimes more than once! — to share your links and your thoughts on creativity. You are welcome to see what others have posted and add to the conversation here. Related to the “spurts” or “butt-in-chair” thread, I had a chat with a dear friend on Monday and she spoke about the importance of daily investment in your gift, your vocation, your passion. As she pointed out to me, “Even if it’s only a sentence or two, over time it adds up.”
I picked up Reichhold’s haiku book again this week, and she talked about different ways of organizing one’s body of work. From index cards filed by season to elaborate databases with thematic words cross-referenced, her ideas ran the gamut from simple to complex. Many of you have been writing far longer than I have — how do you organize your poems? For example, Amy has organized by topic and technique. But what about those you haven’t published online or anywhere else? I’d love to hear about your systems. 🙂
Today I’m sharing a poem I wrote this week, inspired by the rapid growth of paperwhites I planted in bulb form just 2 weeks ago. The photo is not stellar, but it’s mine and I couldn’t find anything online of this particular stage in the process.
Spring *will* come!
Paperwhites are a beautiful winter blossom. I have some in my front flower bed that a previous owner planted. They surprise me every January.
I don’t have a system for saving my poems. Some are written directly into my blog. Some I place in a folder on my computer. Some lie in my journal for a long time. I often wish I were more organized about them.
Pretty! Your paperwhites and Diane’s hyacinths make a beautiful Friday bouquet for us. Thank you!
I love the idea that they are hiding in cocoons!
I am in the middle of befuddlement in sorting my poems! I am currently in the process of just listing their names – then I guess I want to “tag” each poem – which I’ve done on my computer some prior to this. Mostly I have the poems in a big “writing” folder. My list is sooo long. Butt in chair is going to be necessary, not just for creating. Or I need a secretary. Ooooh, that would be nice!
Thanks for hosting today!
Ah, those ‘cocoons’ hold such promise, don’t they? A lovely thought, Keri. As for organization, I have poems in a yearly file, many old ones in notebooks, and a few via theme. Donna is right, BIC is what is needed.
A lovely twist from snow to paperwhites.
I organise poems as ‘Poetry’ or ‘Kid’s Poetry’ – although obviously there are crossovers. Then I have all sorts of folders… But the BEST thing for organising (or finding) my poems has been the Mac’s ability to find almost anything, based on a ‘Search’ of a title or particular line. I’m amazed at how good it is! I don’t have to remember where I’ve filed things, anymore. 😉
Isn’t that lovely, Keri! Sometimes in winter, I love to wrap a blanket around me like a cocoon too. 🙂 Organization of poems? That’s a tough one. I generally try to categorize them in terms of age group because it’s easier for finding them for submissions, but I keep blog poems separate, and poems specifically written for collections or anthologies separate as well. Also haiku. Oh heck, truthfully, it’s really just a mess!
You’ve had a lot of success with those bulbs, haven’t you? I like “cocoons” — it’s unexpected, evocative. I like Michelle’s age group categorization idea. It seems like being able to tag your poems several ways (theme, age, form) would make for the most useful indexing.
Such loveliness is a tiny space. Love your “green cocoons”!
As for organizing poetry, I use Scrivener. It’s a program that is meant more for planning, writing, and publishing prose projects, but it has lots of features that I’ve adapted for poetry writing, storage and record-keeping.
Keri, I love this photo with the accompanying poem – a must have for my newest winter gallery that I wrote about at PF. As for organizing poetry, I really do need a system. Most are available on my blog and I try to bring them in by seasonal gallery onto Google Drive. A few are in notebooks. While I like the notebook idea, I have been gravitating to digital formats and “storing” them in iCloud before placing then elsewhere.