Spark 15 & The Water Tower

Landscape

Mixed Media on Canvas

by Paula B. Lantz

Students - once again, it's been a delight to take part in SPARK...SPARK 15!  This time I was lucky enough to be paired up with artist Paula B. Lantz, and she gave me permission to choose any of her work from the Touchstone Gallery to spark my writing.  I so enjoyed browsing through her work, and when I saw the painting above, I knew it was the one!

Writing from art stretches a whole new part of one's mind, and I highly recommend it as an exercise.  You might find a shoe box and collect postcards from art museums or gather quirky pictures that somehow speak to you...  Then, if ever you think, "I have no ideas," you can simply pluck a picture and see where it takes you.  I have learned this from SPARK.

In writing today's poem, I worked to focus especially on color, to use color words all along the way.  Last year, a teacher friend shared some of his students' written stories with me.  Michael's story detailed a memory he had of a girl throwing up on his bus.  What struck me was his use of color: face purple like a grape, white like snow...  When I wrote this poem, I tried to write like Michael.  Try that sometime; write with color words.

Many thanks to Amy Souza for again putting together a wonderful opportunity for artists, musicians, and teachers to collaborate in this way.  This is my fourth time participating, and each time is nourishing and exciting!  All are welcome to participate, and I encourage you to check out the website and the pieces.  Too, Amy Souza, teacher Jamie Palmer, and I still plan to get a small SPARK KIDS going this spring.  More details to follow.

I will share Paula's response to my poem tomorrow, Saturday! 

In other writing news, this week I have a column about ears and holes in the "My View" column of THE BUFFALO NEWS.

Thank you to Ruth Ayres of Ruth Ayres Writes and Two Writing Teachers for her generous sharing of both notebooks and writing process this week over at Sharing Our Notebooks, a resource for teaching students all about notebook keeping and for the nosy among us to peek into others' notebooks.

Jone is hosting today's Poetry Friday over at Check It Out.  Check it out!

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London Dreaming, Umbrella Path, & SPARK 14

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London Dreaming

(oil on canvas , "40 x 30")

by Alixandra Martin

Students - sometimes I find that my writing is best when I am inspired by someone else's idea. This may sound funny since I often write about the many different ways that I try to find topics on my own. But there is something neat about writing from someone else's work, writing to deadline, writing about something that first grew in someone else's mind. That's the work of SPARK, connecting writers, artists, and musicians...allowing each to inspire the other.

This is the third time that I've participated in SPARK, founded by Amy Souza and described below in her own words -

Open to writers, musicians, and visual artists of all kinds, SPARK is a participatory creativity event that takes place four times each year.

During each 10-day project round, participants create a new piece of work using someone else's art, writing, or music as inspiration. All resulting work is then displayed online, alongside the piece that inspired it.

For this round, I connected with artist Alix Martin, my talented friend who painted all of the images you see on my website and blogs. Honestly, I was a little bit nervous to write from "London Dreaming" because Alix is my friend, and I wanted her to feel that my words met her image well. So day after day in the 10 days of SPARK, I went back to my notebook -- writing the poem, writing the poem again, circling the poem, stalking the poem. I even used a prose writing exercise from Ursula K. Le Guin's book, STEERING THE CRAFT, to help me with the sounds in "Umbrella Path."

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Exercise from p. 26 - BEING GORGEOUS - Write a paragraph to a page (150 - 300 words) of narrative that's meant to be read aloud.  Use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects, made-up words or names, dialect -- any kind of sound-effect you like -- but NOT rhyme or meter.Doing this exercise gave me some snips and snaps that helped to build the foundation for my finished poem

I feel very lucky to have written from Alix's work in this round, and early next week I will post the inspiration poem I sent to Alix along the artwork she created in response.

It is exciting to write from someone else's art and to wonder what an artist will do with your words. These are the pieces I've written for previous SPARK rounds along with the images.

SPARK 15 will take place in February, and this time there will hopefully be an experimental Kids' SPARK too. SPARK founder Amy Souza, Webster teacher Jamie Palmer, and I are putting our heads together about how we will do this, so please stay posted for details at SPARK and here as well.

This week was marvelous in more ways than one. Last Friday, I had the good fortune to hear Naomi Shihab Nye speak at Kleinhans Music Hall. Her great soul and words have stayed with me all week. When she read "Kindness," I looked at my friend Nancy. It's one of our favorite poems ever. And when Naomi closed with "Gate 4-A," I felt forever new. Should you ever have the chance to hear Naomi speak (she will be back in the Buffalo area this spring) -- go. You will be renewed.

Robyn Hood Black is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Read, Write, Howl. Thank you, Robyn, for weaving such a lovely post for us today!

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