Week One Primer: What We've Been Up To + First Four Words

This project was a total accident, but now we're in love with it. It started when one of us asked, "Who knows what a howl is made of?" and got some surprising responses.

Ink and famine were two words we especially enjoyed riffing on, since not only in the world, but in our creative lives as well, we experience an ebb and flow that can either come as a downpour or sit as still as a desert on a summer night.

Several examples of short poems/definitions we created for those words:


we draw pictures of extinction
on the cold cheek of Venus                (ink)



rain found hiding in the knot of a tree                (ink)




when only bones are left
to outline the front yard
a dry constellation                                    (famine)




pale scar of the mined field                (famine)




stillness of the unsigned pietà                                   (famine)




Some other recent favorites:



this is how I say I want to live without meaning to
cover the worm back up with dirt
carry a banner proclaiming
we are deities

this is how I protest all torture                        (swallow)




Narcissus wetting his hand
pulling his heart through the water's throat                           (mirror)




cool and crafty animal
neatly straddling the line between predator and prey                      (apology)



You see what we're getting at.  Do whatever you like, but recast a word. Or multiple words. This week's words are:

curtain            accent            mushroom            tea

Send us the frisson-inducing results at inkandfamine@gmail.com, and come on back next week to see if we posted your poem!

Yours for now,

 Us