creek, spoon, number, lightning. + next week's words.

When you think of the brain as a collection of tiny storms, do you ever wonder how climates are changing up there inside our skulls?

We had some gorgeous, some surprising, & some silly submissions this week. Hurrah! Please, keep 'em coming!


fill my head with creek
drown words                       (creek)


walking to the sound of creek
I miss my sarong falling
silently to the ground                    (creek)


the wet moat body
that once did not chase its own tail        (creek)


I saw an alligator
they shot it                 (creek)


the perpetual robes of the plum goddess
at once rise, bloom, decay and drop              (creek)


fire has mercy on the red dog's bridge         (creek)


Just a jump
and swing
and a hope for no water          (creek)


my round face
mooned into a metal sky             (spoon)


sound of fiddle in the flooded road     (spoon)


Bosphorus of throat     (spoon)


spoon, spoon
spoonspoonspoonspoon
spoon                                  (yep, you guessed it)


if math is God
numbers are Jesus
and 23 is the sermon on the mount       (number)


the exhausted catalog
of star catching
on my favorite night         (number)


piano cemented to the floor, drunken children
dinging upon it as if it were a telephone                     (number)


metal arm jerking green into the dance           (lightning)


hot pin prick
tattoo of a sponge in the petrified earth         (lightning)


atmospheric candle
constantly flickering off.             (lightning)


heads of diamond ache easy            (lightning)


One poet sent us a poem that makes use of all four words:


Creek, heavy with sleep,
a tongue tied spoon at the end of her limb,
she tries to number the badlands.

Let it be

late night lightning.


We're itching to see more of your work. & your friends' creations too. If you've submitted but haven't seen your poems up yet, keep writing & keep sending! A new dictionary ain't like the OED--it needs a near-infinite number of contributors, so please share this blog.

For next week, we eagerly await your explorations of

dance        honey        blood        rule

Send poems to inkandfamine@gmail.com! & offer suggestions for words in the comment section.

Happy August,

Ink and Famine

coal, blue, neck, glow. + next week's words.

Dear Poets,

Both of us spend too much time missing writing--hurting unnecessarily seems both silly and perversely easy. When we show up here, we are coming back, shoring ourselves up, making ourselves well, moving our linguistic salt & pepper shakers around like The Girl With the Silver Eyes and trying to feel, again, like a breadbox full of numinous maracas. This week, that happened on Tuesday instead of Monday.

Stuff we loved from last week:


the burden in my belly that shines around my eyes     (coal)


she swathes her clothes around them
burnt biscuits on a minstrel's crown        (coal)


miners trapped, blotted, erased in the night
for fifty more years                                               (coal)


exhibit A for the type A: alchemical cliché      (coal)


the tone in my voice
when you turn away and leave          (blue)


the only colour of emotion you can sing              (blue)


loneliness folds itself into an origami penguin
and secrets itself into some little pocket inside          (blue)


a little rain must fall to feed the kudzu
or whatever else will take that damn house     (blue)


turned down under marble sky
warmth above the sheets
a serving spot for blessings                    (neck)


The last bowl to hold your kiss       (neck)


naked as my want, your stem       (neck)


a keyhole in the forest
or an alley
the light that moves your feet            (glow)


the face of a mother
beneath a stern lover's hand         (glow)


light between the liars' trees (glow {after Susan Briante})


So next week, we're drawing a creek and making it run. Please send your tiny poems of seven lines or less (to inkandfamine@gmail.com) on/ redefining these words:

creek             spoon          number          lightning   

And please leave us your comments & word suggestions here!

Love is it--

Ink and Famine 

Novel, button, broomstick, cave + next week's words

Hello, hello, fellow poets and word admirers.  It's been another week and we have just a few more words to add to our new dictionary...redefining the world, one word at a time.  It's risky business.  Just look at how words affect the world around us...to see the world differently with the addition of an adjective.  To hear voices once quelled speaking out in the darkness, loud and clear.  The first understandable warbles from an infant's lips.  More lethal than the tip of the sword, the pen has always carried its own weight in the world.  Here are just a few samples of how we can see everyday objects in a new form, giving them a new voice:

bone tired desert
crooked spine
held by a hand beneath the tents
beneath the sheets
vowels & consonants falling thru fingers
like bits of black sand       (novel)

refusal to believe in time      (novel)

canopic jar   (novel)


door to secrets of the flesh   (button)

eight pupils of red thread
eight different ways to see a spell-
voodoo vision   (button)


greatest treasure of my tomb  (button)

pink dishes from a tea set
all up and down her belly  (button)

jumped over for love
gripped tightly for dust
smooth & thigh worn from flying over cityscapes  (broomstick)

not the only thing I'll put between my legs  (broomstick)

the tortured death
of the man who ate other men   (broomstick)


dark echo of the body   (cave)

barbaric yawp
of earth to ocean
hungry for salt water and sea urchins  (cave)

finger painted womb   (cave)

the city of your final destination  (cave)

empty, silly thing that shines when introduced out of the darkness   (cave)

And that's it for last week!  This week we have:

coal      blue      neck      glow

Please submit your poems of seven lines or less to inkandfamine@gmail.com.  We look forward to your submissions. Spread the word and leave a comment with suggestions for new words!



This is Ink&Famine signing off!

Miracle, Root, Saffron, Immigrant + Next Week's Words & Your Suggestions.

Hello again, poets! And so here we are again,  another week, another batch of words redefined and seen anew.  We hope you enjoy what we have in store for you and that you will continue to work with us on these definitions.  Without further ado.....

water falling all ten ways at once   (miracle)

the meeting of juice
and rind
tiny cathedral
open for the first time   (miracle)

the scent of you
a moon climbing my legs   (saffron)

taste of sunset
fleshed out in a beggar's bowl of rice   (saffron)

man thing
earth encrusted
prickled at the taste of rain    (root)

we reach pretty far to drink
even if we've always lived here   (root)

the one picture they have of us
we're not even in                          (root)

she who knows the moon upside-down
whistles a tune no one else can hear      (immigrant)

your thumb on my belly
traveling between knee-cap and nipple
hot breath on the back of your hand        (immigrant)


Don't forget to leave suggestions in the comments for future words to explore.  This week's picks are:

novel      button       broomstick       cave

See you next week, our imagimagnificent word folk!  And don't forget to submit your rhymes to inkandfamine@gmail.com.

Commas and semicolons,

Ink&Famine

Week Four: silence, shell, lily, road. Next week's words. And an invitation!

Poets, you're knocking us out. Here's a little sample of what you did with the words we posted last week:

the sound of hearts beating

when

words have failed.                     (silence)

Crumbled monuments of a time

remembered only in songs

now long gone unsung.                                   (silence)

the spaces of thought, between action.

the clearness of day between rain,

the angst of uneasiness                                 (silence)

The egg of air
between warm body
and wing-                                     (silence)

died on Thursday found on Tuesday
outside the circle of your old, ragged dance                                                                             (silence)

 

 

the hare who dips
the tips of his ears
in your winecup                             (silence)

 

 

a cicada song
crystallized on the trunk of the acacia tree-            (shell)

blue egg of the ancestral boat:
let's go home, you say
to the woman in the dream,
and sweep into your own ear.                           (shell)

Lady with her head bowed
singing you to her with her scent-             (lily)

pocket guide to a cloying romance                          (lily)

a dark sonnet
punctuated with headlights and weeds-            (road)

some nights: woods outside your door.
on others, a train, a room of winds and no sleep.                (road)

 

 

Thanks, all, for sending your stuff! Please, if you haven't seen your poems/ redefinitions here yet, keep sending! If you have, please send more! Send all poems to inkandfamine@gmail.com.

 

& if you're moved to do so, we'd love it if you'd leave us a comment with your own word suggestions.

 

Words for next week:

 

miracle      saffron      root      immigrant

 

Hasta,

 

Ink and Famine 

Week Three: human worm hunter deceit + next week's words

We know it's been a busy week for everyone, so thank you to those who did submit. We got some really good ones...


Slivers of light in the center of tornadoes.            (human)


bone bag
mouth trap
heavy mother
knife bearing friend             (human)


I can't be unhappy:
on a ferry
on a beach
at the all-you-can-drink milk stand                (human)


a jagged road like the torn edge of a page
leads to the golden massacre tree,
a gesticulation toward heaven          (human)


pull you apart
ten hearts
ten impossible deaths         (worm)


dancer in detritus              (worm)


elephant enraged at the ivory cargo           (hunter)


a lone woman
martinis klinking all around her
pile of arrows at her feet                 (huntress)


underbelly of a scarecrow
after a black-feathered feast                (deceit)


taste of theft, milk separated
from the breast                          (deceit)


when one season blows into the next
and a smile can be taken both ways
boxed up
or swept under              (deceit)


lunar burn to the softest part of the thigh.            (deceit)



And on to expanding our lexicon.....this week's words are:

silence        shell         lily        road

 

We hope everyone has a wonderful and productive week! Don't forget to send your submissions, up to 7 lines each, to inkandfamine@gmail.com.  See everyone in a few days!

Week Two: curtain, accent, mushroom, tea + next week's words

Thanks, everybody, for sending us your poems! We love playing with you, and getting such a great response right away.


One poet added this to our notion of ink:


Dark pools spill through the city
with letters and letters and words and words


Check out these offerings from our very first collaborative round:


death dirge that blurs distinction
between propaganda and boots
filling with blood                                (curtain)


putting a dress on a disaster site
lost oars washing up                                    (curtain)


a thin knitted dress
to wear round your tongue         (accent)


the wide brimmed hat
that forgot its other leg                      (mushroom)


porcelain dust from broken plates
eye lashes
dots fallen from over the 'i'
all soaking together in the sun.                   (tea)


straw and feet
making a sieve of your sweetest parts                (tea)



This is exciting stuff. Please keep sending your poems (of seven lines or less), even if we didn't post them this week, to your poet comrades at inkandfamine@gmail.com! And tell all your friends. This week's words (with thanks to one of our poets for inspiration) are:

human        worm        hunter        deceit

Tune in next Monday to see what we've posted, and thanks for helping us build the poets' lexicon.

Love and hairy bacon,

Ink and Famine