The air has your color
the memory of its own,
repeatable sense to remind
me how hips shared hunger and
joined hands traveled the same path
of untold story.
The time tastes after your touch,
after the sound of every stripped
particle, wanting to get lost
in you, collided with the meaning
of existence.
And the space collected every drip
skipped from the lip, a tear, a sweat,
scorched on the bathroom floor
fossilized witness of how I wish to
die – curled in you, sigh extant.
Maja S. Todorovic
I’m going to be quite bold in my next statement and say that it lies in you. You are your most valuable and inexhaustible well of inspiration for any story, poem, article or blog post you want to write. Sounds strange? Now, before you dismiss the rest of the article, let me elaborate a bit:
Often times, we look for external stimulants, information for guidance and ideas for our writing. But I believe that our own actual, raw and vivid experiences are our truest guides in which direction our writing should go. Every event, relationship, travel, struggle, joy, pain, suffering, reasons to be happy…are our best source of inspiration. When you share sincere bits of your personalities, these are the parts that people can relate to most.
You can write a beautiful poem about your ordinary everyday trip to a grocery store (like an ode to strawberries 🙂 ), you can write how technology impacts your life or how you love or dislike your current job…you can write about your need to write..you can find inspiration in children which can trigger some childhood memory and evoke new poem to be written.
But everything is in you. We can just look for some external motivators like current circumstances, sounds or place we are at the moment (I wrote a few poems while being on the plane 🙂 ) that will inspire our writing .
Jorges Luis Borges once said:
A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”
Lessons we learned in our life journey are our greatest teachers and I believe also a huge inspiration for anything further we do in life. And so with writing. I have found that when I share what I learned in my life so far – it’s like opening the door to even greater source of inspiration and it helps me avoid in future some of the mistakes I made in the past.
Or you can write about what you would like to experience – let your wishes and desires simply go wild with your imagination.
As long as you write what you know to be true in life, how you perceive life, beauty, love, pain, suffering..you simply can’t go wrong with that. You are unique and extraordinary human being with universal skills and experiences. Share and write about that, and your writing will be nothing less but exquisite.
I love all beauteous things,
I seek and adore them;
God hath no better praise,
And man in his hasty days
Is honoured for them.
I too will something make
And joy in the making!
Altho’ tomorrow it seem’
Like the empty words of a dream
Remembered, on waking.
Robert Seymour Bridges
If you liked this post and you are interested in getting more inspiration for your creativity, sign up for our free bimonthly newsletter.
According to some resources, today, May 12. is the Limerick day. It is also believed that origins of limerick poetry form can be traced back to 14th century. They are short, easy to compose, often speaking of sexual, ironic and humorous connotations. The name itself derives from the Irish town of Limerick and by many critics is not respected as a valid poetry form. Nevertheless, in the defense of limericks, it is believed that even Shakespeare wrote them.
If you want to try on your own to write a limerick follow the rules:
One of the most famous writers of limericks is Edward Lear and his book of Nonsense, full of funny and witty verses:
“There was an Old Man who supposed,
That the street door was partially closed;
But some very large rats,
Ate his coats and his hats,
While that futile old gentleman dozed.”
or consider this one by Zach Weiner of the comic “Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal”:
“This limerick goes in reverse
Unless I’m remiss
The neat thing is this:
If you start from the bottom-most verse
This limerick’s not any worse.”
Have you tried writing limericks? Share with us in the comments below.
If you liked this post and you are interested in getting more inspiration for your creativity, sign up for our free bimonthly newsletter.
Embrace your broken parts: each wound, each hurt, each pain
is just a new crack on the wall of your soul pouring more of your
inner light to shine bright.
Is there anything more beautiful than that?
Maja S. Todorovic
The way I slept naked on the floor;
The way I hid myself from the sun;
The way I ate uncooked food with my bare hands;
The way I flossed my teeth three times a day;
The way I laughed at your stupid jokes;
The way I adored your razor-blade thin smile;
The way your huge hands held me around my waist
is the way I loved you.
And still do.
Maja S. Todorovic
One of the things I like to do in my leisure time is to brows some very interesting online literary magazines as it helps in my inspiration but I also like to be informed about the newest trends in literature and writing styles.
As a result of my research I managed to compile a list of 9 magazines that pretty much on regular basis accept submissions for new poems and prose, and of course you might find some of them interesting in your publication process.
So here it is:
1.Hootreview. This is maybe one of my favorite. They focus on a micropoetry and microfiction, giving a real chance to aspiring writers.
2.32poems. They accept unsolicited poetry year round and also simultaneous submissions. As a rule, preference is given to shorter poems that fit on a single page (about 32 lines). For more visit their guidelines page.
3.Aleola journal of poetry and art.
This journal of poetry and prose was created to preserve the vanishing species known as “enjoyable poetry”. Ours is not the poetry or fiction enjoyed by connoisseurs of modernism today, filled with inexplicable juxtapositions of meaningless words that leave the reader feeling confused, fatigued, and overcome by a vague ennui. No; the sole requirement for our poetry and prose is that it expands the mind, captures the interest, and can be enjoyed by the average reader. We welcome nature poems, imagistic poetry, humor, and literature that tells a story.
4. Allegro poetry magazine aims to publish the best contemporary poetry. March and September issues are for general poems and June and December for poems on a set theme. It is a UK based online magazine, published four times a year.
5.Knot magazine is currently accepting submissions for fall issue. They have a large spectra of poetry genres included. Worth checking it out.
6.Juked. In publication since 1999, this is an independent journal that appears online as well as in annual print issues. They don’t adhere to any particular themes or tastes and are fond of aspiring writers 🙂
7.Rattle. This magazine accepts submissions all year around and if your are into translating poems – this is a place for you.
8. Thrush. If you like to experiment with your writing and flirt with unusual, thrush journal is one of the best publication references you can get:
Our taste is eclectic. We want poems that move us, a strong sense of imagery, emotion, with interesting and surprising use of language, words that resonate. We want fresh. We want voice.
Established and new poets are encouraged to submit. Experimental poetry is fine, randomness is fine also. However, we do not want experimental and random just for the sake of calling it such. No long poems. We prefer a poem that will fit on one page. We are not interested in inspirational poetry or philosophical musings.
9. Contrary. As the name of the journal says it deals with contrary issues, thoughts, attitudes, questions…Publishes 4 times a year and new, summer cycle is open until June 1st. Don’t miss this opportunity, on the contrary! 🙂
I hope you find this list interesting and it helps you in your publishing journey.
If you liked this post and you are interested in getting more inspiration for your creativity, sign up for our free bimonthly newsletter.
We travel, come here the same
in fragile teary, pink skin
with jelly bones and hungry eyes.
Yet, each stay differs
makes us wonder:
“How did I board a wrong boat?”
Maja S. Todorovic
Kahlil Gibran, born in Lebanon, was a poet, artist, philosophical essayist and a novelist,who emigrated to New York in 1885. His work, written both in Arabic and English was very much influenced by the European modernists of the nineteenth century, with deep mystical, philosophical and spiritual understanding of the world.
Gibran had simple, yet direct style and he used writing to liberate himself; to portrait immigrant life of his family and topics relating to alienation, disruption, industry that eats natural beauty – were often present in his work. For him, poetry was an ideal vehicle to transcend the feelings of emptiness, longing and a way to communicate most intimate desires:
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.
How we experience the world around us and allow our mind to make it’s on meaning and relations, that’s how our language is going to be:
All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.
He also recognized that without innate feeling and sense of love, all our efforts in any life direction are simply futile. In his, maybe the most popular piece “The Prophet” (1923) in 26 prose poems he discusses and shares his view on most intriguing topics of human kind, ranging from marriage, laws and friendship to the meaning of work, punishment, pain and joy. Even though it wasn’t seen as a piece of distinct value among American critics, it achieved cult status among American youth for several generations.
For Gibran work equals love:
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
Once we fuel our work with passion and love, it’s much probable that we will achieve our goals. And there is nothing more joyful, than the alignment of our values, passions and purpose. Than work is not just work. It becomes eager part of life, intentional and deliberate living, bringing meaning to all aspects of our lives.
If you would like further to explore similar topics, I recommend:
If you liked this post and you are interested in getting more inspiration for your creativity, sign up for our free bimonthly newsletter.
Spring didn’t bring any change.
As dull clouds spilled ink
on the white face of the sky
so did your cheeks grow
more yellow creases
and lips were losing their smile.
Emptiness swallowed all the words:
our nameless turning heads,
evasion of eyesight collision
is the only language we know.
Maja S. Todorovic
Need some more poetic inspiration? Sign up for a free bimonthly newsletter.
Business in Rhyme 