From PPF Committee member Ina Roy-Faderman:

in the northern hemisphere, we’re getting more sunshine. while Tennyson (bless him)* described spring as the season where young men’s interests “lightly turns to thoughts of love,” for many of us, thoughts turn to poetry itself. including me, since spring creates the sorts of things i write about.

so, as we enter the sunnier months, here’s some ways you can get warmed-up, poetically speaking, as we head toward Poetry Postcard Fest season, ways to stick our toes in our noticing ocean, ready for when the writing starts. i’ll be trying some of these too:

• walk around your neighborhood, or any neighborhood, looking for (maybe taking notes?) of signs of spring: a green shoot poking up between sidewalk panels, goslings by a small lake, the change in the quality of the sunshine at noon [photo courtesy the lovely Dr. Joan Starreveld from a Baylands walk a group of us took last week]
• notice themes or ideas that keep popping up in the course of each week (I’ve noticed this happens to me when I’ve got more waking hours). your subconscious might be mulling these themes; once you notice them, they’ll percolate and some will pop back up ready to use in PPF [astrology in the workplace appeared different contexts in my life; I’m letting it simmer in my tiny, carry-with notebook]
• use your phone camera to take a picture of one object of scene each day that feels meaningful, that captures your feelings about the longer, warming, days. keep them in an “inspiration file”
• end each day with a “contribution list” – 3 things you did each day that mattered, to yourself, to someone else: things for you (watched a cozy mystery), for those you love (fed cats, even though they woke me at 2 a.m. demanding to play), for the world (a note to my Senators re: climate change policy). this can be great for mental health, and you may see patterns: people who recur in your list, things that matter to you, lines of connection between you and the world around you
• spend five minutes at your favorite time of day with your eyes closed and face up to the sun (for those of you with sun sensitivities, the night sky works). what do you hear? what do you smell? write a word or two to remind you. after a few days, you’re likely to have an excellent list of words to use as jumping-off points for poems or adjectives that will, without your trying, emerge on your postcards this summer

hope these get your poetry heart pumping!

*in case you’ve never read the whole poem, it’s actually a bitter, heartsick poem; no surprises that we only tend to remember the first stanzas since it’s all downhill from there.