Category: Poetry

Blogs, Flash Fiction, Food, Pets, Photography, Poetry, Pop Culture, Random, Writers10 Comments

Sunshine

Charlotte Hamrick

I was recently nominated for a Sunshine Blogger award by Nick at Fifty Words Daily. It’s been a long time since I’ve been nominated for a blogging award. I’m really quite tickled because, for me, getting one of these tells me that at least one person likes to visit here. I’ve been blogging since 2005 but I really haven’t gotten into the WordPress community like a lot of bloggers do. Honestly, I don’t blog for “hits” or to try to increase my readership. I rarely look at my stats. I blog because I like to take pictures and I like … Continue reading Sunshine

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Inspiration Monday: The Stanford Sexual Assault Survivor

Charlotte Hamrick

“And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you. As the author Anne Lamott once wrote, “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” Although I can’t save every boat, I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was … Continue reading Inspiration Monday: The Stanford Sexual Assault Survivor

Amalgamation, Essays, Flash Fiction, Food, New Orleans, Pets, Poetry, Pop Culture, Writers3 Comments

Amalgamation: June 4,2016

Charlotte Hamrick

Amalgamate: to unite (two or more things, such as two businesses) into one thing After a little thought I’ve decided to rename my occasional “Hot Reads” post to “Amalgamation”. It’s a word that  I like pronouncing it.  It rolls off the tongue like those little beads of candy on nonpareils, you know the ones? Plus, the definition is perfect for what Hot Reads has morphed into, which is to say, posts about more than good things to read. It’s also good things to watch, good things to eat, good things to listen to. Not all every time but enough times … Continue reading Amalgamation: June 4,2016

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Hot Reads, Etc.

Charlotte Hamrick

There’s so much good reading and listening on the Internet it’s overwhelming. How do you choose which piece to read,which podcast to listen to, which video to watch? And I’m always wondering if I’ve missed some really fantastic thing. In just the past few days I’ve read some really good stuff and, this morning, watched a very cool Periscope post by Indian chef Kalyan Karmakar. Do you watch Periscope? I downloaded the app a while ago but have only watched a couple of Lonely Planet posts. But when I logged on today there was a notification that this was streaming … Continue reading Hot Reads, Etc.

My Poetry, New Orleans, Photography, Poetry3 Comments

Another Day in the Crescent City

Charlotte Hamrick

  It’s another balmy day in paradise. I push down the plunger in the French Press, inhaling the earthy aroma of the blackest of coffees called Community. The morning paper lies on the coffee table waiting for its unfolding, opening and adjusting shake. “Sneaking Sally Through The Alley” is dancing out of the Boze, WWOZ accommodating its listeners with the best music in the country, bar none. Noise from the street wafts through the open French doors: the rummmm-rummmm of the city bus, the high-pitched laughter of kids on Christmas break, the artificially cheerful greeting of “order when you’re ready!” … Continue reading Another Day in the Crescent City

My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, Poetry1 Comment

Why It Must Come

Charlotte Hamrick

“…poetry isn’t revolution but a way of knowing why it must come.” —Adrienne Rich, “Dreamwood” Why It Must Come (After Adrienne Rich) The one great choice is made instinctively, there is no manual no set of directions. The hand-me-down desk has no typewriter or even a pen and paper. The poet needs none of it. Possibilities birth in the brain, its crevices filled with currents and hot-air balloons flying with ideas. The poem is the possibility of a myriad of choices. To create the poem is the one great choice. ***** So it’s the last day of National Poetry Month … Continue reading Why It Must Come

Found Poetry, My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, PoetryLeave a comment

Bodies of a More Complicated Nature

Charlotte Hamrick

The small parallelipipeds traversed on the hairs of leaves, its casual adventitious body roughening the surface while a hundred armed mites rang’d, breaking one another’s necks. Smutty daubings, engraved by furrows and holes, are viewed as curious writing. Light and shadows are watched through the microscope where the least spot is as big as the Earth itself. ***** Today’s prompt courtesy of Beth Ayer on Found Poetry Review: “In the spirit of heading into darkness after all things unseeable and obscure, write a poem using a text that is inexplicable to you. Could be quantum physics, thermodynamics, mathematics, aeronautical engineering … Continue reading Bodies of a More Complicated Nature

Books, Found Poetry, My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, Photography, Poetry3 Comments

They Were All There, Gleaming

Charlotte Hamrick

Without him, a faint image became clearer. The curtain hanging before my eyes, flat and cold, removed. Over me, the jeweled colors appear brighter than they were. ***** So, I worked my own prompt today, my version of an erasure poem. Erasure poems, to me, are too messy – you know, all that black marker. So I just take a block of text and search for words and phrases  and either underline or write them down as I go. This poem was derived from the following paragraph in The Girl With the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (Penguin Books, 1999) … Continue reading They Were All There, Gleaming

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Of Little Hands and Feet

Charlotte Hamrick

What wasn’t: Deliverance Baptismal Secular Miracle A Happy Childhood A Drowning Scene What was: A Burning Resuscitation Conversion A Sanctuary The Other Side of Drowning ***** Prompt courtesy of Greg Santos on Found Poetry Review. Greg suggested several prompts and I settled on a Table of Contents poem which ended up a list poem. My source: The Chronology of Water, Yuknavich, Lidia, Hawthorne Books, 2011. Btw, this is an astounding book. I wrote about it here Continue reading Of Little Hands and Feet

My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, Poetry, Poets, Pop Culture2 Comments

Thank You for a Funky Time

Charlotte Hamrick

Pick a day when the sunlight dances on little red Corvettes and snow in April, when elevators reach a higher floor and you can always see the sun. Choose a day that incites a parade so purple the cells in your body tingle like pop rocks and guitars exploding, feeling proud in the light of this power. Give the world all your extra time and kiss this parade we call life where he taught us to love and laugh and celebrate in purple rain and stars that fall from the sky. *****   Prompt courtesy of Found Poetry Review: Take an erasure … Continue reading Thank You for a Funky Time