It's Hard to Write a Poem about Amelia Earhart

Yesterday I took out a couple of old magazines from my collage materials stash to use for a writing exercise for a guest lecture I was giving on poetry for a colleague's intro to literature class at Edmonds CC. I asked students to write short found poems as described in this writing exercise I posted about not long ago. I gave each student a random page I'd torn from an issue of Better Homes & Gardens to use as the source text for his/her poem.

Before class started, I had time to look at another magazine I'd brought, and I wrote down a few lines. Last night and this morning, I edited the lines a bit. When I was in grad school, I tried to write a poem about Amelia Earhart, and it didn't turn out well at all. Maybe this could become a poem I like better.

Amelia Earhart in National Geographic

With propellers for buttons
she designed clothing for Macy's.

When its engines start, she said
an airplane sounds like poetry.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Dear Teeny Tiny Blog,

(I just saw your craigslist post, and thought I'd give it a try.) I found it interesting, as I had never heard/read that before, about Earhart likening the sound of an ariplane's engine to poetry. Now that I think of it, the constant whir of an internal combustion engine is very similar to some forms of minimalism--especially in music. My brother is involved in aviation and the restoration of antique war planes, and he can tell what kind of plane just flew overheard by the sound of its engine (or at least what type of engine it has).

I'm also interested in starting a few zines. I've done musical (recordings) zines before, in the form of CDs, but I'd love to start collaging words and images--and sounds.
Thanks.

October 18, 2012 at 8:26 AM

Amanda Laughtland said…

Thanks for your comment. I appreciate you taking the time to drop me a little note.

I can't tell one airplane engine (or one automobile engine) from another; I guess all of our ears are tuned to different frequencies in a way.

I liked what I saw and read on your blog. Seems like you'd make some very cool zines, considering your interests in both writing and art.

There's a community for zinesters at We Make Zines which is a good resource for trading zines with other writers and artists. You could probably trade some of your zines on CD for print zines if you still have copies. :)

October 18, 2012 at 10:44 AM

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