Category: writing

In 2016, the New York Times ran an article about Bob Dylan’s unprecedented win of a Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work as poet/songwriter. While many understood the award and found it long overdue, some critics laid waste to the choice with some interesting words.

From the NYT 2016 article- “Bob Dylan winning the Nobel in Literature is like Mrs. Fields winning a Michelin star.” said novelist, Rabih Alameddine.

First, who the hell is Rabih Alameddine? In my many decades on planet Earth, I have never heard that person’s name. I had to look him up and now that I know who he is, I’m still not intrigued enough to search out his work.

Dylan? Oh, yeah. I know who he is. As does most of the world. I’ve been aware of him since the mid-1960’s when my mind was freshly opened to music and words and his lyrics filled my imagination.

Years after hearing, “And she aches just like a woman, but she breaks like a little girl.” forgetting that its inspiration was that slice of lyric, I wrote an essay that included this, “I am a very smart woman but my heart is a stupid teenage girl.” Still accurate and confessional. Dylan leaks through my consciousness at interesting times.

Poetry or song lyrics are to me the same thing but one has been lit on fire with music. Are they literature?

lit·er·a·ture/ˈlidərəCHər,ˈlidərəˌCHo͝or/Learn to pronouncenoun

1. written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting merit. ‘a great work of literature.’

By this definition, yes. They are, without a doubt literature. And moreso, the easy consumption of these carefully cultivated words make for a palatable introduction to word crafting beyond the world textbook and technical writing we must absorb to complete our educations. Can you argue against it? I’d like to hear that debate.

For many, poems and song lyrics are the first introduction to the art of writing for pleasure; creating something that allows emotion to have its way with us.

Poems and lyrics are words we absorb by choice. Some repeatedly so we can savor their existence like fine chocolate melting on our tongues.

These, smaller than a novel, meals of words have the same lasting impact as a well written book. Their place in our world is spotlighted whenever large moments happen. Amanda Gorman, reading her stellar poem The Hill We Climb, at President Biden’s inauguration drove that home again for me and others this past January. You’d have to have a small, cold, narrow-minded heart to have heard this young women and not be deeply moved by her words.

We writers of short things, word ninjas, are sharpening our imagination. Readying our pens for a run at channeling bottled lightning onto the page next month. And in the end, we won’t do it for the reader. It’s really just for us. A private moment when we win the game of rearranging 26 letters, over and over again until we’ve built a small word castle where we can walk around for a bit admiring the view.

If you’re a lover of poems, try these. Japanese Death Poems. A collection of haiku and poems written by Zen Monks and Samurai just before their death. Their own brief farewell to the world. The stark beauty will keep you reading and re-reading to be with them one more time.

From Zen Master Ichikyo at his death on February 12, 1360-

Empty-handed I entered the world

Barefoot I leave it

my coming- my going

two simple happenings

that got entangled

Where do the inspirations arrive from, who gets to catch them and what will they do with them? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind… as it always has.

And I’ll be out there waiting for the words to come, knowing that no matter how many words line up, it is literature. It is the stuff of human dreaming. Worth the work… See you in the word field.

32 days away. That’s the countdown to NaPoWriMo 2021. April is National Poetry Writing Month and I’ll be joining thousands of poets from around the world in the 30 Poems in 30 Days challenge again.

It’s an interesting endeavour to force yourself to go deep and listen for a few shining words to craft a little offering to the ethers. Like speed dating, readers/followers blast through the poems posted, plucking flowers here and there to stop and admire.

Last April, while I was writing in isolation with my family way at the top of the Leelanau Peninsula where I live, someone from a Poetry Site in the U.K. saw one of my poems and reached out to invite me to be in their NaPoWriMo2020 Anthology, available here:

I’m doing my pen lifts and my speed word gathering. Got my eagle eyes in and my super hearing tuned up. I’m ready. 30 Poems in 30 Days? Bring it.

Night Vigil  by  Mimi DiFrancesca

On the last night of his life

My father asked to see the stars

So I lifted his frail weight into the chair

And wheeled him out the door-

Beneath the Phoenix midnight sky

His cloudy eyes looked up

To soak in the vast dome of wonder-

A million points of light awaited him

Visible, even hindered by the street lights

His old friends were waiting still

Like they had so long ago

When he ran through an Illinois field

His brothers at his side

Surely, like they did as he stood on deck

To cross the channel of black water

That brought his different brothers 

to the shore of Normandy

Even then, those same shining friends

Stood guard

As promise of more-

And on that last night of July 

Beneath the desert sky

He took one last look

Certain then the stars were true

Forever holding their celestial vigil

Witnessing the lives 

Of every being

Across the universe

Reminder

Promise

Of something more.