Coming Together

Writer’s convergence, linking disparate elements into a whole—maybe coherent only to the writer—but may be a new “whole”  when synergy occurs and changes a writer’s plans.

“Teach This Poem,” a Monday offering from The Academy of American Poets, offers:

Tender Buttons

What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current.

What is the wind, what is it.

Where is the serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow and green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it.

—Gertrude Stein

I have just finished reading an article published on Medium from MIT’s Technology Review entitled, “How the Science of Persuasion Could Change the Politics of Climate Change.”

I have planned to write about our buying a house. (That will have to wait.)

Recommendations for teaching Stein’s poem include:

“Ask a question that can’t be easily or accurately answered.” AND

“Write a poem that describes

Something using only questions and answers

Words…might not make sense.”

Wars Over Climate Change

     What is it that changes minds  Other people

I mean  Should they

     What of cautious footing  Is that what

     pussy footing means

     So what if I’m wrong

     What will happen

     will happen  right

     How can I stand

     Idly by

     asking Why