Making It to Semi-Finalist: “Your Going Away Party at the Hotel Dread”

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Publication News, Writing, Writing Contests

When I first returned to writing poetry, way back in 2005 and 2006, I took a series of classes through an organization called Writers on the Net. I was incredibly lucky to stumble on an outstanding teacher, Bob Haynes and his courses, Daydreams I and Daydreams II…

 
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Out the Window, Wednesday

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Musings, Political News, Stream of Consciousness Archive, Wisdom

Out the window, Wednesday, there’s still life, flora and fauna, chittering nut hatches, bleating red-tailed squirrels. One of my cats sits at the base of a Doug fir, waiting, hoping, but the odds are against him, just like they are against me, too, in spite of all my pretending that I’ll figure it out, find the answer, we end up the same, dead in the end…

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The Individuality of a Poetry Signature

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Wisdom, Writing

Is it, perhaps, the most famous cursive signature in American history? And, now that I think about it—and given all the other handwritten flourishes that graces the documents created by the so-called founding fathers—why was John Hancock the one who had his moniker celebrated above and beyond all the rest? The history books offer something of an explanation but who knows if it is even true

 
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Playing with Form: The Abecedarian

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Poetic Form, Publication News, Writing

In Summer 2018, riverbabble published my poem, “First Line of Defense: A Cento.” Not only does this poem use the cento form, stitching together lines borrowed from other poets into a poem all its own, but it is also an (almost) abecedarian. An abecedarian is a poem in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the alphabet…

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