Grab The Book Closest To You ...

Today we woke up to rain.  It rained all night and I sleep very well.  I always sleep well when it's raining at night.  It just seems calming and relaxing.  But, it's raining this morning too, and I think is supposed to for the rest of the day.  I need to get out and go to the mall to walk and I will because I'm losing weight and I don't want to stop doing what works.

Something that I thought about this morning that is a great tool when writing poetry is something I've heard about in the past.  This exercise was posted as something to do during National Book Week.  I've done it before at any time, when I think about it.  In fact, I used to work in a library so I had all kinds of resources for this.  Anyway, the rules are that you grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence. Don't mention the title.  This is what I found from the book that is closest to me this morning:

"You meant driving as fast as you like," Miss Queenie said. "They would have failed you."

It's very interesting to do this.  The following is a short poem that I wrote doing this very thing:

Commitment

A commitment must be honored.

We met up in London for drinks too,

always with other people.

Ah, my heart, trust you to find the silver lining

in this cloud of dust.

He has three children of his own,

all adults now.

He says that he already has

a waiting list.

I stretched my arms, yawned,

then went into the kitchen

and downed a bottle of beer.

Written and Copyrighted by
Sharon King

 

 

It's a very good exercise and helps us to find language for our poetry or other writings.  There is also the idea of found poetry and I'll talk about that in my next post.  Found poetry is great too, but you have to give credit to the original writer.