In a Nutshell – Charlapalooza
Don’t forget to read and vote for your favorite Charlapalooza poems!
Charla Dury and I have done a fantastic job (if I don’t say so myself) writing about all your crazy topics in record time (less than 72 hours I believe… at least for me). This was all about quantity haha. Now you get to vote for the quality.
But first let’s fill everyone in on what this past week was all about:
In “The origins of Charlapalooza and what it means to me,” Charla explains:
“Charlapalooza is a blog game where a challenger and I take suggestions of topics on which to write poems. [It] sprouted on my old Myspace blog back in 2006. Suggestions ranged from the serious to the silly and Medussa [Rebecca Godina] and I furiously wracked our brains and wrote our hearts out. People voted on their favorite poems and we all had fun.”
As I wrote in Meet Charla: Charla’s Mind Key intro blog, “One of the most profound reasons Charla blogs is to bring back a sense of community and connectedness that is often lost in the world of technology.”
As for me: “Strict guidelines, ridiculous suggestions, and sometimes tight forms totally stretched my creative muscle back in 2006 when I first (most willingly) fell victim to Charlapalooza.” But more importantly, “In the process of stretching and learning [Mind Key] is better learning how to get the word out there about our passions… and how we can use our talents to help others.”
Although as the first-ever Charlapalooza opponent, Rebecca said it most aptly in her post “Charlaplooza Memories,” “What mattered was the mostly foolish but occasionally beautiful poetry that otherwise would have never existed.”
Continue scrolling to read poems such as those submitted in response to Sweet Sweet Wonderland’s next great cupcake challenge, and these by Danielle:
Secret desire
~suggested by Dahlia Ramone
There’s a door in the forest
Covered by trees.
If you look carefully you’ll find
A mound of sweet purple blooms
That have no business in that shaded
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| Photo by Kely Luzio-Cardona |
Grove, basking in rays of sunlight
Covering a oak slab door.
What I wouldn’t give to give up
The meatloaf for dinner, the emails
For work, the laundry needing folding.
I’d run to that grove, sneaking into that
Streamer of sunlight, breathing in the
Blossoms, escaping forever into the
Unknown of that oaken secret door.
by Danielle Rose
Haiku on Common Core Math
~suggested by Pat Durkin
Substitutes finger count
Teaching children crap for math
Can’t add two plus two
by Danielle Rose
And
Seashell Secrets
~suggested by Kim
The cool touch of it against my ear
Screamed with the sound of the
Waves crashing high over my head.
Instantly brought back to the summer,
Those moments with my feet in sand
Like snow, sun like charcoal on my hair.
What I wouldn’t give to be there again,
Listening to the water racing on the shore
And racing back again. The unending cycle.
What I wouldn’t give to be back there,
Lost in the sound of that seashell.
Softly slipping water, sliding over
Shells and sounds of the seashore.
What I wouldn’t give to see him once more
On the softly sliding slopes of the dunes.
The secret slippery slope of a seashell.
by Danielle Rose
by Danielle Rose
And these by Charla:
They don’t make tiny furniture
With a rounded room in mind
Spherical walls/floor with a circle window/door
Is a tough fit, you’ll find
But it’s warm and out of the elements
And because I’m resourceful, cotton-lined
While not optimal, it’ll have to do
Until my new lease gets signed
Retirement options for the dead ~ as suggested by Jeff Wright
I listen to the police radio
And follow the 420 calls
In hopes of catching a whiff
I criticize the cross stitch
Of my sisters in the church
Over their shoulders
I sit in on family dinners
Listening to the gossip of the day
And roll my eyes
I take vacations with anyone I know
Who is vacationing
And play on the beach
I help my kid work on his car
Give him ideas and
Hand him tools
I whine and complain
To those who can’t listen
Like I did when I was alive
I silently greet at Walmart
Sitting in the corner
Making sure no one steals anything
I sit in my grandson’s garden
And watch his girls
Play in the dirt
A note on voting: You do NOT have to read and vote for all the poems in one shot. There are two options: 1.) you can create a login that allows you to come back to a half-completed form. OR 2.) if you don’t do that your name and votes are still recorded in our state-of-the-art voting mainframe. Just put your name in again, and keep clicking the next button until you get to where you left off.
Duplicate votes will not be counted! If you mistakenly vote twice for the same poem we will only count the first vote. And you don’t have to vote for all of them. Or any of them. We welcome casual readers as well. This is for your enjoyment.
Duplicate votes will not be counted! If you mistakenly vote twice for the same poem we will only count the first vote. And you don’t have to vote for all of them. Or any of them. We welcome casual readers as well. This is for your enjoyment.
Another Note: Mind Key is working on an anthology of art and writing from our fabulous community. If you haven’t submitted anything but would like to, TODAY is the day to do it (let me know in a comment and I’ll send further instructions). If you particularly love a poem in the Palooza, let us know in a comment to that poem and we will consider it as a submission to the anthology. We like feedback, so if you like it and want to see it in print, don’t be shy about telling us so.
Read more on Charla and the Palooza:
Charla’s blog on Charlapalooza
by Charla Dury
Charla’s musings: The origins of Charlapalooza and what it means to me
by Charla Dury
Charlapalooza Memories
by Rebecca Godina
How Charlapalooza Rocked my world
by Danielle Rose
Meet Charla: Charla Dury’s Mind Key Introduction
by Danielle Rose
Link to Charlapalooza:
https://fs22.formsite.com/mindkey/form1/index.html
Richard Goffman
May 20, 2015 at 1:48 amUm…. Sorry, probably not appropriate criterion, but… that's a sexy poem.
Richard Goffman
May 20, 2015 at 1:56 amI'm confused. the comment I made about spurt-squirt-burst… that's wasn't about the suffering of refugees.
As you may have noticed, I'm not wonderful at following instructions. So I'll just say here that I voted for Danielle's refugee poem, but Charla's oozy, slurpy gooey poem.
Danielle Rose
May 20, 2015 at 2:15 pmI agree with you Richard – Charla's Sweet Sweet Nectar Poem is quite sexy!
Danielle Rose
May 20, 2015 at 2:16 pmThis second comment clarified a lot! lol. Got your votes in… thanks!