We’re a week to Thanksgiving here in the USofA, and we have not one or two but three poems of gratitude to examine, giving us 6 lessons of Advice for All Writers. These three poems have quirky ways of matching to the holiday, thanks-giving and gratitude.

The gratitude doesn’t take the gushing that usually fills most writings about thankfulness. The individual poets present their heartfelt emotion in a realistic manner. They’ve lived real lives and experienced pain and heartbreak, and they share this reality in the hopes that we can gain from their experiences.

Reality rather than gushy platitudes? I’m in for that, every time.

Like writing strong, rational characters with strong counterparts, allies and antagonists rather than weak straw-men which doesn’t prove anything about strength and intelligence and logic.

Oops, preaching again. Herewith, our six lessons and three poems for this episode.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction / Lessons 1 & 2
• 03:40 Lessons 3 & 4
• 06:22 Cowper “Gratitude”
• 08:45 Sandburg “Our Prayer of Thanks”
• 13:20 Lesson 5
• 14:45 Nesbit “Gratitude”
• 16:15 Lesson 6
• 17:25 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 19:31

#audiencereaction #eclecticaudience #discoverability #williamcowper #gratitude #carlsandburg #edithnesbit

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

LINKS

William Cowper bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cowper

Cowper’s poem https://allpoetry.com/Gratitude-And-Love-To-God

Carl Sandburg bio https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/american-literature-biographies/carl-sandburg

Sandburg’s poem http://carl-sandburg.com/our_prayer_of_thanks.htm

Edith Nesbit bio https://www.britannica.com/biography/E-Nesbit

Nesbit’s poem https://www.poetry.com/poem/8831/gratitude

Link to Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/11/fall-into-poetry-prepare-for-6-lessons.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

When we live our life in the present, being in the moment, we can develop a love-hate relationship with people and things we encounter daily.

We don’t “love to hate” these; we love them at some times while at other times we hate them. We may happily encounter and deal with them, then on a day not too far away, we groan and say, “Not today, please, not today.”

That contradiction, that contrariness, is engrained in our human nature. We aren’t changing our minds. Five days from now, love will re-emerge. When someone reminds us “You said you hated thus-and-so,” we retort “When did I ever?”, conveniently forgotten.

As writers, we work to keep the predominant mood of a work. We don’t wish to confuse a reader. In longer works, we can gradually shirt the mood, dark to bright, Shorter works are better with one mood.

We have strong tools to create mood and manipulate our audience with that mood. Our words are influencers upon the world.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:40 Introduction / Mood / Lesson 1

2:53 Tools to Influence Mood / Lessons 2 and 3

5:35 Frost and Clare

6:19 Frost’s “My November Guest” / Lesson 4

9:57 Clare’s “November”

13:00 Writer as Influencer

14:00 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 16:07

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

Bio of Frost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost

Bio of Clare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clare

“My November Guest” https://poets.org/poem/my-november-guest

“November” https://pickmeuppoetry.org/november-by-john-clare/

#johnclare #robertfrost #novemberpoems #mood #connotation #imagery #tone #atmosphere #poetaslegislator

Link to Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/11/fall-into-poetry-writing-dark-and-bright.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

“Share your innermost life,” marketing gurus advise writers, “with your readers, your newsletter folks, with everyone. Make it all public Make it pop-ular.”

That’s a certain way to burn out most of your audience, who just want the knowledge you have or just want to be entertained.

“Open the window. Let them see into part of your life.” That’s reasonable and rational marketing advice.

A window doesn’t give access to every room of your home, and it certainly doesn’t give access to what you’ve stored in closets or tucked deep in drawers or hidden in old boxes in the attic.

We writers have a constant push-pull dynamic of revealing ourselves. Heartfelt emotion is one of the four requirements of song, applicable to all writing. It speaks to us, touches us soul-deep, and leaves us weeping because we have a similar wound.

In this segment we have two poems by a man who wrote for public consumption but also purged his private anguish in a poem meant only to be published posthumously.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:40 Introduction / Public vs. Private

2:20 Deceit with Reader / Heartfelt Emotion

4:23 Longfellow / Long Rant

7:05 HWL Public vs. Private Poems

8:53 Lessons 1, 2, and 3

9:50 “The Harvest Moon”

11:00 Lessons 4 and 5

12:30 “Mezzo Cammin”

14:45 Lesson 6

15:50 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 17:58

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

#henrywadsworthlongfellow #marketingadviceforwriters #harvestmoonpoem #mezzocamminsonnet #sonnet

LINKS

Bio on Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow

“Harvest Moon” https://poets.org/poem/harvest-moon

“Mezzo Cammin” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50629/mezzo-cammin

Link to Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/11/fall-into-poetry-writing-public-vs.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Monsters of all sorts inhabit literature, for they crowd into people’s consciousness whenever we face trials and tribulations.

The unnatural monsters, goy and terrifying, gorging themselves without mercy or conscience, these are our nightmares, rarely encountered.

The deceptive monsters, the ones that camouflage who and what they are, still gorging themselves, relishing each victim, these inhabit our everyday lives. We should be wary of them, but we still find ourselves caught in their devastating traps, even after we finally recognize them. Only when we are burned enough or wounded enough do we manage to escape, scarred for all future encounters with people who aren’t monsters.

These deceptive monsters are alluring, beautiful enticements that we can’t quite let go. And that unwillingness to escape is truly the monstrous behavior.

Join The Write Focus as we offer 6 Lessons for all Writers as we examine the famous deceptive monster of the wild fairy in two poems by John Keats and e.e.cummings.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction / Deceptive Monsters
• 02:40 Keats’ “La Belle Dame sans Merci”
• 4:00 Lessons 1 2, and 3 for All Writers
• 11:26 Lessons 4 and 5
• 14:00 e.e.cummings’ Wild Fairy
• 17:00 Lesson 6
• 18:45 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 20:51

#wildfairy #labelledamesansmerci #johnkeats #eecummings #allingreenwentmyloveriding #dreams #writingtips #artasinspiration #4requirementsofsong #writingtheseasons

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

LINKS

Keats’ bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats

“La Belle Dame” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44475/la-belle-dame-sans-merci-a-ballad

The Artwork https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Belle_Dame_sans_Merci

e.e.cummings bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings

[all in green went my love riding] https://allpoetry.com/all-in-green

Link to Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/10/fall-into-poetry-deceptive-monsters.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Love. Betrayal. Death. Those subjects we discussed in our story-song and in other recent poems, including Christina Rossetti’s particular version of false love and twisted betrayal—Lust that isn’t love, summer friends abandoning her in her self-exile, her false love leaving her to face her trouble alone.

When we’ve endured betrayal, our memories of that traitors are as a monster.

Monsters need not have venom-dripping fangs and wicked-sharp talons. The worst monsters are in our own selves, the ones who want to stay with that “dragon who keeps so fair a cave” (Shakespeare).

As we near All Hallow’s Eve, we look for stories and poems and blogs about monsters. The horror genre gives us unreal monsters while the thriller genre gives over-the-top monsters, like Hannibal. We have fantasy monsters and domestic villains as monsters. We writers bend tropes.

The best monsters, though, never seem like monsters until we fall into their clutches.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction / Monsters
• 03:55 Heinrich Heine’s “The Lorelai” / the femme fatale
• 08:10 Lessons for all Writers #1 and #2
• 11:48 Lesson #3 Find your Monster
• 15:00 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 17:04

#heinrichheine #lorelai #femmefatale #blackwidow #theme #thesis #womenasmonster #goddessofrevenge #nemesis #siren #gorgon #graiae #odysseus #mythology #revenge

LINKS

Heine’s bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine

“Lorelai” http://www.poetryatlas.com/poetry/poem/2255/the-lorelei.html#:~:text=The%20Lore-lei%20has%20done!%20The%20American%20Poet%20Thomas%20Bailey

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

Link to Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/10/fall-into-poetry-unexpected-monsters.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

October is a month of changes, of transitions, anticipation of the colors even as summer gives us a few reminders of his warmth.

And October ends with All Hallow’s Eve, the evening before a holy day ~ a time of riotous revelry by the forces defiant against God, Father, Creator, Savior.

Creeping upon me with the early chill of October mornings was the realization that Christina Rossett should be next in our Fall into Poetry series. Born 1830 and died 1894, Rossetti is sister to the artist-poet Dante Rossetti of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the Victorian painters who reached into the past and into mythology for the primary subjects of their lush artwork.

Most know Christina Rossetti for “Goblin Market”, a long narrative poem of two sisters. One sister succumbs to temptation and tastes the fruit sold by the goblins. We’re not going to look at “Goblin Market”. I know you’re disappointed.

Instead, we’re looking at three other poems, two straight-forward and people-pleasing, one personal and puzzling, all three with lessons for all writers, not just poets.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction / C.Rossetti
• 03:30 First Poem / First Lesson
• 07:25 Second Lesson
• 08:30 Second Poem / Cold Poems
• 11:00 Third Poem
• 17:02 Last 2 Lessons
• 19:00 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 21:06

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

LINKS

• Biography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Rossetti
• “January Cold Desolate” https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/january-cold-desolate
• “A Year’s Windfalls” https://allpoetry.com/A-Years-Windfalls
• “From Sunset to Star Rise” https://genius.com/Christina-rossetti-from-sunset-to-star-rise-annotated
• “Goblin Market” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44996/goblin-market
• “A Birthday” https://poets.org/poem/birthday

Link to Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/10/fall-into-poetry-rossettis-3-cold-poems.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

We have a theme of Dances of October for this episode ~ although one of our two poems doesn’t mention dancing and the other doesn’t mention October. How are we connecting these two works to that theme?

Well, my brain said “Put them together”, and here we are.

The first poem is by African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. He’s barely anthologized anymore, but that doesn’t mean he should be neglected. Dunbar is an excellent writer with diverse style in different forms, including prose and plays. His verse elevates him above the one-trick ponies who are studied because they represent a type (Louise May Alcott, e.g.).

Our other poem is a lesser-known work by the famous William Butler Yeats.

Follow along as we find unexpected connections with these two unconnected poems. We’ll also add in a few writing lessons that will help all writers.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction
• 01:35 Dunbar’s “October”
• 07:09 First Lesson for All Writers
• 08:46 Yeat’s “To a Child Dancing in the Wind”
• 12:44 Second Lesson for All Writers
• 15:35 Reaching New Meaning / Dunbar & Yeats
• 17:25 Third Lesson for all Writers, A & B
• 18:25 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 20:32

LINKS

Paul Laurence Dunbar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Laurence_Dunbar

“October” https://poets.org/poem/october-2

William Butler Yeats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats

“To a Child …” https://www.poetryverse.com/william-butler-yeats-poems/child-dancing-the-wind

#paullaurencedunbar #williambutleryeats #writingadvice #dirtydozen

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

Link to Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/10/fall-into-poetry-dances-of-october.html

become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

The highbrow puzzles of e.e. cummings or the imagism of Ezra Pound. The lyrical music of John Keats or Christina Rossetti. The logical jumps and intellectual gymnastics of the metaphysical poets. The gimmick that marks Ferlinghetti. The emotions that lurk in a Longfellow sonnet. The intriguing story-songs that we just examined last month.

None of the above sparked my love of poetry. They deepened my love and enriched it, teased me by simultaneously engaging mind and heart.

My love of poetry was sparked by my mother. She gifted her daughters with a love of birds, of flowers, of nature itself. She quoted poems that she’d memorized over the years, poems that echoed with her love of nature, and those poems still echo for me. When I saw poetic lines expressed in nature, poetry lived for me.

Over my years, I’ve found more poems that live, some highbrow, some with a lowbrow snicker, some middlebrow which are frowned upon by intellectuals as “not clever enough”. I say if the poem is to a person’s taste, then who has a right to disrespect their choice?

And so we come to this episode’s poems, two that reveal autumn’s glory, both with marketing and writing ideas for anyone interested in a writing-focused life.

TIMINGS

• 00:00 Welcome
• 00:40 Introduction / Taste in Poetry
• 02:16 Writer’s Growth / Marketing Lesson
• 03:34 Helen Hunt Jackson
• 03:51 “September”
• 05:39 Easter Eggs and Secrets
• 08:41 “October”
• 13:25 Famous Love Story / Clever Word Choice
• 16:05 Marketing Genius / Audience-Focused
• 18:00 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 20:07

Links

Helen Hunt Jackson bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Hunt_Jackson

Her poetry https://www.poemhunter.com/helen-hunt-jackson/

#helenhuntjackson #writergrowth #marketingforwriters #septemberpoem #octoberpoem #octobersonnet

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

Link to Website https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2024/10/fall-into-poetry-two-autumn-poems.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters
• Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)