dogtrax

writeacrossamerica

Oracle of Lacuna

only half a house buried in dirt becomes the bricks a writer might use to build a few words into only half a home for a poem

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (New York)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/51588a6e04ef4284337b1f40a89138a6/hvwp-virtual-writing-marathon/index.html and https://youtu.be/hl9twz7jaec

Naval frigate USS Jesse L. Brown cut across oceans of racial divide, each tide carrying this cherished local hero's story

— the first Black naval aviator and the first Black naval officer killed in the Korean War —

a little bit further into navigating a world of understanding

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Mississippi)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/04028042cf74411a2a1f6d6d96c52092/downtown-hattiesburg-virtual-writing-marathon/index.html

Remembering Ellis

The radio show played the entire concert of the father, Marsalis, leading his sons, the family riffing off each other in front of an audience, with us listening in, too, but it was the son's voice on the passing of the father that hung so quiet in the air, like a complex harmony of shared jazz improvisation

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Louisiana)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/b9410ac575a86deb6a52221179a64ef6/new-orleans-writing-marathon/index.html

“If you don't vote, you don't count.”

Perhaps justice will be the vote itself — one town's lasting legacy for a ballot activist, Vernon Dahmer of Forrest County, a murdered man whose statue stands in such stark contrast to the Soldier of Confederacy, two symbols locked into silent battle over the soul of a nation's past, present, future

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Mississippi)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/04028042cf74411a2a1f6d6d96c52092/downtown-hattiesburg-virtual-writing-marathon/index.html

All around this small house you'll find cubbies and alcoves, small nooks for fingers and dreams, large enough to hold the historical legacy of one, Miss McCarty, the woman of the wash who worked her days planning for another's opportunities

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Mississippi)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/04028042cf74411a2a1f6d6d96c52092/downtown-hattiesburg-virtual-writing-marathon/index.html

Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? — excerpt from “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

I don't know, Mary, and isn't that the raw truth of these lives lived, each foot plodding forward along beaten bends already trampled by others before us, those whose minds and hearts went wild with untraveled terrain, while here I am, Mary, toying with words barely visible to myself, never mind the rest of the world

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Wisconsin)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/682bb4edd84301c78e2f9be8f15cf8d5/greater-madison-writing-project-olbrich-gardens-writing-marathon/draft.html and https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

Poetic response to 'Carrying Our Words' by Ofelia Zepeda

It's so true, Ofelia; We carry our words. Our own songs hold the weight of tides and beauty. We wish the wind well as it caresses our shouts into whispers, the spaces where canyons resonate of shared stories

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Arizona)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/1f437741dd4ee15610d5d8e3f487edb5/arizona-writing-marathon-by-cawp/index.html and https://poets.org/poem/carrying-our-words

Organ Pipe Cactus

Where this land sings its desert songs with wind hovering over open green - its melody, far; its harmony, long - that's the place we still belong

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Arizona)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/1f437741dd4ee15610d5d8e3f487edb5/arizona-writing-marathon-by-cawp/index.html

Chiricahua

Rock fists raised in protest; these stone gods with faces and bodies hidden stand strong against the winds of every day turmoil; change arrives, incremental

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Arizona)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/1f437741dd4ee15610d5d8e3f487edb5/arizona-writing-marathon-by-cawp/index.html

You sit so quiet so still for two hundred million years or more, wrapped as you are in a shawl of layered soil and petrified bog, only to be broken open and gawked at like some found art strewn about in a gallery nearly lost so long ago

for the #NWP #writeacrossamerica project (Arizona)

Inspired by https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/1f437741dd4ee15610d5d8e3f487edb5/arizona-writing-marathon-by-cawp/index.html and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAq7pNWZlJU