"Literature is news that stays news"
- Ezra Pound
I particularly don’t like the news and don’t listen/read them, but for the sake of this exercise give it a try: pick one news headline and that can be something you really dislike; now write your own news that are quite the opposite, news you would like to hear or read in the newspaper, news in the form of poem or a story. I know, it can feel a bit strange – first writing news (and you are probably not a news reporter, just like I’m not) and second – making a poem out of it. But that’s the purpose of this exercise: to stretch our minds and look for solutions and possibilities where we are unlikely to find them.
‘T is you that are the music, not your song.
The song is but a door which, opening wide,
Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong
Sings but of you. Throughout your whole life long
Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
This perfect beauty; waves within a tide,
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
The song of earth has many different chords;
Ocean has many moods and many tones
Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods
The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones
Autumn alone can ripen. So is this
One music with a thousand cadences.
Amy Lowell