Get Listed with Ed Pilolla

I am delighted to present journalist, writer, story-teller Ed Pilolla as our guest contributor on Real Toads today. I am a great admirer of Ed's poetry, and his sense of purpose in getting words to work for him. 

ed pilolla

When Kerry asked me to do a word list prompt, I was reminded how I have difficulty writing from prompts. The reason is the pressure I feel to ‘make it work.’ However, my instinctive process of going into my cave alone prevents me from meeting some challenges and overcoming them in work-group settings. So this is my opportunity to be part of a prompt and make it work, and I'm very grateful to Kerry for reaching out.

So since I have difficulty writing off prompts, I’m going to make this a list in which any word can be discarded and not used in a poem. And I’m going to list several favorites of mine because making this process easier will, perhaps, make for an easier time knitting something together. I hope you find some favorites of yours, too.

Honestly, I am using this prompt to get back to writing love poetry because that’s what I like to do. So I built this list thinking about a river’s journey. I don’t think the list means you have to write about a river, but that’s what I’m going to do. A river has a natural narrative. And putting ourselves in a position to be successful writers is important, I believe.

Lastly, I write a free verse style. Anything else intimidates me and I feel like I’m making obvious missteps that other, real poets notice and hold against me. This is probably not true, but I avoid all avenues of anxiety when I write and create. So I stick with paragraph form and look for opportunities in the draft to flesh out theme and polish, shine and rhyme. Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure and honor to be here.

Harmony in Blue and Green ~ Natalia Goncharova
from Wikipaintings.org (Fair Use)

River 

Ocean

Love

Moon

Stars

Strength

Stream

Crash

Waterfall

Splash

Break

Flow

Murmur

Trenches

Gorges

Downhill

Lakes

Mountaintops

Bay

Jungle

Ponds

If you would like to participate in this prompt, please write a new poem using a minimum of 3 words and add it to the link below.