Literary Thursday: Your Assignment

This one I wrote towards the end of my sophomore year at Sacred Heart University. I was taking a poetry writing course taught by Professor Michael Sweeney. I thoroughly enjoyed the course, but I am not sure whether this was written during or after the class.

Your Assignment

Devise a poem in twenty lines or less
That challenges your reader
To write his own poem.

Please keep the topic vague,
In order to encourage a wide range of
Spontaneous creativity.

Make sure you set line length restrictions
Because the unschooled poet desperately needs a sense of structure and limits
Or he will include unnecessary information.

If he decides to write about ninjas,
That would be great.
Aardvarks are good too.

Be sure that your poem sounds like poetry.
If it isn’t poetic (if it sounds more like awkward prose),
You can’t expect your reader’s poem to be either.

Remember, the worst enemy of poetry is redundancy.
Repeat after me: “Redundancy will kill my poem,
Redundancy will kill my poem.” Don’t forget.

And be sure to keep it under twenty lines,
Because attention spans are much lower
Than… oh, is it snowing outside?

Link-Me-Up Wednesday: Flying

This one was passed onto me from my good friend, Dave. I love the L.J. Alberts quote. Enjoy!

Click Here

If you have any interesting links, please email to travis@travisflynnphotography.com for a possible posting on upcoming Wednesdays.

Reflective Tuesday: Growth

This quote is from a book I'm reading called, "The Shack." It has a quote to go along with each chapter.

Growth means change and
change involves risk, stepping
from the known to the unknown.

-Author Unknown

Flashback Friday: Beach Sunset

Here is another one taken with the Canon A80 back in 2005. It seems that everyone with a camera and a shutter finger feels the urge to photograph sunsets. Seriously, Americans alone must spend tens of thousands of clicks every clear night. Yet most of us are disappointed the first time we try. The sun is much, much, much, much, much, much, much brighter than everything surrounding it. It throws off the meter of the camera and everything else is severely underexposed. When adjustments are made, everything else may be exposed correctly, but a large, boring circle dominates and everything else loses detail. One day I realized that perhaps it's typically not in my best interest to include the sun in the frame when photographing sunsets. (As a good general rule, it's best not to include the main light source in the frame.)

This was my first photo to be published in a magazine: Milford Living.

(Click to see larger.)