Isle of Write Islander Highlights! Week 2

Message in a Bottle #15
Origin: The Isle of Write
Sender: @carolkean
Recipients: Steemit Creatives

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“... all this time spent awake
when we could be sleeping”

Awesome line, right? More on that in a minute.

First things first:

We are in Week Three of our eight-week curation project, and every day, more stories, poems, songs, and artwork brighten the Isle. We cannot anthologize everything, of course, but we would love to highlight some of this week’s new posts. Let me begin with

A huge thank you,

@carmalain7

for your time and presence at the Isle.

When @geekorner (@Thunder_God, aka Guy) is napping, Alain is wading along the shore, waving in newcomers, striking up conversation. When Guy and Alain are in the channels at the same time, there is much hair-ruffling, friendly ribbing, and intelligent discourse, and those cat memes Guy continues to inflict on us.

Saturday, “all this time spent awake when we could be sleeping” leaped out at me in @carmalain7’s The Way We Used To. He had posted the link, noting “nostalgia enjambed with coming of age and finding belonging” as the theme. As someone who doesn’t even try to critique poetry, I just focus on lines that speak to me. Alain startles us with the counterintuitive. I don’t pretend to know his intent, but I’d say napping or sleeping, pastime of the lazy, is the new necessity in a culture where almost everyone is sleep deprived. The things we cram into each day - when we could be, and SHOULD be, sleeping!

Alain responded in the Comment section: “I feel this the most, Carol, the consumer culture where we can only truly be if we are experiencing, all the time, infinite in an instant - I've lost a lot of sleep over it.”

(And, God bless him, he didn't say "pun intended.")

You see what could be more fun than reading a poem: Getting to talk about it with the poet himself! Steemit is a great medium for making that happen.

If a poet is too humble or too busy to post links to his or her latest, others in the Isle often make sure it isn’t overlooked. Thunder God messaged me to say,

@carmalain7 forgot to put this up himself. A piece out of a bigger piece-cycle, which stands well on its own. And quite good. Sky Burial

Once again, you must read the comment section. I love seeing how many readers highlight the same lines as their favorites--and how often one person’s favorite can be so different than another’s. I love the lines in Sky Burial that caught the eye of @platosgroove:

"Paint me every shade of fire,
stroke me across the skyline,
Tie your lips in mine
double knot and pull me tight,
drag the knife across my skin,
Set my eternal soul alight."

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Speaking of @platosgroove, I'd love to mention his poem I Need You and Smooth, simple, soft, old school jazz, but the rule is, Tag your Post with #isleofwrite or you don't get to see your name linked to your work here in the weekly roundup.

--What's that? I just cheated and mentioned him anyway? Well, he took the time to post a very nice comment to Alain, and I tell you what, Your Comments Matter. We all look forward to finishing a piece, posting it, then revisiting it to see if anyone upvoted or commented on our verbal offspring (so to say; we do labor to deliver these words, don't we?)

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More poetry, you say?

The IsleOfWrite tag is bursting at the seams with it! These are just a tiny sampling of the many pieces deserving of more attention.

@poetrybyjeremy

A spirit of cooperation, teamwork, and community is also evident in @poetrybyjeremy’s In The Streets of Paris--Poetry inspired by Art, especially his comment,

I want to thank @peaceinartwork for letting me use this image as an inspiration. If you liked the painting, you should check out more of her work on her page. She is one of the kindest and most talented persons I have ever come across. 50% of the proceeds from her sales go to the Buddy Project!

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@mamadini

Niish on Discord stopped by to drop a link and what a lovely link it was! A kind and conscientious Islander, she remembered to say a little as she posted rather than drop and run:

This is my first time posting a link in here, that said, I do make the rounds as much as possible as I love all the great artist on the Isle:
Longiniquity

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Ah, but Niish loves one Islander in particular. Oh, it’s not a secret. He dedicates every poem to @mamadini:

@geekorner

After the Flood

This is a companion piece to the last piece of poetry I wrote in 2009, which for nigh on 9 years was my last piece of poetry. It speaks to the changes wrought in me since.

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Speaking of love, we got some from

@febizle

Drop of Ink upon the Isle. These lovely words definitely capture the spirit of The Isle:

drawing attention
from the oceans
connecting with the sun
through the skies
decorating the souls
of they that write
a world of poets united

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Valentine's Day draws near, also drawing more from our poets.

@poet

Uncontrollable Laughter is "Dedicated to my precious @techslut," and she responded with a poem of her own. Here's an excerpt from @poet:

You make me laugh
Just anything you say will do
You make me laugh
so hard it hurts
I can't not laugh
I love to laugh

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And here's her response:

@techslut

Morning Poem

It's short. I'm not quoting excerpts, but go see for yourself: it's beautiful. Don't hesitate to comment. I enjoy reader feedback as much as the posts themselves.

@moeknows

This Isle regular got a lot of well-earned attention for his spoken word poem, Something to Say.

Some of my favorite lines:

And words start to rain
Down on my tongue and out of my mouth

And

It's a literary family
These poems are children
Born thru a marriage to hardship
And struggle and happiness and love

And

I cast out my poetic net
And harvest species of verbiage that you haven't heard yet

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I also love the ending but you’ll have to click on the link and read or listen to it yourself!

Nonfiction

@byn

This very active and prolific freewriter offers us an encouraging and humorous non-fiction piece: My Freewriting Journey: My Escape from Mental Constipation

I somehow stumbled upon @mariannewest and her freewrite. I remember quite vividly thinking to myself, “Five minutes? I can’t write anything in five minutes! I have never been able to write short stories. There is NO WAY I can write a short story… and in five minutes? This woman is nuts if she thinks someone can write a good story in five minutes. I can think of very few things that can be done in a satisfying way in five minutes, and those things aren’t things that should be done on steemit!”

Read on to see what happened when she finally overcame her skepticism and started writing.

@brokemancode

Celebrating the end to his 30 Day Haiku Challenge, @brokemancode sent out some goodies to those who stuck with him to the end, and also shared the finishing touch on this terrific little initiative:

Nature
Living masterpiece
But who could be the artist?
No one surely knows.

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Okay, I kind of stuck in more poetry... I told you: bursting at the seams!

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@ameliabartlett

Amelia brings to Steemit an interview with Arielle Zadok, producer, a yogi, a life coach, who has made a major move from sunny Florida to gorgeous New Zealand, in Women Taking Leaps 2017 Recap

Was there a growing pull or a single moment that moved you to fully pursue your dream?

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Once I decide I do or do not want something, it’s hard for me to ignore it. The six weeks that changed my life all happened in flow. The series of events that lead me to fully pursue my dreams made space for New Zealand to even be an option for me.

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Fiction

@raj808

An Isle fixture, Raj brings us The Gelded One, a fantasy with some really dark, daunting scenes. It opens with the torture and murder of a prisoner, but this is a fantasy, so how dead is the prisoner? I'll never tell-- read it!

A cold fire awakens in my belly, rivulets of flame are pulsing from my eyes now as the sacred herb’s effects wane once more. But that cold will not be quenched. It rises up in me like the glaciers grating progress in the northern wastes, steady, enough to grind a mountain down.

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@techslut

Yes, this is a second week in a row mentioning her fiction, but I can't resist drawing attention to one of the most unique story endeavors out there. With Mistress of Magic: Morgan's First Apprentice - Chapter 4 - Food for Thought, @techslut shows that woman-centered fiction doesn't have to be vapid, predictable tripe, and erotica doesn't have to be formulaic bodice-ripping. Don't miss this intriguing series!

Many of the Ladies who passed us were visibly pregnant. Pregnancy was the most vulnerable time of a Lady’s life – the only time she could not cast spells or draw power from a man. So it was no wonder that Mistresses and Ladies of nobility would prefer to spend that time here, at the Citadel...

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There is more, so much more, but I haven’t gotten to music and art yet... Next week!

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See what else the Isle is up to:
In-Depth at the Isle: @Vitkolesnik
Isle of Write Curation Announcement!
Isle of Write Poetry Publication Week 2 Roundup
Community, Contest, and Curation, Oh my!
Conversations with Authors - Yahia Lababidi

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If you'd like to wash up on our shore,
a click of the map brings you straight to our door!

art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics