Saturday Good Reads: Inspired and Creating

For this edition of Saturday Good Reads, I’m turning to the tumultuous world of e-books, and specifically to two e-books recently published e-books. One is about writing poetry, and the other is about creativity. Both are good reads.

Inspired

“From the earliest of times,” says L.L. Barkat, “people have used poetry as a way to remember, to heal, to hope, to love. Poetry’s various methods are suited to produce a memorable, emotional experience of language and, indeed, of life itself, as a poem can sing its music and ideas into our very centers.”

In Inspired: 8 Ways To Write Poetry You Love, Barkat writes about poetry – what it is, why you should consider it, and why you should consider memorizing it. And why you should write it. In fact, she makes it rather easy to begin. She describes five kinds of poems (there are others) – the catalog poem, the sonnet, the resolution poem, the sestina and the villanelle – gives examples of each, and then provides writing prompts and links to more information and discussion.

Barkat goes on to suggest you tweet your poem to @tspoetry (the Twitter account for TweetSpeak Poetry) and post your poem on the TweetSpeak Facebook page.

She’s the author of six books, including a poetry collection, InsideOut: Poems. (And I have to say even her non-fiction works read like poetry. You can visit her author page on Amazon for the complete list of her works.

Creating

“This is a call, an invitation, a challenge, and a shove to let your creative gifts come to life and to sustain them,” writes Ed Cyzewski. “I don’t use the word ‘gifts’ lightly. We have been given creativity for a reason. We nurture it because creativity has been woven into the fabric of our world. Whether you believe that’s by divine design or by random chance, the place of creativity in our world is unmistakable.”

In Creating Space: The Case for Everyday Creativity, Cyzewski makes his case – and a compelling one – for creativity, that it’s not only for kids and a few artistic types. His definition of creativity is broad enough to include cooking, painting, drawing, sculpture, pottery, dancing, writing, sports, knitting/sewing/crocheting, woodworking, gardening and drama, and he says that list is only a small sample.

He goes on to explain how to access your creativity, what can choke it off, why creativity is not a self-centered enterprise, and how to avoid “playing it safe.” It’s a clarion call to “go ye therefore and create.”

Cyzewski is the author of seven books; you can see the complete list at his author page on Amazon. He blogs at In a Mirror Dimly.