The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: STUDIO

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?

For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on The Butterfly Hours tab above.

This month's prompts are straws, studio, stuffed animal, summer job, tattoos, telephone, tennis court, test, theater.

STUDIO

I've written before about my own studio – the Purple Horse Poetry Studio and Music Room. I chose “studio” (over “study” or “library” or “office” or any other name) because I identify as an artist first. Here's a quick poem:

If You Want to Know My Heart, Come Inside My Studio

one chamber:

four walls to hold

eighty-eight piano keys

five cello strings

two dozen shelves

fat with books

and hungry for more

more more

a hodgepodge gallery

of watercolor, collage,

pen and ink

the exact same scent

as woodsmoke

its heartbeat,

a window

carrying inside

tree   mountain

bluebird    lake

one light, pulsing

and strung

with yellow-edged

pictures of 

loved-ones' faces

open-shut-open

door taped over

with Dear __ greetings

two roomy closets

where poems tuck

themselves between

quilts   paint

ribbon    thread

the air aswirl

with dreams

made red with words –

some silent

and true as stars,

others slipping

whispering, still:

                       dust

beneath the door.

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- Irene Latham