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Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "anything goes." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

Stuck for ideas? You can find prompts by ...
* browsing planned poems for Aquariana and the Maldives, The Big One, Broken Angels, Calliope and Vagary, Officer Pink and Turq, Pips and Joshua, or Shiv. (Some of these I've already done, so they're not all up to date, but others I haven't done yet.)
* browsing my Serial Poetry page for favorite threads or characters.
* browsing series with recently created landing pages: Artists of Destruction, Coracle Shores, Crystal Wood, Strike of the Thunderbirds, The Wandering (on the Serial Poetry page), Iron Horses, Peculiar Obligations, Not Quite Kansas.
* browsing my QUILTBAG list, Romantic Orientations in My Characters, Sexual Orientations in My Characters, Gender Identities in My Characters, or My Characters with Disabilities for favorites.
* naming a poetic form you'd like to see written.
* picking a prompt from my current bingo cards: National Crafting Month Bingo 3-1-26 
* picking some from the Bingo Generator prompt lists.
* looking up fun tropes on Fanlore.
* choosing an unusual word.
* plugging a favorite topic into your search engine and choosing a picture that looks interesting.
* anything short. I could especially use short poems today as other prompts are likely to run long.
* standalone ideas, if you're a fan of that rather than series.

What Is a Poetry Fishbowl?

Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.

In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is "anything goes." I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things of any type. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

Today is cloudy and frigid, spitting snow and howling wind. :/  It stormed last night.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a small mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus several cardinals.

I put out water for the birds.

Today my partner Doug asked me to remove a bunch of staples for him.  I first looked for my staple remover but couldn't find it.  Instead I grabbed the tiny screwdriver that I got from Power Plus at the Home and Garden Expo.  It actually worked better.  Because it's swag, the screwdriver tip is very thin and narrow.  That made it a lot easier to slide under the ends of the staples to open them, then slide under the wide part of the wire to twist it loose.  Staple removers typically have very thick teeth that can be difficult to get under the wire.  So this is now my staple remover of choice, and will live in my office drawer.  :D

What most people call luck or opportunity is, in my observation, largely situational awareness.  I needed a tool; I thought about what would work; I used what I had.  And then I noticed that it worked better than a dedicated tool from the past.  A small discovery, but it makes my primate brain very happy. 

Today is cloudy and cool with howling wind. It's up to 18mph. A beautiful day to stay indoors and write!

I fed the birds. Unsurprisingly, I haven't seen any. I expect they're all huddled in whatever shelter they can find.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/15/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a small mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

EDIT 3/15/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

A tiny scilla is blooming white in the purple-and-white garden.

It's starting to rain.

I am done for the night.

Today we went to Middlefork at the Mall in Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana. This is a big flea market, although not quite as big as the last one we caught. We both found some great stuff.

( Read more... )