Perhaps Amelia disliked the scarf, pale yellow and indigo paisley under glass in the San Diego Air and Space Museum, where in a cubicle it sits beside her book, also behind glass in a sister cubicle where it can’t be read: “The fun of it: Random Records of My own Flying and of Women in Aviation” that also features the story of her Solo Transatlantic Flight, begging the question, who would give away the scarf of an aviatrix, when did she last wear it… From The Scarf (Perhaps, Maybe)
Amelia: the power… to sit in the cockpit at the controls. To fly the plane. To be free of gravity. To have the aerial view. To disappear.
Today’s prompts:
- Write a love poem for Amelia Earhart. Address her as a lover. Or a sister, husband, or mother.
- Which thresholds have you crossed alone despite danger (emotional, imagined, or tangible)? Where in your life have you taken a risk?
- Watch the poetry movie Amelia. Choose any of the images as a starting point for writing, including the shadow of the sculpture plane above by Sonoma County sculptor, Monty Monty. Both shadow and the full plane sculpture appear in the movie. (Amelia, or The Poem of Endings, voice of Lori O’Hara, original arrangement on guitar by Michael Greenberg, photos by Robyn Beattie.)
- Or keep writing past the poem’s last line to create your own poem of alternate endings, using it to jumpstart your writing: No one listening, except you, crossing for the crossing…
Share your writing in comments below, or a portion of it, or any thoughts about the process of writing to the prompts.
Additional Links:
Links to Feral Mom, Feral Writer with backstory on writing the poem Amelia, Or the Poem of Endings originally published at V’s Place, blog of E. Victoria Flynn, now forthcoming in November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, November 1, 2014):
The Tenth Stair and the Making of (the poetry movie) Amelia
Beauty to Memory and the Scarf (Amelia’s scarf)
For inspiration on persona poems, and a stunning tour through a constellation of characters surrounding Amelia (from husband to stepson to housewife to bystander to ground control and more), read this beautiful multi-view poem by Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Today in Literature, The Last Time I saw Amelia Earhart.
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