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What Commands your attention?

I am a very hyperactive person and tend to have my attention dragged by just about anything. Chopstick gets dropped on the floor, I will look for where the sound came from. Someone walks into the library, I will make inadvertent and awkward eye contact with them. Music is one thing that always has my attention though. The beautiful symphonies of instruments and vocals layered together to make a beautiful harmony of song is one of my favourite things to take in.

What are your current writing rituals?

My writing ritual consists of sitting down with my laptop and either recording myself by video or by audio as I write. I tend to think out loud, and doing this in this way allows me to focus and write in that time frame, and to listen back to what I brainstormed to build off of my ideas, in a more detailed way that goes beyond what the words on my document say.

What do you love about poems?

I love the power they have to be interpreted in many different ways by many different people. A good poem could have an entirely different intended meaning to the one you take away, and I find that expression and creativity beautiful.

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What catches my attention and therefore commands it are the little things, the weather, the song I'm listening to on Spotify, what people are wearing on the streets. I enjoy looking at the sky, but recently the days have been so cloudy that it makes me blue to not see the blue in the sky.
I should have a better writing ritual than I do, but this is one of my new years' goal, I want to have a routine to write every day. I really like journalling, but recently I haven't been writing as much because of time or because I get home and I'm tired. Usually I write when there's some feeling that I need to put out or when I do have time.
I love how poems can be so open to interpretation. I find them very hard to write, hence why I'm here(lol). Poetry is beauty in a few lines.

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What commands your attention?

- Things that don't get much attention and seem content with that, like rain on a neutral day

- Things that have not been sabotaged by the human race, like old growth trees

- Things with much character and little explanation, like well-loved thrift store treasures

What are your current writing rituals?

Step 1: Think of something so mind-blowingly profound it must be published

Step 2: Forget it immediately

Step 3: Stroll through the remnants of this thought

Step 4: Get stumped on it

Step 5: Birth inspiration through speed writing

Step 6: Love it or hate it

Step 7: Adjust

What do you love about poems?

Poetry is the method I use to translate my perceptions in a way that others can understand. It has an extraordinary way of literally saying something that everyone understands as something else without explanation. That's pretty sick.

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1. Whatever book I'm reading always commands my attention, and as soon as I see someone reading or carrying a book in public (walking, public transit, in class, etc), my eyes immediately find the cover and I write down the title.
2. My writing rituals, unlike the rest of my habits and routines, are very spontaneous and often erratic. I tend to get creative bursts at very random times, so it's difficult to have a consistent ritual.
3. I haven't read as much poetry as I would like to, but I love how it can convey so much meaning and imagery with so little words.

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The littlest and most mundane things in life command my attention. Whether it is the way the light is coming through a window, the way a snake moves it's body through tall grass, or how a radio cuts to static when the car travels under the bridge. My current writing rituals are writing when inspired by an intense and vivid feeling or emotion. Jotting down certain phrases and words when listening to music brings about unique thoughts and connections as well. I love poetry and poems for the very reason that they exist as an outlet for writers who want to express their thoughts and feelings creatively. Poetry offers a home for those who are less inclined to speak out loud.

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1. The way someone's feet sit in shoes. Calvin Klein text on socks peeking underneath beige jeans. Heels up, perhaps toes clenching in turtle-like dress shoes in nervous excitement. His next to hers, the black converse. Her soles flat to the concrete. Little details. Seen and possible.
2. Hoping my mind can reel in a stray thought in open seas.
3. I love the exploration of poems. The possibility, or fact, that everything is still left to be done differently, a metaphor written in different intonation. The sheer emotionality. Passion. It's like a returning embrace with the love of your life you've never met before.

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My thoughts are commanded by the stories that reveal a persons venerability. Capturing a glimpse of a persons true thoughts both intrigue and enlighten me. This year I have started to try and write creatively everyday. I love that poems reveal the emotional connection shared by humanity. 

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My thoughts are commanded by the stories that reveal a persons venerability. Capturing a glimpse of a persons true thoughts both intrigue and enlighten me. This year I have started to try and write creatively everyday. I love that poems reveal the emotional connection shared by humanity. 

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1. Bright colours, bizarre patterns, distinctive sounds, comforting flavours, and invigorating scents command my attend
2. My writing rituals for academic papers involve loud rap music and a caffeine IV, while my writing rituals for personal creative work usually involve a hot drink outsider in the cold weather.
3. I love poems because they can be anything. Using a rigid structure or freeform, personal venting or making a socio-political statement, poems can be by anyone and are for everyone in every form in every time and place.

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I saw a three legged pug last night.

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Every little thing has the opportunity to command my attention however lately people and their dynamics and personalities has been something which can hold my attention for quite some time. I don't necessarily have a regime for writing more so whenever it hits me, often I have found this is when the world feels quite still to me, either late at night or early in the morning. Poetry to me is a way to see and feel what someone else has, it is a way for us to connect with the people and places around us and to share what we may not be comfortable sharing.

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1. Quite often I pay attention to where people's eyes point when they are distracted. I find it says a lot about who that person is when they're not around people.
2. My writing rituals involve finding the most uncomfortable sitting position imaginable, film soundtracks and complete isolation from any external contact.
3. Poems can be entirely formless or super structured, and sometimes the visual architecture of the words carries a message in itself. It's an exercise in communication that is unlike any other form of art.

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I tend to be drawn to odd characters and grotesquerie in general, as it provides a diversion from the mundane. I haven't yet developed a writing ritual and am hoping to do so during the course of the term. Over the years I've paid more attention to song lyrics, which are by necessity more limited in form, but have been reading more poetry of late. A disciplined poet can make use of the expressive freedom afforded by the form to present meaning in ways that other genres cannot.

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I get distracted very easily however one of the things that commands my attention are loud noises.

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I get distracted very easily however one of the things that commands my attention are loud noises.

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Currently I write little notes everyday of what I need to complete by the end of the week. I also write in my journal sometimes.

What I love about poems is that I feel like I can relate to many of them as well as the patterns and play on words of poems.

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Things that are new and exciting to me command my attention. I try to write at least once a day, any length/format. I love the way poems make the most out of language.

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Anything can command my attention, but recently, observing people in transit, on campus and other pubic spaces is what has occupied my thoughts. I enjoy observing what people are wearing and who they're with and wondering about their own personal relationships with other people. Currently, I write small little vignettes about significant or insignificant moments that happen in my everyday life. I love poems when I feel like they are relatable to me, even if it's just a minor detail.

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It's very easy for me to be distracted, but people-watching is one of the few things that always holds my attention. Just watching how people go about their lives, being themselves, wearing clothes that suit their own personal style, how they behave with other people. I love listening to people talk about something or someone they love, because they way in which their eyes light up is incredible. My current writing rituals are quite minimal - I might write something funny that happened a few minutes ago, or I list down certain things that I am thankful for at the end of the day. Poems make me feel like I'm a part of something bigger and that I have a way to relate to somebody I might not know in such an intimate way, that nothing else can come close. A poem for me is someone's life on a page, and that is so magical.

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My attention wanders constantly, but often it pauses on breaks in the patterns that govern the world I see.
My writing is unregimented. I write at 3am on a note app on my phone. I write on spare sheets of paper when i take notes for other lectures. I write while drunk on solitude, and edit and edit and edit.
Poetry to me is in the flow of words and thoughts like waterfalls crashing into cliffs. It's the stream of sounds and consciousness that fit so well together it's a wonder no one else had ever thought of the same thing. It's the sequences of vowels and consonants that fit so well together on our lips, the sequences of images that blur together in our minds, the tranquillity in that we are all alone, but that we are all alone together.

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Watching people and looking at the choices they make interests me. I think people have a very good grasp of looking at other people and being able to read them yet we have difficulty trying to find truth about ourselves. My current ritual involves sporadic moments of writing when I become inspired by something someone says or by things I'm seeing in my everyday life. I love poems because I think they present an honest truth about ourselves and when you read them back, it's like looking at yourself in a mirror naked, being fully vulnerable with yourself.

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Genuine, humble acts of passion and kindness command my attention. My current writing rituals have been daily notes about my day in the form of a bullet journal - it consists of to-do lists, poems, train-of-thought writings recapping my adventures, and drawings, doodles of the mind. I love poetry because it places so much power in the hand of the writer - maybe you're brought in, pushed away, feel connected, feel empathy or anger - a poem could be written a hundred ways to make you feel a hundred different things.

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You know when it's like, around midnight, and things start to quiet down and settle and there's just a sense of either motionless or minimal movement? That's when I re-live my day, and I let my mind re-experience little moments of my day and my conversations and process any and all memories. I think that's when I pay the most attention. And that also when I usually tend to write. I have always wanted to be that person that writes as they go about their day, and carries their little notebook full of one-liners or phrases or ideas - but I'm not. That's something I hope changes during this course. My love for poems usually roots back to imagery and whether the poet makes me feel or imagine what they want. I guess I like the emotional manipulation. Let's not read too much into that.

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Anything can command my attention as I am easily distracted and amused. My current writing ritual is that I won't force myself to sit down and write, but once I do get an idea, I'll start jotting it down no matter where I am. One thing that I love about poems is that there's such a wide variety of them. From funny ones, to ones where people pour their heart out into it, to ones that are almost just like a day in their lives.

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Good art and discomfort command my attention. I mostly write while I'm on the go and later try to piece together the collection of thoughts into something bigger. I like writing down interesting conversations or lines from movies and podcasts. I love poems because they offer a unique perspective into how people think and process feelings/experiences.

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Whatever my eyes focus on tends to become the centre of my attention. It could be someone's combat boots dirtied with the mud from outside, or it could be someone nodding off on the bus, basically anything and everything because I'm always observing sight, sound, smell. My current writing rituals tend to involve waking up at 3am for no reason and thinking a weird thought, then I'll either write it down on my phone or put it in my journal. Usually I write my more creative ideas really early in the morning, since my mind isn't bogged down with the more overwhelming thoughts that tend to occur during the day. I love poems that express a common idea in a completely different way than what you could ever think of, and I love that poems can inspire you to create things and live.

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It's hard to tell what commands my attention. Everything and nothing commands my attention.

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I find a lot of things in nature demand my attention, especially when the silence of being in the open turns into hundreds of different noises of trees and water and wind and bugs. The longer I am outside on the beach or in the forest the more attuned my eyes get to noticing small beautiful things, that completely enthral me. I don’t have many writing rituals, but I enjoy writing in the evening before bed. I find it the most therapeutic time, because it allows me to let go of anything that may have been close to brimming over the surface during the day. As for poetry, I just really love the emotions I experience when I read a piece that strikes the right chord. I am fascinated and amazed the way a poem as short as say, 10 words, can punch you in the heart or lift you up in the way that your typical sentence cannot.

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What commands my attention are the little details, and the space where we are left to think about how everything is connected to each other. I don't have any specific writing rituals but I find myself writing after a thought-provoking or touching song, and particularly when I'm tired. And, of course, the urge to write overcomes me when I have plenty of exam studying to do. I love that with poetry you can focus on whatever you want and be able to manipulate the words so there isn't always a clear definition. Poetry is all about perspective and looking at the world in certain ways, and I like that because it gives all of us our own agency with our own and other people's words.

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A sort of vivid connection to the poem would command my attention. My current writing ritual is to find 3 random words, and listen to a random NPR music, preferably not rap. I think poems are suspended in time and more free than novels or proses. For the short ones, I mean. I don’t have a lot of experience with the long ones.

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My attention is caught by mundane and
genuine actions. Sometimes it's just someone's ability to express themselves and share beauty.  I write when I need to decompress my thoughts. I love making lists because it takes the pressure out of my brain. My poetry is an unapologetic dance on a quiet trail on a overcast day. I love when poets enable us create a friendship and trust relationship with them and their work. I love how poetry enables me to relate to others.

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Rawness, truth, and healing commands my attention, in any way that is is embodied and expressed. I am drawn, attracted, obsessed with authenticity and vulnerability, and the way these experiences must move through us for us to live in an authentic way. My current writing rituals are inconsistent, which is why I am looking forward to a more regular schedule of writing, feeling and expression. What I love about poems is that they are magic. The way a combinations of letters and words fit together to create something that moves a reader, stirs something so deep within them is magic, and an experience I endlessly crave in both creation and consumption.

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Anything and everything deserves to command attention; from the girl's untied left sneaker on the bus, to the moustached professor of my 9am psych course, to the form of the guy squatting at the platform beside mine. So, how do I abstract from these into one theme? The outside world is inherently what commands my attention. And in these moments of noticing the world, the people within it, in tune with the joint thrum of nature and society, is when lines of poetry occur in mind, to be released in text messages to the self or in scribbled notes on last-night's cashout slip still in my jacket pocket. My love for poems is based in these intermingled experiences of being alive, and how to express emotions and impressions through a measly few written words.

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Memories command my attention, in a way that nothing else does. I spend so much of my life reliving past memories, too frightened to walk out the front door and try and make new ones. I focus on moments, the good ones, the bad ones, the embarrassing ones, the loving ones... all in hope that I might one day be able to recapture the nice feelings, and leave the hurtful ones behind. When I write, I try to recreate those moments, those memories, for others to be able to relate to what I've gone through. Writing as sharing is so important to me. Currently I write whenever I feel enough energy, which isn't often enough; it's something I need to work on.

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The hidden gift of every passing moment commands and demands my attention, tugging on my sleeve and telling me not to turn around. I journal at least a page every day, I try to write a poem or two every week, and I write short stories. I love poems like I love music: raw, dense, and unquantifiable. 

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The hidden gift of every passing moment commands and demands my attention, tugging on my sleeve and telling me not to turn around. I journal at least a page every day, I try to write a poem or two every week, and I write short stories. I love poems like I love music: raw, dense, and unquantifiable. 

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Silence commands my attention. I often freewrite when I need to process thoughts or feelings, when I find myself especially present in a space or moment, or when I am drawn to a certain image. I write mostly lyric and prose, but love poetry very much. I love the brevity yet depth of poems, how they can convey such complex emotions and experiences in often less words than prose. I also love experimenting with space and line breaks which I often don't utilize other forms of writing.

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My attention is commanded by the need to tell stories and I like to say I write specifically because they can't be silenced. My current writing rituals consist of wishfully thinking of all the things I want to write, planning them out, and never finding (or rather, making) the time to complete them. When I finally get around to writing, then these rituals consist of consuming a swimming pool's worth of tea, staring at my screen for hours, and screaming internally. I love many things about poetry, but mainly its potential for experimentation and daring and its capacity to communicate the sheer emotion that can't be as easily conveyed in prose.

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Bruce Springsteen commands my attention.  My current writing rituals consist of semi regular journaling, sometimes poems, sometimes just spilling out my thoughts.  I love the specificity of emotions that can be conveyed through poetry.

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Whatever is most exciting in front of me commands my attention. I write when I have too much on my mind. I love how poems can simply express ideas that are more complex written in prose.

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beauty commands my attention. incongruent things command my attention too, and the beauty that can come out of that. fresh roses peeking out of garbage disposals. sharp things described softly. soft lines spoken over crashing drums. the song "my body is made of crushed little stars" by mitski. 

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beauty commands my attention. incongruent things command my attention too, and the beauty that can come out of that. fresh roses peeking out of garbage disposals. sharp things described softly. soft lines spoken over crashing drums. the song "my body is made of crushed little stars" by mitski. 

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currently my writing rituals are none :( i think i've been stuck in a block - i haven't written consistently in months. but sometimes i'll be in someone else's car at 11 pm n they're blasting vietnamese music, or i'm on the bus, or i'm lying facedown in my childhood bedroom, n i'll open the notes app on my phone n jot down some lines. sporadic bursts of idea-churning that come n then leave me. but i haven't revised anything i've written down in a while.
to quote ian i love that poetry is really "the most experimental place in language." there's a freedom in the medium that i can't quite capture with other forms of creative writing. i love how pretty poems can be. i'm obsessed with pretty things n they feed my obsession.

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Dance and drawing/painting commands my attention. My current writing rituals include jotting down a moment/thought/emotion whenever it comes to mind on my phone to practice expressing myself even if it's just one line and doesn't lead to an actual poem in the end. I love the ability to capture a precise feeling or idea with poetry and how we can connect with others through poetry. 

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Dance and drawing/painting commands my attention. My current writing rituals include jotting down a moment/thought/emotion whenever it comes to mind on my phone to practice expressing myself even if it's just one line and doesn't lead to an actual poem in the end. I love the ability to capture a precise feeling or idea with poetry and how we can connect with others through poetry. 

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The beauty of people commands my attention. My current writing rituals include reflecting on blissful memories. I love how poems can be so personal to a writer, yet evoke emotions in those who read them.

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I am consumed by philosophy. I'm trying to write in new forms even if what I turn out is garbage. I like subverting writing conventions, and both convention and the subversion thereof  are found all over the place in poetry.

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Detail commands my attention, my current writing rituals include trying to write small pieces daily. I love the detail in poetry.

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Raw, visceral, emotional imagery commands my attention. Humanity, the universe, and the bare essence of life are my biggest interests and explorations. Currently, I don't have many writing rituals; I'll simply write whenever and wherever I find the inspiration, which is most often after having watched a really engaging movie or listened to an incredible song, melted into a song, or after reading/discussing intriguing philosophical concepts in my classes. I like poetry because it doesn't have to make sense beyond its emotional connection, the way prose often does. Not having that strain to fit any particular format is freeing, and one of the only linguistic ways to express the most complicated aspects of the human experience

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Raw, visceral, emotional imagery commands my attention. Humanity, the universe, and the bare essence of life are my biggest interests and explorations. Currently, I don't have many writing rituals; I'll simply write whenever and wherever I find the inspiration, which is most often after having watched a really engaging movie or listened to an incredible song, melted into a song, or after reading/discussing intriguing philosophical concepts in my classes. I like poetry because it doesn't have to make sense beyond its emotional connection, the way prose often does. Not having that strain to fit any particular format is freeing, and one of the only linguistic ways to express the most complicated aspects of the human experience