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Blog posts tagged with "beautiful things"

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Pacing & Tempo Possibilities for Micro Essays: A Beautiful Things Analysis

Pacing & Tempo Possibilities for Micro Essays: A Beautiful Things Analysis By Valerie Weingart   |  May 6, 2020
When writing in compressed forms, it is imperative to consider how much time—how many words, how much “air”—a writer allots to each component of a scene. This consideration is directly related to pacing (or, in musical terms, tempo), and can evoke moods and tones connected to the speaker’s emotional state. By keeping the ideas of tempo, pacing, and focus in mind, a writer can determine which parts of a scene should receive the most attention—conducting readers through to their composition line by line.
Keywords: beautiful things

Seattle, After the Rain

Seattle, After the Rain By Anna Vodicka   |  February 6, 2017
To the birds, we must look like ants at a picnic, the way we crawl from our dark caves and run crazed for sidewalks and grassy parks...

This is Where You'll Find Me

This is Where You'll Find Me By Jenny Lara   |  January 30, 2017
New York City, after we lied then made rules. It shouldn't work by a long shot but it does....

Lines of Light

Lines of Light By Clara Mae Barnhart   |  January 23, 2017
At sunset in Burlington the power lines are golden like the afterglow of sparklers when children twirl them in the air. A frayed ribbon of sunlight stretches out...

Morning (repeat)

Morning (repeat) By Michelle Webster-Hein   |  January 2, 2017
When my infant daughter wakes at two in the morning and her father cannot coax her back to sleep...

White (repeat)

White (repeat) By Jennifer Bowen Hicks   |  December 26, 2016
We no longer remember the sound of birdsong or the feel of dry pavement beneath our feet, but we walk to school anyway because school is the place we're meant to walk to on Tuesday mornings. Temperatures register -23 below zero...
Keywords: beautiful things, white  |   3 comments

Grace (repeat)

Grace (repeat) By Aaron J. Housholder   |  December 19, 2016
"Thank you," I tell the manager, "for taking my order so late." The sizzle of the grill frames my words. "I appreciate it."
Keywords: beautiful things, grace  |   4 comments

Holding (repeat)

Holding (repeat) By Kathryn Wilder   |  December 12, 2016
My sister and I live on either side of sixty. We've been mothers half our lives. Visiting her in Oregon, Ashland running a steady hundred degrees for days into weeks, we head to Lake of the Woods...

Turkey Soup (repeat)

Turkey Soup (repeat) By Marissa Landrigan   |  December 5, 2016
On Thanksgiving, after the turkey is carved and gutted - after we slice through half of the twenty-pound bird my mother insists on ordering...

Birthday Cards

Birthday Cards By Jia Lim   |  November 28, 2016
Once, I wrote a birthday poem for her forty-second. It described her love of wine, and how she was so very fine. Exceedingly satisfied at the neat rhyme and my infinite untapped potential, I awaited glowing praise...

An Absence of Yellow

An Absence of Yellow By Lisa Laughlin   |  November 21, 2016
It's mid-August and already my grandfather's pumpkins boast a bright orange. His cucumbers have laced thin vines up the patio rail. The tomatoes flush cherry-red in waves. My grandparents bribe me with vegetables to come for a visit...

In the Fold

In the Fold By Ariana Brocious   |  November 7, 2016
She wields a basket of clean linen with easy confidence: one, two moves across the chest to make a towel into thirds...

Only Now

Only Now By Suzanne Farrell Smith   |  October 31, 2016
Only now, as you stand center of an aisle carpeted royal blue, where you and your older sisters, styled by mother in hand-sewn dresses to match her own, once trailed like ducks down the narrow river...

Bike Ride

Bike Ride By Ethan Joella   |  October 24, 2016
I don't remember if I wrapped my hands around my father when he let me ride on the back of his yellow Schwinn....

Red Birds

Red Birds By Melissa Ballard   |  October 17, 2016
I hand the plate of raw vegetables to Dad. He sets it on the shelf attached to the grill, settles his arm around me. Pointing to the tree above, he says, "See those red birds?"

Reliquary

Reliquary By Leah Silverman   |  October 10, 2016
When Rachmaninoff swallows my mother, I no longer know the woman...

Bare, Naked

Bare, Naked By Andrea Fisk Rotterman   |  October 3, 2016
Rain falls, dimpling puddles. I kick off my clogs. My toenails shine like sparkling pumpkin peel. I slide my underwear and jeans down my legs...

On Guilt

On Guilt By Jennifer Wortman   |  September 26, 2016
When I was a baby and woke up at night, my mother held me, her arms a boat on a gentle sea. Oh, the helpless power of the small, to be thus cupped in the world's warm hand...

Water

Water By Chris Huntington   |  September 19, 2016
Many days I set a thermos of jasmine tea beside me on my desk. Jasmine tea is mostly water, perfumed by flowers. My thermos is stainless steel with metallic green paint and says L.L. Bean on one side...

Lightening Up

Lightening Up By Laurie Granieri   |  August 1, 2016
My brother and I grab hold of dangling metal chains fastened to schoolyard swings in this expanse of crabgrass, red dirt, goalposts, and hard bleachers...

Candy Thief

Candy Thief By   |  July 25, 2016
Rounding the corner with grocery basket in-hand, I spot my father staring at a display of candy. At a distance, I watch as he grabs candy bars off the shelf and slides them inside his coat, so absorbed in the act of stealing, he doesn't notice me approach. I tap him on the shoulder and he turns. Startled, he begins to empty his pockets.
Keywords: beautiful things, candy  |   4 comments

Art Lesson

Art Lesson By Joanne Lozar Glenn   |  July 18, 2016
They saved it for Fridays. Every teacher had the same projects. Fall: iron leaves between waxed paper. Winter: chalk snow scenes on black construction paper. Spring: draw daffodils. Except for Miss Malik...

Apparent Magnitude: Negative 28, Brighter Than the Sun

Apparent Magnitude: Negative 28, Brighter Than the Sun By Tricia Theis   |  July 11, 2016
We're in church and the minister is reading a story about Maria Mitchell, America's first female astronomer, when my son whispers, "When I grow up, if there's a planet left that nobody has been to, I'm going to be the first person to step on it."

Galaxies

Galaxies By Laura Haugen   |  July 4, 2016
Say that this space on her forehead where you smooth tangled tresses to plant a kiss once, perhaps twice for good measure, smells like daisies, grassy and warm...

Hubby

Hubby By Matthew Vollmer   |  June 6, 2016
It wasn't a nickname. It was her real, actual name. She'd been Hubby for eighty-three years...
Keywords: beautiful things, hubby  |   4 comments

Graffiti the Walls

Graffiti the Walls By Matthew Barrett   |  May 30, 2016
I want to graffiti the walls where my grandmother lives, white and sterile walls (egg-shell colored walls, as the nurses say), replace her sanitation lists with photographs, magazine spreads and paper clippings...

T-Shirts

T-Shirts By Wayne Scott   |  May 23, 2016
A stack of t-shirts sits on my bureau: white, pale blue, yellow. The soft, bright colors of summer.

Ascension Garden

Ascension Garden By Stacy Murison   |  May 9, 2016
The first time, you drive by yourself. You have some idea you are going there, but are still surprised that you know the way, without her, through the turning and turning driveways...

Merriment

Merriment By Chansi Long   |  May 2, 2016
I was walking to the store with my brother when we stumbled upon a father teaching his daughter to ride a bike. He was in his early thirties, the age my father must have been when he left us...

The Museum of Broken Relationships

The Museum of Broken Relationships By Jonathan Starke   |  April 25, 2016
There's this letter on the wall in there that a young boy writes to a young girl during the Bosnian War. They meet at gunpoint, marching toward a van that will drive them to...

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