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Or email info@wordplaynow.com to say you're coming, click here to download a mail-in registration form:

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and get thee to a mailbox!

And as I said in the latest Word-zine, if you can't come but wish you could, email info@wordplaynow.com and you'll receive a special WordPlay October writing prompt near the end of the month.)

NOW, ABOUT YOUR FIRST POEM...

Well, guess I'll start out by reciting you my first poem

(Child's voice fades in, in a reverent whisper, because she's creating this poem looking out her window at the October night sky when she's supposed to be sleeping. But she's just read "October's Party" in her reader and she suddenly sees that SHE could write a poem about October, and so she does, and she is young enough to believe it's a wonderful one:

October has its cloudy days,
But the stars are very bright.
They come out and twinkle at you
almost every night.

Child's voice fades out, but the words keep playing in a happy corner of her mind, even when she is almost 56 years old, because it was so much fun to look at the stars and notice that they could rhyme.)

Pop quiz ;): Is my first poem A., B., or C.?

... A. Waiting to be written
... B. A "thing of beauty and a joy forever"
... C. Lost, but not forgotten in the deepest part of you

Look how smart you are! (And look at who silly I am on this Saturday afternoon!)

So. Now. You! Is your first poem...

A. Waiting to be written? It is past overdue. The time is now! Keep reading!

B. A "thing of beauty and a joy forever"? These words are from one of my favorite books EVER, Nicole Krauss's The History of Love, by the way. And guess who gets to decide that your first poem is this? Right -- nobody but you. (And me, because I happen to think that EVERY first poem is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.) So right now, go hunt that first poem up and read it in the most reverent child whisper you can muster and give thanks to that kid you were who had the vision and guts to write it against the dark naysayers in the world who say words don't matter! Scroll down and write another one!

C. Lost, but not forgotten in the deepest part of you? That's a fine place for it to be, and maybe it will come out of its cozy little hiding spot one day when you least expect it. Scroll down and write another one!

As in right now. As Seamus Heaney, who wrote this beautiful poem "Postscript" says, "Make the time." Let your heart be caught off guard and "blow open."

Read his poem here:

http://poetry365.tumblr.com/post/830114479/postscript-seamus-heaney

And / or listen to them here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54i1bwOAMQs

Then grab your five favorite words and weave them into a poem of your own, right here, right now. Take your words seriously. Play with them.

Happy trails of words to you,

Maureen

MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and two collections of poetry, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."

Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn -- and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours!