Motivation: Poetry

After a medical accident caused my third daughter to suffer a post-birth injury resulting in permanent disability, I was forced to reassess my life. Though I had written throughout my life, at that moment in time writing became not only a lifeline but it became my breath. I breathed and wrote through each day. I also sought the help of a poetry therapist and dsicovered healing through writing.

April is National Poetry Month and each year I get very excited.  I spend the month reading a poem each day and trying to write a poem every day. I attend poetry readings and immerse myself in creativity.

This year I will be in court fighting for my daughter's future. But I will keep a poem in my heart, in my pocket and my notebook.

Justice, Come Down

By Minnie Bruce Pratt

A huge sound waits, bound in the ice,

in the icicle roots, in the buds of snow

on fir branches, in the falling silence

of snow, glittering in the sun, brilliant

as a swarm of gnats, nothing but hovering

wings at midday. With the sun comes noise.

Tongues of ice break free, fall, shatter,

splinter, speak. If I could write the words.

Simple, like turning a page, to say Write

what happened, but this means a return

to the cold place where I am being punished.

Alone to the stony circle where I am frozen,

the empty space, children, mother, father gone,

lover gone away. There grief still sits

and waits, grim, numb, keeping company with

anger. I can smell my anger like sulfur-

struck matches. I wanted what had happened

to be a wall to burn, a window to smash.

At my fist the pieces would sparkle and fall.

All would be changed. I would not be alone.

Instead I have told my story over and over

at parties, on the edge of meetings, my life

clenched in my fist, my eyes brittle as glass.

Ashamed, people turned their faces away

from the woman ranting, asking: Justice,

stretch out your hand. Come down, glittering,

from where you have hidden yourself away.

from The Dirt She Ate: New and Selected Poems (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003

Friday Original Poem

One thing that I love about poetry therapy is how not only am I exploring different emotions and experiences but I'm doing in way I have never done before. I'm trying to write in forms which is new for me. I've always written poetry and while I have studied forms never thought it'd be for me.But I am working on it.

After reading a gorgeous pantoum poem by Patricia Fargnoli, I thought I'd give it a try.

Here's the basic outline for how a pantoum should be written:

line A
line B
line C
line D

line B (repeated)
line E
line D (repeated)
line F

line E (repeated)
line G
line F (repeated)
line H
…
line Y
line C (repeated)
line Z
line A (repeated)

Here's is the one I wrote for my daughter:

For Violet

The kingfisher rattled and led

past sandstone crannies and crooks

past birch on a cliff

spoke in our language.

Past sandstone crannies and crooks

I pulled the blue kayak

spoke in our language

I told you all is well.

I pulled the blue kayak

You glided on clear water

I told you all is well

let the waves roll under you.

You glided on clear water

past birch on a cliff

let the waves roll under you

the kingfisher rattled and led.

Friday Original Poem

Hummingbird sip-

perched amidst the rain

victim of cat's paw

This photo was taken before I realized something was wrong

This week I had the most odd experience of holding a hummingbird. It had come to our feeder but wasn't drinking. It stayed there until it became so weak it passed out. I went to it's aid only to discover that it had been mauled by a cat and had a broken wing. In my poetry therapy session this week we worked with different poetic forms. One that I have claimed to hate for years is haiku. I've found it very difficult. But to honor the fallen hummer, I wrote a one.

Friday Original Poem : Guest Poet, Kathy Cannon Wiechman

Kathy Cannon Wiechman

 Juliet and I met Kathy at a Highlights Foundation workshop. Kathy is one of those writers that I wish I could be. She is dedicated, prolific and gives the best hugs. A couple years ago when I switched gears and started to focus on poetry, Kathy mentioned that her mother was a published poet. Kathy also told me that poetry wasn't for her. But this week she posted on Swagger Writers about how she had made a break through into free verse. Of course I asked to see the poem.

I am so honored and please to host her poem. Thank you, Kathy, for being brave and writing beautiful poetry.

THE BUTTERFLY

By Kathy Cannon Wiechman

The tiny butterfly,

Whose wings flap a rhythm

On the sonogram monitor,

Etches a memory

Of a heartbeat, a life.

Gender and name still unanswered

Among a lifetime of questions.

The mother’s eyes shine

With the blossoming promise,

As delicate stirrings

In the swell of her middle

Herald a future of love.

Baby boy Anthony James

Has his name etched in stone

In the Garden of Angels,

The butterfly’s wings cold and still.

His mother’s eyes swell with tears

As she places delicate blossoms,

That will wilt in the sunshine,

Wilt like the promise.

Arms aching to hold him

Fold across her empty middle,

While the air is stirred only

By her unanswered “Why?”

Friday Original Poem

Little Garlic River Waterfall

This poem was born out of my poetry therapy homework. First we were given the first lines of the poem below I,I by Yosano Akikio which was first published in the inaugural issue of the feminist magazine Seito in September 1919. Then we after reading the poem we sat with it and asked questions like : What will move my mountains? Are there obstacles I want to overcome? Or who do I want to be? Who am I?

So for me it wasn't mountains I identified with but water. I encourage you to write your own version even use some of Akiko's phrases to get going and see what happens.


I,I
By Yosano Akiko

The day the mountains move has come.
Or so I say, though no one will believe me.
The mountains were merely asleep for awhile.
But in ages past, the had moved, as if they were on fire.
If you don't believe me, that's fine with me.
All I ask is that you believe this and only this,
That at this very moment,
women are awakening from their deep slumber.

If I could but write entirely in the first person,
I, who am a woman.
If I could writer entirely in the first person,
I,I.


I,I
By Regina Gort

The day has come that the Little Garlic River will overflow,
taking in the sandy banks, swallowing the surrounding land,
when it will merge with Lake Superior as one.
Or so I say and no one will beleive me.

The river has been steadfast to its sandstone ravines
to its rock riverbed where it passed gently along.
And now the rains are plentiful, abundant and fierce.
A persistent downpour of clarity that stirs the river's desire
To be whole and overflowing.

All I ask is that you believe this and only this,
that at this very moment I am awaking.
I, who am mighty
I, who am whole
I, who am one with river, with rock, with rain and with Lake
I, who overflows
I,I.

A little Monday motivation

Here's a poem today from one of my favorites, Mary Oliver. Be inspired and keep going, you can do it!

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save. 


Source : Dreamwork (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Friday Original Poem

Last Friday we began our new schedule of posting an original poem every week! Today's poem is from Regina. She wrote it in a poetry therapy session. It is an ekphrastic poem meaning it was inspired by another art form and in this case a photograph. 

Open

Shuttters open,

invitation to look out at

a spring offering.

Open for oppurtunity,

 for light to burst through,

create a place to bathe

in the day's goodness.

And yet,

I keep a pane

of glass between us.

Uneasy at the thought

of opening the window.

Content with a view,

without vulnerabiltiy.

Able to distance

from a breeze of disaster

or raindrops,my tears of brokeness,

as I wait for the light to return.

A to Z Challenge

For the A-Z challenge, we decided to post a new and original poem every day. Regina tackles the letter "x" today with a poem about her daughter, Gwendolyn and her first x-ray.
 

Failure to Thrive

She refused to drink and

her cry dried

into a shrill rattle.

Her cheeks melted ice,

her wide-open mouth,

a cavern I couldn't traverse

I laid her on a

bed of x-rays

beneath florescent lights

surgery standing over my shoulder,

whispering fear.

A to Z Challenge

For the A-Z challenge, we decided to post a new and original poem every day. Today Regina shares a poem about her name for the letter "R".


Regina

My sister named me
after her childhood friend
I never knew.
She named me Queen,
imparted power in 
a namesake.

I am the child that united
her father and my mother,
pushed her farther from the
house where I held court.

And now miles and years apart
I reign wanting for her return 
to the kingdom.  


 
  

  

NaPoWriMo

We get Sundays off from the A-Z Challenge, but not so for NaPoWriMo. Regina gets honest in today's poem.

The Guilt of Honesty

Looking over a cliff

and if I don't take the first step

I will fall

or be pushed by circumstance

into the jagged rocks below.

 But if I jump

calculate my velocity,

I will hit

the cool water

below,

where I can swim

uninhibited,

free.

Maybe even bask on a rock

cleansing in sun and water,

before I climb

back up the cliff face

inch by inch.

And onto the path

that Leads

Home.