Monday, February 7, 2011

The poetry challenge

I have been finding it really fun and fascinating to write poetry the last 5 weeks. I don't consider myself much of a poet, though I am drawn to it. Taking the challenge with Sage Cohen for January prompted me to put writing 100 poems on my 2011 wish list and so far I've written 37. I'd like it to become a habit--writing a poem or two every couple of days. It's a very interesting way to see the world, to capture verbal snapshots of feelings or experiences or observations. Our last poem for Sage's class was to write about our relationship with poetry. Here's what I wrote:

I chanced upon four lines of verse

Nestled in a carton of colored eggs
And I resurrected my life poetic.
Sacred lines they were
The breath of the heart, the soul, the mind
Calling me in, calling me out
Of story.
I’d been telling stories
Of my life, of those I met, of those I made up
And I longed to twist the language
Inside out, upside down, right side round
To imagine the image, subdue the syllable, master the metaphor

Something had long slept in me
Known only as literature
Not as the living breath
Of the heart, the soul, the mind

Rising slowly, stretching,
It placed a soft paw on my cheek
And I began to write.

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