Poetry, Fiction and Random Ramblings
We used to say,
That’s my heart right there.
As if to say,
Don’t mess with her right there.
As if, don’t even play,
That’s a part of me right there.
In other words, okay okay,
That’s the start of me right there.
As if, come that day,
That’s the end of me right there.
As if, push come to shove,
I would fend for her right there.
As if, come what may,
I would lie for her right there.
As if, come love to pay,
I would die for that right there.
they said
forget your grandma
these american letters
don’t need no more
grandma poems
but i said
the grandmas are
our first poetic forms
the first haiku
was a grandma
& so too
the first sonnet
the first blues
the first praise song
therefore
every poem
is a grandmother
a womb that has ended
& is still expanding
a daughter that is
rhetorically aging
& retroactively living
every poem
is your grandma
& you miss her
wouldn’t mind
seeing her again
even just
for a moment
in the realm of spirit
in the realm
of possibilities
where poems
share blood
& spit & exist
on chromosomal
planes of particularity
where poems
are strangers
turned sistren
not easily shook
or forgotten
This love
Doesn’t fade
With loss, grief or sorrow
It permeates into the skin
Burrows deep into the soul
Shaped by memories, hugs and laughter
This love
Carries you despite the weight of burdens
Lifts,reminds and whispers affirmations to you
One of my latest obsessions is poetry quotes. Quotes taken from poetry, quotes by poets, or quotes just exalting the beauty of poetry. It all started when I was looking for poetry quotes to celebrate National Poetry Month last year. This year I posted poetry quotes on Instagram almost every day in April.
As I’ve shared several times here, I’ve been a lover of poetry for many years and many of those quotes have reaffirmed my love of the artform.
I found that there are so many quotes that can just encourage you to write poetry or to simply read more of it. Last month, I taught a poetry workshop where the students created work based off of quotes from famous poets including audre lorde, Maya Angelou and Sonia Sanchez. The results were amazing! That was one of the proudest moments of my teaching career! There was something so powerful in hearing the words and sentiments that the young ladies were able to create.
Part of the impact of using, sharing and understanding these quotes, has been inspiring. I’ve become motivated by so many of them that I’ve decided to print out some to decorate my office.
Last week I realized that the project that was my big goal for 2018 has not been given much attention in the last two months. And I feel horrible about that because I was so excited about having it completed by this Wednesday. My poetry manuscript is essentially sitting on my laptop waiting for me to do something. It’s formatted, has a table of contents and that’s it.
In the month of October, I’m going to do something different. It’s called OctPoWriMo! I’ve decided that I’m not going to uselessly participate in Preptober knowing that I have in all likelihood given up on NaNoWriMo for the immediate future. Instead I’m going to set my sights on creating one poem each day. No heavy revision until the month is over. Then I will reread them and decide if they’re worth keeping. One of the reasons that I’m excited about this is that I’ve decided that the poems created in October may be the bulk of my next collection; if I succeed.
I stumbled across the concept of OctPoWriMo while researching workshops in Southeastern Virginia. I was immediately taken by the idea of creating a series of poetry during the month. Even though I’m not going to enroll in the workshop that’s available; I knew that I was interested enough to give it a try. So, for the next thirty-one days I will be writing and creating new poetry which I may be posting throughout the month.
I’ve already been experimenting with shorter poems, so I anticipate having a nice mixture of pieces by the end of October. I’ll admit that some of the pieces may be based on drafts that already have two to six lines or ones that are incomplete but for the most part I will be creating based on whatever pops in my head. I will also be looking at some prompts on Poets & Writers.
Have any of you ever heard of or participated in OctPoWriMo before?
For as long as I have been writing poetry, I have always considered creating it “the work.” Not necessarily the hard work because some of my pieces are written in one take and then I go back, and revise or tweak as needed. Even when I struggle with writing pieces, I never considered writing poetry to be hard. That’s one of the reasons that I resisted majoring in poetry while completing my MFA, I didn’t want anyone to steal the joy of creating it from me. Creating my own collection has always been in the back of my mind but I never took the steps to do it beyond what I needed to create for classes.
But as some of you may know, that’s a project that I’m currently working on. One of the ways that I have been ensuring that I keep working on compiling the manuscript is to make sure that I am going back to it at least once every two weeks just to look at the poems and review them. I have also made myself commit to getting the work together and having a rough version printed and bound by the end of this month so that I can decide which poems will make the cut and to get second and third opinions on whether the collection is cohesive. What I never considered was that I would be doing this without one of my closest friends who was also my number one poetry advisor. However, I am slowly but surely piecing together a collection that I love. As I mentioned in a previous post, it will contain several of the poems that have been featured on the blog and some older poems that have been revised.
Hopefully, one of my first posts in August will feature an update on my progress and a picture of the printed and bound manuscript. If anyone else has self-published poetry please feel free to share any tips you have.
One of my goals for the second half of this year aside from putting together my own collection of poetry is to develop some new works. I have been working on some new poetry, but it has been quite difficult. Writing poetry has always been something that comes easily to me. The words have always poured out of me, even after midnight, when I wanted to be asleep. However, lately I have been unable to really focus on finishing new pieces. I have started at least twenty new poems that are currently sitting in various stages of development on my hard drive. I’m reluctant to call it writer’s block because I am writing but none of those pieces feel complete.
In the hopes of fixing it, I am toying with the idea of pulling out my old craft books and trying to create based on prompts. Or looking up prompts on Poets & Writers or another site. I’ve been trying my hand at different forms of poems in the hopes that they will spark my creativity. I have been looking at tanka, blues poems, epistles, and prose poems; next I may try found poetry. I’m hoping that focusing on different types will help me complete some work. I may just have to pause in trying to create new poetry and focus on some other type of writing until the words come back.
Please share any suggestions or recommendations that you think might help.
Alice Walker is such a prolific novelist and essayist, much like Toni Morrison, that I often forget that she writes poetry. As I’ve said before, in my opinion, Walker is the ultimate multi-hyphenate and I love and admire that. Someone shared this piece with me yesterday and I immediately knew that I wanted to post it here. I think that the beauty of someone who loves words and is talented in their use is that they are able to paint such beautiful, evocative pictures that it translates no matter what they write. Please enjoy the poem and the awesome pic that accompanies it which features Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, June Jordan and the late Rosalind Cash.
Here it is
the beauty that scares you
-so you believe-
to death.
For he is certainly gorgeous
and he is certainly where whiteness
to your disbelief
has not wandered off
to die.
No. It is there, tawny skin, gray eyes,
a Malcolm-esque jaw. His loyal parents
may Goddess bless them
sitting proud and happy and no doubt
amazed
at what they have done.
For he is black too. And obviously
with a soul
made of everything.
Try to think bigger than you ever have
or had courage enough to do:
that blackness is not where whiteness
wanders off to die: but that it is
like the dark matter
between stars and galaxies in
the Universe
that ultimately
holds it all
together.
They say brave but I don’t want it.
Who will we mourn today. Or won’t we.
Black all the windows. Lower
down the afternoon. I barricade
all my belonging. I am mostly never real
American or anything
availing. But I do take. And take
what’s given. The smell of blood.
I breathe it in. The dirt so thick with our good
fortune. And who pays for it. And what am
I
But fear, but wanting. I’ll bite
the feeding hand until I’m fed
And buried. In the shining day.
All deadly good
intentions. A catalogue of virtues
This is how I’ll disappear.
Southpawscribe's Blog 