I do apologize for obsessing about the Poem A Day thing, but I have truly been obsessed with it for this entire month. It has been a mental challenge, and a good one. I think that by doing it I have worked through some things: my feelings of regret and sorrow over this move - the anger with myself that I have had for the past four years since we did it, grief over the deaths and losses that have happened during this time. The way I have hated being here, refused to open myself up to the good things about this place and our life here. Days spent mostly in the yard cleaning up gardens, welcoming spring, planning what I'll do in the gardens once this cataract surgery business is over and I can see clearly, work freely - these have been days spent thinking poetry all the time. I write in my head for the most part, no words get processed or put on paper until they have flowed through my mind for quite a while, been discarded, rearranged, reimagined. So the birds, trees, flowers, dirt, weeds, and compost have been my companions and inspiration for most of the month. I could only wish that it had been possible to take a beach walk now and then. But walks along the river have substituted pretty well.
Right now I'm hoping to be able to do the last two prompts, for days 29 and 30. Twenty nine, tomorrow, should still be possible - but as I'll have the first (left eye) cataract surgery on Friday, a poem for the thirtieth may have to wait a few days. The doctor's office can't seem to tell me (they say they won't know until the first checkup, on Saturday morning) whether I'll be able to read and write well enough to use the computer. The final part of this is choosing my five best efforts to send in to Robert Lee Brewer before May 5th. I've been working on trying to make this choice - and it's not easy. There are clearly quite a few that I won't choose, but the truth is that there are more than five that I feel pretty good about. Anyone who'd like to help with this choice is welcome to go to Poetic License and leave your opinion. It would be doing me a big favor.
2 comments:
You'll be getting my feedback. I've decided that I won't be sending five of mine in this time, but I am going to finish working the prompts. It's a good mental challenge, but I'm really dissapointed with what I've written this year. There's really only a couple of mine that I think have both a quality of writing and emotional (mental, spiritual...?) impact that I want in poetry. You should be proud of your work. You've written some beautiful stuff.
Thank you so much, Cynthia - your words mean a lot to me. I would like to keep a growing community of poets here, right now it's you and Theresa - but I'm sure there are more. This is more than just a writing exercise - it's, as you say: mental and most certainly spiritual. My partner, Gail, says I am a different person now than I was a month ago - and she too thinks it's from the work I've done through writing this poetry. So, I am going to try to continue. I hope we can continue to share our efforts.
Post a Comment