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I can’t help it. I try to write poems, but my emotions get in the way. My self and all her flaws permeate every word. You may think I am missing self-confidence. Maybe I am fishing for compliments. That’s not it at all.
Laura Shovan has done this to me again. Like last year, I am taking her challenge to write a poem every day in the month of February. Unlike last year, the words are flowing. Does this come from practice? self-confidence? wisdom? Not really. It comes from the heart. I am pouring it out on my sleeve and sending it to her to publish on her blog. Bleeding on the page as some wise writer said. Was it Hemmingway?
I want to thank Laura for allowing, no, encouraging me to write like this. Please visit her site and listen to some of the sounds for this project. I guarantee they will open a vein for you.
My submissions for Thursday and Friday are below. Thursday we listened to the sound of a ballet dancer practicing. On Friday, the sound was a theremin. I had never heard of this instrument before, so I spent some time on YouTube listening. One of my favorites was this rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Ballet Practice
Body of intense beauty
strength of muscles flexed
arabesque held stillLife ends.
We know it must.Beauty dissolves
into a limp plie’
held en pointe
by loving hands.–Margaret Simon, for Suzy
Revealing EnergyThe director’s hands
stir the air like a scientist.
Vibrating fingers
tune an invisible voice;
sound becomes color—a rainbow
of intonations exploring
the foreign frontier
of our ears.–Margaret Simon
Beautiful!
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Margaret, in the early days, bleeding was a medical treatment! Poetry is so much better, and a lot less messy! I’m enjoying this daily prompt and your contribution:
“sound becomes color—a rainbow
of intonations” I love this!
And, as a bonus, it’s keeping my mind off the snow!
Wow. Thanks for sharing these. I especially like “The director’s hands stir the air like a scientist.” The theremin really sounds like a human voice.
Isn’t it funny how we all react differently to the prompts. I’m finding the sounds more challenging than I expected. I’ve got a lot of beginnings of things that might someday develop into poems. Got to be happy with that!
I enjoy the senesthesia in your poem. Have you read the picture book, The Noisy Paintbox?
Joy, I had to look up synesthesia, but now I know and like the term. I have to look for The Noisy Paintbox. Thanks for commenting.
A theremin – I had never heard of that either. What an interesting sound! Your poem captures it perfectly. I agree with Joy – you’ve expressed synesthesia! The Noisy Paint Box is a fabulous book and just won a Caldecott Honor! Synesthesia is also a topic in Wendy Mass’s A Mango-Shaped Space. Speaking of books – another winner this week (Coretta Scott King) – your first poem reminded me of Missy Copeland’s Firebird!
This is lovely Margaret -“sound becomes color—a rainbow
of intonations …” You are brave, and overflowing with creativity.
I love the last stanza of Ballet Practice, I see such strength in flexibility and gentleness in your words. It really made me see a dancer’s body moving through the poses.
Both are very nice, Margaret! Love your imagery, and am glad to hear you’re taking Laura’s challenge again. I’m hoping to send her my theremin poem soon – I figured I had to write a poem for that, sine I was the one who suggested the theremin in the first place!
Three cheers for finding what it takes to “open a vein” of writing! (And thanks for the education — I never heard of a theramin!)
I do love reading what your heart has to say, Margaret. I especially love that Theremin poem. I’ll have to share it with my husband who feels similarly about that instrument. I do think there are also components of practice and self-confidence at play here, however. Your regular practice of showing up at the page gives your “poet self” the confidence to know where your heart lives… kind of like red riding hood finding her way through the woods.
Thanks so much for sharing your emotion! Beautiful!
Glad that the challenge is helping you to create such beautiful poems. I love the theramin. Seek out the youtube of a group playing on Matryoska theramins. It’s amazing.
“Vibrating fingers/tune an invisible voice” captures the theramin perfectly. I’ve been thinking about the thunderstorm and the ballet all week, but when I sat down to write yesterday, something completely different showed up! As you said, poetry comes from our hearts. Thank you for sharing your wise and loving heart with us.
I have been trying to write in my journal more regularly too – at times it is a struggle, on other occasions the words just bleed, as you very aptly phrased it. Thank you for sharing fragments of your mind, your mood, your sensations with us through these two lovely poems.