My internal critic is turned on high voltage. I take my journal in my backpack to school to school (I teach at two), and I turn the page and write some words, then a student needs me. I come back to the page focused, thinking, and another student has to share.
Here I am at home with Charlie and there’s nothing worth much in my journal. This is day 13 of my personal challenge to write a poem a day, and my personal critic thinks I can’t possibly keep this up.
Step one: upload a picture. Here’s another sky picture taken from my car with my phone.
Sky Sea
How to Stay a Poet (A synonym poem)
Attach a line to a thought
with a long string, maybe even wire
Fasten sprinkles of light,
a frosting of powdered sugar would taste good.
Unite clouds to sky to space,
an ethereal concept, I know.
Abide with your favorite poets,
savor their strength, their providence.
Linger over the page, make a statement,
scratch it out, start again.
Remain committed; don’t listen to the witch
in your head telling you to abandon all.
Keep on writing. Stay a poet.
Stay here.
–Margaret Simon
Process: After writing the title, I did a synonym search for “stay.” I used selected synonyms as the first word of each stanza. Creating rules for myself helped me get through writer’s block. This is not one of my finer poems, but it’s a poem. Let’s keep moving forward.
Follow the Progressive Poem to Teacher Dance
You are a committed poet!!!!
Remain committed; don’t listen to the witch
in your head telling you to abandon all.
and I’m one of your committed readers!!!
Thanks. It helps to know that you’re there cheering me on.
Yes to moving forward, Margaret! That inner critic is banished by doing exactly what you’ve done. Yay! xo
You did it. You wrote a poem. You wrote one more day. Congratulations.
Your heart holds words.
Listen:
you can hear them.
–Kevin
Thanks for always being an example of write what you hear.
Maybe this is one hurdle, but you leapt past wonderfully, Margaret. I’ve managed to skip a few days, but now Thursday looms. Thanks for the inspiration here. I like “with a long string, maybe even wire”, holding on tight!
Sometimes when you sit with the file open something emerges. I need to learn to be more patient with the blank page.
I disagree with you. It’s a WONDERFUL poem! You showed up. You wrote. You inspired me to do the same. Thank you!
The muse is with you, my friend! You are writing poetry even when you aren’t writing poetry – that’s the poet’s gift.
You are sweet. Thanks for your support and love.
Love your synonym poem – especially the line with abide (my OLW) in it! This poem’s a keeper for all the times we want to give up. I’m putting it in my writer’s notebook.
I love the word abide, too. Such a soft and quiet word for stay, like linger, it helps me be present, my OLW.
This is a beauty. You know, sometimes when we think we’re empty…something lovely like this shows up. “Stay a poet.” We should all paste this into our books. Yes. xx
Creating your poetry with your rules. I love this process and the outcome.