*Clapping like that Meryl Streep meme* This, Lisa. YES. This is how I feel about poetry too. I found your use of the word “without” especially powerful.
Interesting thread and replies here, Nelly. thanks for prompt. Here's 3 short pieces on poetry by Victoria Chang
-
'The Poem'
-
The poem wants light. The
poem is the spotlight. We can't
write poems while lit up by them
-
'Watchers'
-
A poem is published
It is posted everywhere
A tree drops leaves in secret
-
'Words'
-
I struck a bargain
with language. That I would not
abuse it or sell it, that
I would use it for
beauty. In exchange I will
die, while words live forever.
-
I really connected with these pieces and found them after I had posted a piece on what poetry is to me - the bridge between - I called it 'Bridges of Invisibility' and posted it here:
When I started out writing on Substack late last year (I'm just a newbie to writing) I had scribbled a shopping list type word-spill that was helping me understand my urge to write. It's quite raw ... but here it is ...
Certainly is, it's from her book of very short poems 'The Trees Witness Everything' . I'm local to the Phoenix Park in Dublin and I witness their majesty and wisdom every day I can get there. It's like magic!
So good! Chuckling trying to read through these gorgeous poems while our puppy tries to shred the rug. The everyday, real poems hit me much harder than the lofty stuff 🤍
I love the Kate Baer poem especially ❤️ it’s so interesting to reflect on this!
I wrote this with your “poetry has got me” line as a basis. I kept cutting stuff out of it in the end as I felt like it worked better when I said less! Not sure the repetition of “poetry” as a sentence starter works though?
Poetry has got me slamming tequila shots against a bar, whooping. Poetry has me under a blanket: a moment of solace in silence. Poetry is the delicate, perfect moment before a first kiss, when possibility is the peak of beauty. Poetry is the howl of heartbreak scratching my throat. Poetry is everything bold and gentle about me. All my softness and each brittle, brutal thought I’ve ever had, the sharp friction of my contradictions.
***
A while back I also wrote this during a workshop where the Sharon Olds poem ( https://poetryinvoice.ca/read/poems/my-poem-without-me-it) was used as a prompt. This was a speedy write but I found it again this week so thought I’d share it. The topic of whether poetry is inherently personal / autobiographical is such an interesting one, but my poems most often are quite truthful little pieces of me.
After Sharon Olds
My poem without me in it would be a blank, brittle verse: an absence of tenderness.
A poem bereft of me — a hand reaching for help and left unclasped.
Would it be the dregs of an empty champagne bottle, the aftermath of a party?
A hangover, the kind where sick roars up through your throat: violent and painful.
My poem without me would be a barren land, starved for affection.
Oh these are wonderful. “When possibility is the peak of beauty” - what a gorgeous line. Thanks for sharing the Sharon Olds poem too. I’d never read it before. Ooh what a great writing prompt that is…
I really like: "All my softness and each brittle, brutal thought I’ve ever had" from the first poem, and "A hangover, the kind where sick roars up through your throat" is so vivid and real.
Thanks, Tamsin - yes, same, I do very rarely write something completely separate to myself but mostly all my poems have some element of my truth within them!
I’m still not managing to make poetry that is in a block and I do keep trying, and I’m not very good at looking outside myself. My poetry is very self centred. It’s not finished and needs titivating, but anyways ….
*********
What I Want
*
I want to be seen.
Not the dumpy aging shell I inhabit
Not the wrinkles, the grey, the deteriorating physical being.
Not this corporeal outer that others judge without thinking.
I want my inner self to be found and loved,
The one I hide away, tucked into the corners of my mind.
The small me-child sitting in my mind library consuming
book after book after book, living on words.
I want her to come out and play.
*
I want to be heard.
Deeply heard, heard and understood.
The words I can’t articulate verbally, that stick in my throat,
The words that pester me daily, hourly, minutely; constantly.
The words that clog my thinking needing release.
They are in my head continually and I need to get them out.
Released into the world where they can grow and thrive,
Meanings given and taken, insight shown.
I want to give them a voice.
*
I want to be understood.
To know I am speaking a truth,
A personal truth that maybe no one else has expressed so succinctly,
A truth that brings tears of sorrow and joy, flutters of fear,
Of knowing empathy and clarify of perception.
And knowing we share the same vision, the same scene
From my brain to yours, pure glorious cinematic clarity
Through my words alone I bond.
I want you to know me.
*
I want to be felt.
Not physically, but my soul touching other souls,
I want to be felt by others, linked to them.
I want them to feel what I feel and gain understanding.
I want to give them a part of my soul
And for them to cherish it, with the words that accompany it.
I want shared emotions, all of them. From icky love to horrific hate,
Empathetic to the last. I crave connection and
I want to be loved.
*********
And what I also want is for Substack to allow my formatting to stay, so I do t have to put silly stars where the verse breaks are cos it’s showing it all as one block to me. Grrrrr.
Even within the poetry block on a post if you try to edit a line break all the words beyond it disappear. So you can’t really edit within a block its only there for a cut and paste. That’s not encouraging us to use it
I’m grateful for your honest, introspective words, Tamsin. I believe that revealing not only gives us the opportunity to know you more deeply but helps us see ourselves better too.
This is wonderful and captures it all so well. I love ‘the small me-child sitting in my mind library consuming book after book after book’ and ‘the same vision, the same scene, from my brain to yours’. The feeling of words needing to be released also really resonates with me.
This really resonates ❤️ I particularly love “the small me-child sitting in my mind library consuming book after book after book, living on words.” Just such a beautiful image! 📚
A poem I wrote earlier this week that started as a random comment in the Notes app. It's about writing itself but applies to my poetry as when I first started on substack I was nervous about really bearing my soul in my poems since I would be putting them out to a much wider audience. These are feelings I've shaken now since it doesn't make sense to me to write anything without a hint or dash of sincerity in it. And if or when you're nervous, embrace it, and heck write about it.
I really love how you’ve expressed this! And I agree - I think there’s something really powerful in the vulnerability and exposure of sharing our words.
Pushing through the awkwardness of recording it aloud as I love to have the option to both read and hear poems 🤍. Thanks for the lovely prompt Nelly. Looking forward to reading all the Friday loveliness on here xx
"a world that stamps its sharp shape cutter on my flattened dough and burns it in the oven of ‘certainty'"--wow. I really like this. And the title/last line of the poem is so beautiful.
I love 'Ars Poetica' by Rita Dove. Also, the last verse in her 'Prose in a small space' nails what poetry means so beautifully, this is the last stanza
Then is it poetry if it’s confined? Trembling along its axis, a flagpole
come alive in high wind, flapping its radiant sleeve for attention –
Over here! It’s me! – while the white spaces (air, field, early
morning silence before the school bell) shape themselves around
that one bright seizure. . . and if that’s so what do we have here, a
dream or three paragraphs? We have white space too; is this
music? As for all the words left out, banging at the gates . . . we
could let them in, but where would we go with our orders, our
This is an older poem I wrote, when I was in the stage of life where I wasn't writing at all and felt shut out of the writing world (I know now that no one was shutting me out; I was shutting myself out).
Thank you for reading it! Yeah, I look back and see that there wasn't a lot of room for writing, but there also was SO MUCH self-blame and "I'm not good enough" and "who cares if I write" running through my mind. That kind of garbage leaves so little room for creativity.
I think as women we are so often put in positions where we feel squeezed and silent. And writing/reading about this feels really significant. Thank you x
Thank you for reading it, Ange. Yes to feeling squeezed and silent, even when it was just me squeezing and silencing myself, trying to make myself smaller to make sure I wasn’t offensive or weird 😩
Thank you, Jodie. I'm glad the lines like ants works. I used to wonder if that connection was only in my mind, since my kids were fascinated by ants, but they aren't anywhere else in the poem. I kind of figured most kids too, though :).
Hello all! This prompt felt so lofty as poetry has been a lifeline, especially so in the current season I find myself in. This is where I ended up... (Thoughts and critique welcome.)
What an honest and true voice ❤️. So relatable and welcoming in. Very much creates a spacious place that feels real, inviting, encouraging. Thank you Erin 🌟
This is really beautiful, Jodie, and I think you’ve captured it all ❤️ I also adore “grant me the ability to be ordinary and to find it all extraordinary” ✨
I wrote more here...
https://lisaandradez.substack.com/p/why-poetry
.
I hadn't heard of Ars Poetica before either, but I like it! This is my poem:
Why poetry?
without it I have no place for my grief,
there is no home for my tears,
pain keeps crushing and breaking me.
I cannot talk about the things once passed
without poetry, in all its form.
I have no other way of shouting into the void
words that cannot be expressed
vocally, only making sense on the page
I am forced to write upon, as if
my fingers cannot rest until they
do the work of my heart.
Poetry takes my trauma and makes it
make sense,
it holds me,
undoes me,
makes me better
knows me, so well.
I am powerless without it, I ache
my stomach growling with hunger,
if I don't get enough, when I am unable
to write it, read it, live through it.
Poetry gives me a voice,
speaks through me and
makes me feel heard, and seen,
no longer invisible. I belong
my people are poetry people,
they get it, they know that
without poetry, I am nothing.
Hugely powerful one this Lisa x
Thank you 😊
My people are poetry people 🙌🏻👏🏻 this is so powerful, Lisa, and I really relate ❤️❤️
Beautiful:
"Poetry takes my trauma and makes it
make sense,
it holds me,
undoes me,
makes me better"
*Clapping like that Meryl Streep meme* This, Lisa. YES. This is how I feel about poetry too. I found your use of the word “without” especially powerful.
Poetry people ❤️
‘Poetry gives me a voice,
speaks through me’ 🌟
This is it.
Interesting thread and replies here, Nelly. thanks for prompt. Here's 3 short pieces on poetry by Victoria Chang
-
'The Poem'
-
The poem wants light. The
poem is the spotlight. We can't
write poems while lit up by them
-
'Watchers'
-
A poem is published
It is posted everywhere
A tree drops leaves in secret
-
'Words'
-
I struck a bargain
with language. That I would not
abuse it or sell it, that
I would use it for
beauty. In exchange I will
die, while words live forever.
-
I really connected with these pieces and found them after I had posted a piece on what poetry is to me - the bridge between - I called it 'Bridges of Invisibility' and posted it here:
https://theseainme.substack.com/p/bridges-of-invisibility.
-
Here's another one 'The Waves are Shouting '
-
https://open.substack.com/pub/theseainme/p/the-waves-are-shouting?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=46rss
-
When I started out writing on Substack late last year (I'm just a newbie to writing) I had scribbled a shopping list type word-spill that was helping me understand my urge to write. It's quite raw ... but here it is ...
https://theseainme.substack.com/p/why-i-write-a-reflection
Ooh I will go and have a read. Thanks. And Thank you for these. The trees one is really thought provoking isn’t it!
Certainly is, it's from her book of very short poems 'The Trees Witness Everything' . I'm local to the Phoenix Park in Dublin and I witness their majesty and wisdom every day I can get there. It's like magic!
Also “self commune and meet the moon” is just lush! 🌕
‘The freedom to feel and understand’ 🌟 Thank you for sharing these!
Words live forever 🤩 brilliant pieces!
This is lovely:
"I am making up what I do not
know,
in splashed half-lit Art"
Thank you.
I really love Carrie Fountain’s poems on this subject, especially Self Help.
I wrote the below poem the other week in response to a similar prompt-in the middle of a very hectic day!
The Mother Tries to Write a Poem
(after Anna Laura Reeve)
In between endless requests
For water and snacks—
And wiping bums—
And now the other one informs her
That he’s spilled his milk
And there’s an unknown sticky substance
On the back of the couch.
She wants to write
About a field of flowers
The light and shade, perhaps
Heads nodding gently in the breeze
Or the cathedral-like colours of autumn.
But instead, she has the scent
Of washing powder, plates caked
With lunch, and the toys in garish hues
Designed to pierce unsuspecting feet.
Oh yes. Very much so yes. Endless snacks. And requests. Thank you for this x
Yes! This sums it up so well.
So good! Chuckling trying to read through these gorgeous poems while our puppy tries to shred the rug. The everyday, real poems hit me much harder than the lofty stuff 🤍
Hard relate haha. Captured it very well
I love the Kate Baer poem especially ❤️ it’s so interesting to reflect on this!
I wrote this with your “poetry has got me” line as a basis. I kept cutting stuff out of it in the end as I felt like it worked better when I said less! Not sure the repetition of “poetry” as a sentence starter works though?
Poetry has got me slamming tequila shots against a bar, whooping. Poetry has me under a blanket: a moment of solace in silence. Poetry is the delicate, perfect moment before a first kiss, when possibility is the peak of beauty. Poetry is the howl of heartbreak scratching my throat. Poetry is everything bold and gentle about me. All my softness and each brittle, brutal thought I’ve ever had, the sharp friction of my contradictions.
***
A while back I also wrote this during a workshop where the Sharon Olds poem ( https://poetryinvoice.ca/read/poems/my-poem-without-me-it) was used as a prompt. This was a speedy write but I found it again this week so thought I’d share it. The topic of whether poetry is inherently personal / autobiographical is such an interesting one, but my poems most often are quite truthful little pieces of me.
After Sharon Olds
My poem without me in it would be a blank, brittle verse: an absence of tenderness.
A poem bereft of me — a hand reaching for help and left unclasped.
Would it be the dregs of an empty champagne bottle, the aftermath of a party?
A hangover, the kind where sick roars up through your throat: violent and painful.
My poem without me would be a barren land, starved for affection.
A poem unread, unwanted.
Oh these are wonderful. “When possibility is the peak of beauty” - what a gorgeous line. Thanks for sharing the Sharon Olds poem too. I’d never read it before. Ooh what a great writing prompt that is…
Thank you Nelly ❤️ Rebecca Green used the Sharon Olds poem in some sessions she did a while back! A really interesting concept.
Every word, Ellen! “when possibility is the peak of beauty” especially bowled me over. Poetry is all the things!
Thank you, Erin! It really is 🤩
‘the sharp friction of my contradictions’ - what a gorgeous line. These are lovely Ellen x
Thanks, Ange! I like that one too.
I really like: "All my softness and each brittle, brutal thought I’ve ever had" from the first poem, and "A hangover, the kind where sick roars up through your throat" is so vivid and real.
Thank you, Margaret 😍
Love both of these Ellen. The Sharon Olds poem is such an interesting idea / prompt.
Thanks, Jodie! Yes - it was one Rebecca Green used in some sessions she did a while back! A really interesting concept.
That second one! Oofff. Though the first is also just as ooofff.
Like you too, my poems tend to be little exposés of me. Rarely not, but occasionally.
Thanks, Tamsin - yes, same, I do very rarely write something completely separate to myself but mostly all my poems have some element of my truth within them!
I’m still not managing to make poetry that is in a block and I do keep trying, and I’m not very good at looking outside myself. My poetry is very self centred. It’s not finished and needs titivating, but anyways ….
*********
What I Want
*
I want to be seen.
Not the dumpy aging shell I inhabit
Not the wrinkles, the grey, the deteriorating physical being.
Not this corporeal outer that others judge without thinking.
I want my inner self to be found and loved,
The one I hide away, tucked into the corners of my mind.
The small me-child sitting in my mind library consuming
book after book after book, living on words.
I want her to come out and play.
*
I want to be heard.
Deeply heard, heard and understood.
The words I can’t articulate verbally, that stick in my throat,
The words that pester me daily, hourly, minutely; constantly.
The words that clog my thinking needing release.
They are in my head continually and I need to get them out.
Released into the world where they can grow and thrive,
Meanings given and taken, insight shown.
I want to give them a voice.
*
I want to be understood.
To know I am speaking a truth,
A personal truth that maybe no one else has expressed so succinctly,
A truth that brings tears of sorrow and joy, flutters of fear,
Of knowing empathy and clarify of perception.
And knowing we share the same vision, the same scene
From my brain to yours, pure glorious cinematic clarity
Through my words alone I bond.
I want you to know me.
*
I want to be felt.
Not physically, but my soul touching other souls,
I want to be felt by others, linked to them.
I want them to feel what I feel and gain understanding.
I want to give them a part of my soul
And for them to cherish it, with the words that accompany it.
I want shared emotions, all of them. From icky love to horrific hate,
Empathetic to the last. I crave connection and
I want to be loved.
*********
And what I also want is for Substack to allow my formatting to stay, so I do t have to put silly stars where the verse breaks are cos it’s showing it all as one block to me. Grrrrr.
Feel your words so intensely Tamsin. And your frustration on the formatting front. We’re trying to write poetry here Substack 🙄
Even within the poetry block on a post if you try to edit a line break all the words beyond it disappear. So you can’t really edit within a block its only there for a cut and paste. That’s not encouraging us to use it
To be seen, to be really seen, is intimacy, and is all everyone really wants. This is it.
Thank you
I’m grateful for your honest, introspective words, Tamsin. I believe that revealing not only gives us the opportunity to know you more deeply but helps us see ourselves better too.
This is wonderful and captures it all so well. I love ‘the small me-child sitting in my mind library consuming book after book after book’ and ‘the same vision, the same scene, from my brain to yours’. The feeling of words needing to be released also really resonates with me.
Thank you muchly
This really resonates ❤️ I particularly love “the small me-child sitting in my mind library consuming book after book after book, living on words.” Just such a beautiful image! 📚
Thank you so much
This is so gorgeous (and I share your frustration on the formatting!!!!):
"And knowing we share the same vision, the same scene
From my brain to yours, pure glorious cinematic clarity
Through my words alone I bond.
I want you to know me."
Thank you
‘The small me-child sitting in my mind library consuming
book after book after book, living on words.
I want her to come out and play.’
Ah I love this poem Tamsin x
A poem I wrote earlier this week that started as a random comment in the Notes app. It's about writing itself but applies to my poetry as when I first started on substack I was nervous about really bearing my soul in my poems since I would be putting them out to a much wider audience. These are feelings I've shaken now since it doesn't make sense to me to write anything without a hint or dash of sincerity in it. And if or when you're nervous, embrace it, and heck write about it.
https://progressivepoetfederation.substack.com/p/contact
Agree entirely Daniel. It’s the sincerest ones that really connect for me.
Completely agree, sincerity and vulnerability.
I really love how you’ve expressed this! And I agree - I think there’s something really powerful in the vulnerability and exposure of sharing our words.
So, so true:
"Sincerity
is the first
emotion
that connects
to your reader
before any
other
syllable
or sound."
Fantastic meta-selection, they brought me a satisfied smile. Thank you for compiling it!
Glad to hear it
Ars Poetica - love it! 🤩
I’ve posted the poem I wrote this week on my Substack: ‘Poetry Sits With Us in the Clearing’
https://open.substack.com/pub/angedisbury/p/poetry-sits-with-us-in-the-clearing?r=2qii2&utm_medium=ios
Pushing through the awkwardness of recording it aloud as I love to have the option to both read and hear poems 🤍. Thanks for the lovely prompt Nelly. Looking forward to reading all the Friday loveliness on here xx
Poetry sits with us the clearing. Oh it does. It really does ❤️
“Poetry sits with us” it certainly does wherever we are.
"a world that stamps its sharp shape cutter on my flattened dough and burns it in the oven of ‘certainty'"--wow. I really like this. And the title/last line of the poem is so beautiful.
Thank you 🙏
This is really beautiful and captures so much.
Ange that poem is sublime!
Thank you for your encouragement Kathryn x
Oh Ange this is so beautiful 😍 I really love the different ways you’ve shown how powerful poetry is and the ending is just gorgeous 🤩
Thank you Ellen 🥰
I so want to play and share, but I’m still working. I’ll save these for later or tomorrow.
I know the feeling!!! Here whenever you are ready xx
I love 'Ars Poetica' by Rita Dove. Also, the last verse in her 'Prose in a small space' nails what poetry means so beautifully, this is the last stanza
Then is it poetry if it’s confined? Trembling along its axis, a flagpole
come alive in high wind, flapping its radiant sleeve for attention –
Over here! It’s me! – while the white spaces (air, field, early
morning silence before the school bell) shape themselves around
that one bright seizure. . . and if that’s so what do we have here, a
dream or three paragraphs? We have white space too; is this
music? As for all the words left out, banging at the gates . . . we
could let them in, but where would we go with our orders, our
stuttering pride?
Oh I love this!
This is an older poem I wrote, when I was in the stage of life where I wasn't writing at all and felt shut out of the writing world (I know now that no one was shutting me out; I was shutting myself out).
https://open.substack.com/pub/margaretannsilver/p/unwriter?r=2ghube&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you. I’ve been there. I didn’t write as well about it as you. This has taken me back. Thank you x
💛
Thank you for sharing this ❤️ It’s interesting how in different phases of life our creativity can be totally stifled or sparked.
Thank you for reading it! Yeah, I look back and see that there wasn't a lot of room for writing, but there also was SO MUCH self-blame and "I'm not good enough" and "who cares if I write" running through my mind. That kind of garbage leaves so little room for creativity.
Homesick for something that isn't a place 🤍
I think as women we are so often put in positions where we feel squeezed and silent. And writing/reading about this feels really significant. Thank you x
Thank you for reading it, Ange. Yes to feeling squeezed and silent, even when it was just me squeezing and silencing myself, trying to make myself smaller to make sure I wasn’t offensive or weird 😩
This is a fab poem
Thank you, Tamsin!
I love ‘homesick for something that isn’t a place’ and the words and lines like ants at the end
Thank you, Jodie. I'm glad the lines like ants works. I used to wonder if that connection was only in my mind, since my kids were fascinated by ants, but they aren't anywhere else in the poem. I kind of figured most kids too, though :).
Hello all! This prompt felt so lofty as poetry has been a lifeline, especially so in the current season I find myself in. This is where I ended up... (Thoughts and critique welcome.)
.
There’s a song I’ve been trying to sing
for 45 years now
I croak out a phrase or two
if I’m lucky
here and there
my life’s energy spent
on getting it out.
.
Is there something wrong
with my larynx
or is it something else
that prevents me from crooning
unhindered (I do know the answer
for the stuckness tethered
to every chord).
.
I long to open my mouth
and hear every word ring out
strong and true
the chorus no longer married
to fear and labour.
.
But that it is - labour
a birthing of my voice
not lost
always humming within
working to be released into
loving arms receiving.
.
It is not validation
she desires
but a nod and wink
maybe a kiss on the cheek
to be seen
you belong here
when you warble off key
or can only manage
a note or two
here and there
if we’re lucky
we will hear you sing.
.
I want to hear you sing.
Oh Erin you had me at the first line. That in itself could be a whole new prompt. This poem leaves me so much room, thank you x
Thank you, Nelly. 🥰
I love this and it’s acceptance of all.
Thank you, Tamsin. ❤️
Oh I felt this really quite viscerally Erin, it really struck a chord with me - to borrow some of your words! I want to hear you sing 🙌🏻❤️
Thank you, Ellen! Let’s start a choir! ;)
These lines really struck me--this is what I want, too (to belong even if I'm "off key"):
"you belong here
when you warble off key
or can only manage
a note or two
here and there
if we’re lucky
we will hear you sing."
Thank you, Margaret. I think we are all longing for that sense of belonging, aren’t we?
definitely!
What an honest and true voice ❤️. So relatable and welcoming in. Very much creates a spacious place that feels real, inviting, encouraging. Thank you Erin 🌟
Here's one I wrote a while ago. About writing poetry in an attempt to capture and memorize my children while they're young.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CUuBzleMhUQ/?igsh=cGpiemllbTczZjJ2
Gorgeous Kathryn. Bottling the memories as words 🥰
Thank you Ange x
That was so beautiful
Oh thank you Tamsin x
I love this and can definitely relate to trying to capture all of those moments in poems
Thank you Jodie x
Yessss I love this, what a gorgeous way to capture these moments 🥰
Thank you Ellen x
I really like, "But I don't have a bottle/ Or a potion/ So I write" 💛
Aww thanks Margaret Ann x
When I started writing this I didn’t know it was about writing poetry, but it turns out it is.
Superpowers
Grant me the power to slow and savour
I don’t want it all to be a blur at super speed
Grant me the power to be seen
too much of what we do is invisible
Grant me the ability to leave it
so someone else responds to the signal
Grant me the ability to walk in the moment
I don’t want to see it all from way above
Grant me the power to stumble and fall
without feeling shame at my mistake
Grant me the ability to be ordinary
and to find it all extraordinary
Grant me softness and vulnerability
I don’t want an impermeable shield
Grant me a quiet kind of courage
to notice, to feel, to love, to write
“I don’t want to see it all from way above”. This captures it perfectly ❤️
This is really beautiful, Jodie, and I think you’ve captured it all ❤️ I also adore “grant me the ability to be ordinary and to find it all extraordinary” ✨
I really feel these lines:
"Grant me the ability to be ordinary
and to find it all extraordinary
Grant me softness and vulnerability
I don’t want an impermeable shield"
This is gorgeous Josie!
‘Grant me the ability to leave it
so someone else responds to the signal’ especially resonated with me x
Every line, Jodie! Wonderful!
‘To notice, to feel, to love, to write’ these seem to be common themes and it does take courage to put ourselves out there you are right.
I wrote this about poetry last world poetry day
This poem is not a refuge
It just lets you
escape
for a moment….. that lapses
When you close the page
Returning to the day to day
This poem will not keep you safe
Or face up to that ‘thing’…. at the back of your mind
It is designed to
temporarily
spellbind you
This poem does not offer sanctuary
Such feelings are transitory
And require an advisory label for discretion
Not every poem is a life lesson
More, an impression of one
Written by some one who is at best…
…..guessing.
I love this Lisa
That last line! Powerful
This is powerful, Lisa. I keep reading your words over and they resonate deeply.
The sharp friction of my contradictions. That's a great line. Loved these Ellen
Thank you 😍😍