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Lisa Andradez's avatar

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.

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

Hugely powerful one this Lisa x

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Lisa Andradez's avatar

Thank you 😊

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

My people are poetry people 🙌🏻👏🏻 this is so powerful, Lisa, and I really relate ❤️❤️

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

Beautiful:

"Poetry takes my trauma and makes it

make sense,

it holds me,

undoes me,

makes me better"

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Erin Stinson's avatar

*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.

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Jodie Duffy's avatar

Poetry people ❤️

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Angela Joy's avatar

‘Poetry gives me a voice,

speaks through me’ 🌟

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

This is it.

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The Sea in Me    (Síodhna)'s avatar

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

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

Ooh I will go and have a read. Thanks. And Thank you for these. The trees one is really thought provoking isn’t it!

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The Sea in Me    (Síodhna)'s avatar

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!

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Also “self commune and meet the moon” is just lush! 🌕

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Angela Joy's avatar

‘The freedom to feel and understand’ 🌟 Thank you for sharing these!

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Words live forever 🤩 brilliant pieces!

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

This is lovely:

"I am making up what I do not

know,

in splashed half-lit Art"

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The Sea in Me    (Síodhna)'s avatar

Thank you.

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Jessica's avatar

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.

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

Oh yes. Very much so yes. Endless snacks. And requests. Thank you for this x

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

Yes! This sums it up so well.

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Angela Joy's avatar

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 🤍

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Kathryn's avatar

Hard relate haha. Captured it very well

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

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.

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

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…

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Thank you Nelly ❤️ Rebecca Green used the Sharon Olds poem in some sessions she did a while back! A really interesting concept.

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Erin Stinson's avatar

Every word, Ellen! “when possibility is the peak of beauty” especially bowled me over. Poetry is all the things!

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Thank you, Erin! It really is 🤩

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Angela Joy's avatar

‘the sharp friction of my contradictions’ - what a gorgeous line. These are lovely Ellen x

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Thanks, Ange! I like that one too.

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

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.

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Thank you, Margaret 😍

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Jodie Duffy's avatar

Love both of these Ellen. The Sharon Olds poem is such an interesting idea / prompt.

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Thanks, Jodie! Yes - it was one Rebecca Green used in some sessions she did a while back! A really interesting concept.

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

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.

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

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!

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

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.

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

Feel your words so intensely Tamsin. And your frustration on the formatting front. We’re trying to write poetry here Substack 🙄

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

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

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The Sea in Me    (Síodhna)'s avatar

To be seen, to be really seen, is intimacy, and is all everyone really wants. This is it.

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Thank you

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Erin Stinson's avatar

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.

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Jodie Duffy's avatar

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.

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Thank you muchly

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

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! 📚

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Thank you so much

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

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."

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Thank you

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Angela Joy's avatar

‘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

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Daniel Henderson's avatar

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

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

Agree entirely Daniel. It’s the sincerest ones that really connect for me.

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Completely agree, sincerity and vulnerability.

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

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.

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

So, so true:

"Sincerity

is the first

emotion

that connects

to your reader

before any

other

syllable

or sound."

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Martin Hughes's avatar

Fantastic meta-selection, they brought me a satisfied smile. Thank you for compiling it!

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

Glad to hear it

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Angela Joy's avatar

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

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

Poetry sits with us the clearing. Oh it does. It really does ❤️

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

“Poetry sits with us” it certainly does wherever we are.

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

"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.

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Angela Joy's avatar

Thank you 🙏

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Jodie Duffy's avatar

This is really beautiful and captures so much.

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Kathryn's avatar

Ange that poem is sublime!

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Angela Joy's avatar

Thank you for your encouragement Kathryn x

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

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 🤩

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Angela Joy's avatar

Thank you Ellen 🥰

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LeeAnn Pickrell's avatar

I so want to play and share, but I’m still working. I’ll save these for later or tomorrow.

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

I know the feeling!!! Here whenever you are ready xx

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Treasa's avatar

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?

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Oh I love this!

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

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

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

Thank you. I’ve been there. I didn’t write as well about it as you. This has taken me back. Thank you x

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Thank you for sharing this ❤️ It’s interesting how in different phases of life our creativity can be totally stifled or sparked.

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

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.

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Angela Joy's avatar

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

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

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 😩

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

This is a fab poem

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

Thank you, Tamsin!

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Jodie Duffy's avatar

I love ‘homesick for something that isn’t a place’ and the words and lines like ants at the end

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

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 :).

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Erin Stinson's avatar

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.

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

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

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Erin Stinson's avatar

Thank you, Nelly. 🥰

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

I love this and it’s acceptance of all.

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Erin Stinson's avatar

Thank you, Tamsin. ❤️

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

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 🙌🏻❤️

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Erin Stinson's avatar

Thank you, Ellen! Let’s start a choir! ;)

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

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."

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Erin Stinson's avatar

Thank you, Margaret. I think we are all longing for that sense of belonging, aren’t we?

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

definitely!

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Angela Joy's avatar

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 🌟

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Kathryn's avatar

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

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Angela Joy's avatar

Gorgeous Kathryn. Bottling the memories as words 🥰

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Kathryn's avatar

Thank you Ange x

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

That was so beautiful

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Kathryn's avatar

Oh thank you Tamsin x

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Jodie Duffy's avatar

I love this and can definitely relate to trying to capture all of those moments in poems

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Kathryn's avatar

Thank you Jodie x

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Yessss I love this, what a gorgeous way to capture these moments 🥰

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Kathryn's avatar

Thank you Ellen x

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

I really like, "But I don't have a bottle/ Or a potion/ So I write" 💛

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Kathryn's avatar

Aww thanks Margaret Ann x

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Jodie Duffy's avatar

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

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Nelly Bryce's avatar

“I don’t want to see it all from way above”. This captures it perfectly ❤️

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

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” ✨

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

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"

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Angela Joy's avatar

This is gorgeous Josie!

‘Grant me the ability to leave it

so someone else responds to the signal’ especially resonated with me x

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Erin Stinson's avatar

Every line, Jodie! Wonderful!

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

‘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.

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Lisa O'Hare's avatar

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.

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Angela Joy's avatar

I love this Lisa

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Kathryn's avatar

That last line! Powerful

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Erin Stinson's avatar

This is powerful, Lisa. I keep reading your words over and they resonate deeply.

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Kathryn's avatar

The sharp friction of my contradictions. That's a great line. Loved these Ellen

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Ellen Clayton's avatar

Thank you 😍😍

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