It's Not Me, It's You

Fair warning:

Today is not your day.

I don’t have time

to give you attention

and God knows

you need

a lot of it.

My plate is full.

I have a job. There are

students to teach, papers

to grade, people

to meet. As we speak,

there are

online forums

awaiting

my moderation.

And though you may

laugh, I’ll have you know

that I have other

things in my life

to write,

like emails

and reports.

And I’ll just say it:

I find their

non-figurative nature

surprisingly

attractive.

Their straight lines

leave me less
twisted and
tortured with
self-doubt.

And when
we are finished,
they don't
make me roll them
around
to feel how they
sound
before
I send
them
out.

Spool

The sleeping thread
keeps close to its spool,
its ends hidden
from probing fingers,
wrapped in batting,
zipped tight in a pouch,
reveals nothing
of its potential energy—
Guarded by an imperfect memory
that knows
the danger
of letting loose
its kinesthetic possibilities
of complete separation,
of unraveling—
Protected by the itchy persistence
of one who knows the chaos
of tangled fingers
and endless webs—
Recalls enough to confirm
that neither end
has any business
near the eye
of a needle

Still

Well, life has been catching up to me and catching me from behind. I had planned to do 30 poems in 30 days for NaPoWriMo, like I did for the past two years, but instead I will be doing 21 poems in 21 days, starting today!

I dreamed

I was nothing

but solid stone

in the middle of the river's constant flow

I stayed put

through flooding, draining

snowing, raining,

rushing, lapping

sediment and clarity--

was all the same to me

I was the perfect answer

to perpetual motion

I was still

But the dream did not last

long enough

for me to know

what it was I felt

resignation

peace

contentment

numbness

and whether it was enough

to observe

but not witness

to be carved

so slowly

as to never

truly

notice

Wish me luck!

It's been a bit of a dry spell for me lately--

so I'm off

to a cabin on the lake

where I hope to work on my relationship

with my poetic muses

My goal is simple but daunting--

to have at least one poem

to post by Monday

The longer I delay

the next poem

the harder

and scarier

it is to write it

and the easier it is

to put it off

I hope to return

with a postable poem

and I plan to visit

my favorite blogs

once again

Wish me luck!

I miss writing and just as much

I miss all of you.

Hello Blogland!

A big hello out there to anyone who might still be checking in with my blog. Life in Teacherland has been quite hectic lately, but all of my summer school prep is done and I am turning my attention to the blogosphere again. I'll be posting a new poem within the next day or two, and plan on keeping up regularly throughout the summer.

I'm also looking forward to visiting some of my favorite bloggers and enjoying their creativity and words of wisdom.

Happy summer, everyone!

~Erin

Day 23 and it Feels Like Herding Cats

the bad stanzas
hiss and scratch at my eyes
before they run away
the good ones
are also hard to herd
they dart around the room
and knock over vases
before purring and curling
themselves
nicely on my page
and even then, I am left
needing an antihistamine
when we’re done

Here's what I did with today's NaPoWriMo prompt "unlikely couples"...

1040

I filed my tax return todayI

in verse

a far better way to determine

my worth

Instead of figures,

I wrote off
the figurative:

overwrought metaphors

clichéd similes

pretentious allusions

so many poetic losses
I incurred on a regular basis
All my failed efforts

1040-ed up

in black and white
Needless to say,
I expect
a big
refund

What might have been

Creative writing,
I once thought that I wanted you
for my major

Since my girlhood,
you were my dream, everything I wanted
for myself

When our time came,
your face, your voice was so different
from my dreams

You turned out to be

a drunk professor
who cancelled class when he couldn’t find parking
and told me I had no poetic voice
but didn’t tell me where to find it

a black-clad student
who believed that to be a true poet meant
to forego shoes and shower infrequently
and to write weekly free verse odes to his penis

another black-clad student
who told me that good poetry came from
good f***ing. She also wrote many odes
to penises. And cockroaches (I never got the connection)

So we parted ways.
I was confused. I didn’t fit in
with any of your friends
and you had very few kind words
for me.

For years I used you as an excuse
but I dropped that act a while back.
Would I be any better now
if I had stuck it out? seen you through?
Perhaps we’ll never know.
I’m not sure if you care,
but I still kind of do.

This is in response to readwritepoem's NaPoWriMo prompt # 11.

Lag time--don't go away!

I must confess my plate has been quite full
So little time for pen or poetry
My writing life's experienced a lull
Not much figurative activity

But come back soon, stick with me yet a while
Soon comes the month of national poetry
And I will post a ditty ev'ry day
Though it might be the very death of me

Oh, to meet such a glorious, happy end
As sharing poetry each day with friends!

I promise not to give you 30 days of tortured iambic pentameter, though!

Writer's Block

Buds on the trees
In January
Have left me
Wordless.
Without my security
Blanket of
January snow,
The stanzas
Stand silenced.
My metaphors
Mistrust the warmth,
And they should.
A literal thaw
Brings no
Figurative good.

The poet realizes she has NEVER had an original idea...

This week's readwritepoem prompt was to cut up the words in a text (newspaper article, memo, anything), draw the words randomly, and write them down in that order. Then, we were to see what poem we could make with them. I used a memo about ordering textbooks for next semester as a vehicle for purging my poetic insecurities. The actual purge was less than successful, but I got this poem out of it. The words from the memo are in bold.


I’ve got that fraudulent feeling,
Like my work is nothing more than gum
On the bottom of a real poet’s shoe.

Like I’ve enrolled in a course
Without meeting the prerequisites.

Like the stanzas I send out into cyberspace
Have already been written,
Are in fact illegal adoptions,
Botched abortions,
Of select, sacred texts.

Like I’ve acquired my images by requisition,
Didn’t even say please,
For ideas illegally confiscated.

And soon,
I will be found out, punished.

Sentenced to a life term
At open mic night
In a bookstore coffee shop.
Where I am forced to read
My bastard verses
In an endless loop
To the English faculty from my alma mater
While I am naked
And they are clothed
In caps and gowns
And righteous disappointment.

150 posts!

Hello to all of my blog friends! I'm sorry I haven't been too chatty and responsive to your comments lately. I've been busy, busy, busy starting a new semester. Please know that I am grateful to all of you who stop by to read my poetry posts--friends, family, bloggers, readwritepoem-ers--your visits let me know that I am not just sending poetry out into the void!

My last post, "Flame Throwing," was my 150th post. I certainly could not imagine producing 150 posts when I started this little adventure. So thank you for your interest and inspiration!

Old Flame

Today's napowrimo prompt from readwritepoem asked us to write about an old flame...

I called an old flame
today
but the words
came out wrong.
Twenty years of
talking
And we still
haven’t learned.
I guess that’s what
happens
when your old flame,
your husband,
and your first love
are one
and the
same.

A Day of Grading Papers

Click to see larger image.

English 206

When I was nineteen, I took a lower-division creative writing poetry class. I was excited, as I had been writing poetry since I was a kid. I don’t exactly know what I expected, but I do recall that my experience did not quite match whatever expectations I may have had. I had heard good things about the professor, but I think he was past his prime by the time I took his class. At times, he was animated and inspiring when he spoke about poetic language, but more often then not, he was erratic and irritable, and he would forget what he had told us from one moment to the next.

I found that I didn’t quite fit in with all of the students, either. There were a couple of girls who were of the belief that no one’s poetry should be critiqued, because to do so was to critique that person’s feelings and that just wasn’t fair. As a matter of fact, they often met any discussion of their recent drafts with trembling lips and watery eyes. They had a very Stuart Smalley-like approach to poetry class: it should function as a daily affirmation for everyone’s emotions and experiences.

There were other students who wore black all of the time and often came to class barefoot. They seemed to equate the poetic life with a lack of attention to personal hygiene and a need to use the f**k word as often as possible in their work. One girl in the class seemed to write every poem about the size and girth of her various lovers’ private parts, using the word “cockroach” as a double entendre/metaphor as often as possible.

I left the class feeling like I did not belong in the creative writing world. And for the rest of my undergraduate career, I used this feeling as an excuse to not attempt any other poetry or fiction classes. The class was not a total loss, however. I find myself now striving to implement the lessons I learned: make your language as precise as possible, avoid clichés, and write at least one poem a week. 20 years later, I’m still not sure how well I am doing, but I am taking pleasure in doing it.

At the end of that semester, my professor wrote a comment on my final portfolio that pleased me and frustrated me to no end: “You have a strong sense of the language of poetry, but you have yet to find your own authentic poetic voice. Final grade: B.” I was glad that he thought I had a knack for poetic language, but what was a poetic voice? Where could I get one? How did I find it? Did I miss the distribution line at freshman orientation? If my poetic voice wasn’t my own, whose was it? My nearly 40-year-old self thinks it’s ridiculous to expect that any 19-year-old could have found her own poetic voice, but my 19-year-old self would surely disagree!

I have no idea what my professor would think of this blog, but I’m no longer using my experience in his class as an excuse to hold back on my writing. Maybe that’s a first step to finding my voice.