RAP: Surprised by Words

L.L. here for Random Acts of Poetry. Considering how we grow in our writing. Is it by being “held accountable” through a process of “critique”? Do we grow when someone says, “That’s awful”?

I can’t tell you how many people have contacted me behind the scenes to say, “I used to write poetry, but then…” But then, this teacher. Or that naysayer. This hurtful comment. That note of rejection. And so on.

In the world of poetry, where too few venues receive too many submissions and where a sense of “the experts” reigns, I wonder if we’ve eclipsed the opportunity for growth and celebration. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be something to reach for, standards of excellence, hard work, places we can count on for culling a good poem when we hunger for one. But I suspect that the poetry community has too long cultivated elitism, to its diminishment.

Of what? The chance for people to be, as John Fox says, surprised by their “own words or of being surprised by the poems of others,” which is “at the heart of poetry as healer.” Fox goes on to say that “surprise is a kind of revelation, resurrection and rebirth—a creative, joyful, luminous, physical experience of being disinterred from limitation.”

The best way I can think to nourish people in the endeavor of surprising themselves with poetic words, is not to say, “That’s awful” or “That isn’t working.” It is, instead, to hold up examples of surprising words and sounds, to train our eyes and ears for revelation. So this week I went in search of surprises. Often, they were parts of poems.

Now, if I wanted to say anything about growing as a writer, I would point to startling phrases and say do more of this, do more of that, and put the rest aside for another day, a different poem, or no poem at all. Keep only what surprises, and if nothing surprises, begin again.

From Laure’s To Serve You

let the damp earth
be the washing bowl
and the swollen grass
the cloth set before you.

From Monica’s Carpool and Cubicle

Inwardly we find
satisfaction at passing the lone commuters,
their brake lights red / no-red / red, morse-coding
another kind of S.O.S.: “I am alone.”

From Jim’s Détente

One more time
The perfunctory olive branch

It would be easier to breathe
While choking

From Ann’s Meeting Words

home through the dark, always counting
miles, counting hours,

From Yvette’s Freedom

Spread your wings and soar to the haze of the moon.
Pluck the stars from their golden hook

From Barbara’s The Dance of Pandora

the meadow, long
not from dream
awakened to lark and red

From Marcus's Christ is Risen, But

And worms spin cocoons from doubt, not hope,
stitching themselves into darkness, disbelieving
(for joy) their uncertain metamorphosis

If you would like to participate in Random Acts of Poetry, read here for instructions. Also, if you would like to try a prompt for next week's RAP, look at an ordinary object and find surprises in it. Describe the object with as many senses as you can conjure. If you like, begin, middle or end with the words, I look at [touch, hear, whatever] you, as if for the first time...

All RAP Participants:
Ann’s Meeting Words
Erica’s Random Acts of Poetry: Petals
LL’s daughters’Ballads, Grasses and Bliss
Brian’s The Anatomy of a Gift
Laure’s In Itself, To Serve You
Yvette’s Freedom
Monica’s Gratitude, Carpool and Cubicle
Barbara’s The Dance of Pandora
Jim’s Détente
Marcus's Christ is Risen, But
nAncY's Adoration
Cindy's Spring Clean
Crystal's Uneven Exchange
Laura's Burden
Mike's Cool
The Unknown Contributor's Anyday
Lilac photo by nAncY. Used with permission. Post written by L.L. Barkat.

• Tags:  
• john fox
• online writing
• random acts of poetry

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