A Poem as Time

Time also came up a lot in the special section of the Jan/Feb 2020 Poets&Writers Magazine. Keith S. Wilson who wrote Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love _{(assoc link)} his writer’s block remedy is: “Time. They say time heals all wounds, which is a lie, but it is true that no wound healed without time. I hope that given enough time, I will come to an epiphany or someone will happen to teach me just the right something, or I’ll learn to let go.”

Marwa Helal who wrote Invasive Species _{(assoc link)} gives poets this advice: “Take your time . . . Time is your friend . . . Trust your path and your work.” And when speaking about patience, John Murillo who wrote Up Jump the Boogie _{(assoc link)} says, “the more time a poet says she spent writing her book, the less time she seems to have had to spend convincing someone to publish it. So the firs bit of advice I’d give is to tend to your craft, take as long as you need to write the best book you can, work hard until you are genuinely satisfied.”

One of the things I love about poetry is one poem can extend a fleeting moment, or condense years, even eons, into seconds. A poet can manipulate time in so many ways. You may want to steal a moment and listen to The Slowdown poetry podcast.

This month we’ve spent what time we could find to focus on writing poems, but for many of us, these drafts are only the beginning. How much time will pass before we revise something we wrote this month into a finished poem that genuinely satisfies? What a poem demands is that we put time into it, and also patiently give it time.

The Prompts

NaPoWriMo : Write a superhero poem

PAD Challenge : For today’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt:

1. Write a “(blank) of the Heart” poem, and/or…
2. Write a “Heart of the (blank)” poem.

Poetry Non-stop : Write a Triolet

Since this week’s focus for Portable MFA is form, I thought I would try the Triolet. It was fun using what I was writing in this morning’s journal and putting it into form.

I’m also linking today’s poem to the dVerse Poetics prompt because I think it goes well with the Louis Wain painting, I Am Happy Because Everyone Loves Me (1928).

Today’s Poem

Heart of the Hero

And like a prince he kisses me back to life
A true hero battling cognizance thief sleep
His tongue on my nose the only remedy to dark rites
like a prince he kisses me back to life
To him I am Sleeping Beauty or Snow White
He worries I’m dead, my sleep’s so deep
And like a prince he kisses me back to life
A true hero battling cognizance thief sleep

See you tomorrow!