Crazy About Poetry

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink for Roundup.

Here in Alabama I subscribe to an email newsletter that shares about poetic happenings in the Birmingham area. Yesterday there was a prompt taken from the book POEMCRAZY: Freeing Your Life with Words by Susan G. Wooldridge.

Here are a few words from the introductory pages:

"It's impossible to teach anyone to write a poem. But we can set up circumstances in which poems are likely to happen. We can create a field in and around us that's fertile territory for poems. Playing with words, we can get to the place where poems come from. We can write and make discoveries about who we are and who we might become whether or not we truly commit ourselves to becoming poets."

And here is the prompt from chapter 31:

"Go outside alone and wander until you notice an object that might have a quality you need or with something to tell you. 

• Name it (Give it a real or made-up name.)
• Describe it by comparing it to something else (analogy)
• Then ask it, "Bring me a quality that you have that I need."  "

Here a couple of the examples shared:  

"Striped worn river rock . . .

bring me your heavy wisdom

at the still point in the river

where I can lie back, like you,

in shallow waters . . . .        

- Jeri, an adult

Honey mushroom

floating in grass like a plump cloud

bring me your love

of dark places                      

- Susan Wooldridge "

So I decided to give this a try... I hope you will, too! 

cracked plastic bucket

still red as a ripe tomato

bring me the ability

to rejoice in the weight of water

even as it dribbles away

----------

January maple

bare as a fresh-plowed field

bring me your willingness

to kiss wind

and cradle snow

----------

mama cardinal

drab as an old boot

bring me your way

of flying without

need for applause

---------

origami swan
graceful as ship's sail
bring me your
gentle acceptance
of folds and creases

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Thank you for reading!