Category: Poetry

I continue sharing my attempts at poetry written during a workshop I took. This is from the last class in the series. You can read my efforts in classes 1, 2, and 3.

Continuing with his previous methodology, the teacher gave us one liners to build upon.

Unlike my previous methodology, my first effort is okay. Not great, more than meh!, basically acceptable. My second effort speaks for itself and hearkens back to my opening comments in the first class.

First up, a rift on “Waiting on the vaccine,” something present on everyone’s mind in January 2021.

The second theme to build upon was “Hard times come again no more.”

And so I leave you, perhaps better understanding why poetry is not one of my GoTo forms.

I continue sharing my attempts at poetry written during a workshop I took. You can read my efforts in classes 1 and 2.

The teacher again gave us one liners to build upon. Our first effort also had rhyming as a constraint, the second one was constrained only by a single word from our immediate surroundings.

As with my previous first efforts, this first effort is meh! but not as meh! as class 2‘s first effort. I read my second effort to the class and again received kudos from other students and the teacher.

First up, a rift on “I went to the rock to hide my face” and note, this is also a hymn lyric and can be found in popular song.

Now, the poem which received kudos from teacher and fellow students. We were told to take a single thing from our surroundings and build on it. I look out over a woodland and a raven landed on our porch railing as we were given this task. I took Raven as my inspiration.

Read the fourth class’ meanderings.

I continue sharing my attempts at poetry written during a workshop I took. I previously posted the first class’ meanderings.

This week the teacher gave us one line themes. My first effort is decidedly meh! My second effort (evidently) much less so. I read it to the class and several other students thanked me. The teacher said, “You took us some place.”

First up, a rift on “The hole wasn’t wide.”

Now, the poem of which the teacher said, “You took us someplace.” A rift on “There ain’t no water in your well.”

It’s definitely a poem and I can figure out the fixes.

I think.

Read the third class’ meanderings.

I’ve written many times that poetry is not my GoTo although I love a good poem. Show me the works of Dickey, Frost, Eiseley, Poe, Tolson, Hughes, Cummings, Toomer, … and I’m gone, gone, gone.

So, of course, I had to take a poetry class.

In this first workshop we read several pieces, one of which was Jean Toomer‘s Becky.

It influenced me greatly, and as Dorothea Brande would wrote in Becoming a Writer, I was poorly influenced.

Let me tell you how it was
When all those men came down to look on me

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There is a joy in knowing something sucks.

Means you can fix it.

But that’s for another class.

Read the second class’ meanderings.