MY WRITING (POETRY) STORY
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…My writing became the place where I could say anything, ask anything, explore anything.
I kept it up (minus a two-year phase after high school when in order to align with my cynical, psychology-degreed boyfriend I put it on the back burner~ no wonder that became such a dark period of my life.)
There was never an intention of sharing my writing with anyone; it was what I did with myself and for myself, to “stay sane“. Across the years a speech was published, and then a poem~ not by my own doing either, as I had no impetus to put my writing out in the world, much less to be published. After all, I wasn’t a “serious“ writer. I was just writing daily “to myself“. This is what I was familiar with, and comfortable with, and it was still going strong in keeping me smoothed-out, alchemically taking the edge off my days.
It had become apparent to me after the first few years, and particularly after I married and had children, that writing was my truly-unconditional “friend“, my friend who never disappointed, never let me down, was always there for me. For me, a day without writing truly was a day without sunshine, and if for some unpleasant and uncontrollable reason I had to go without my morning writing my whole day was thrown off; I couldn’t get beyond a lingering sense of being keyed-up, pent-up, slightly irritated with everybody and everything around me, and quietly counting the hours til I could carve a private niche for myself, alone again, to breathe, to write.
I never set out to write poetry; I certainly had no idea I could or would write rhyming verse.
It was a discovery that evolved in front of my eyes~ a natural outgrowth that effortlessly birthed itself through my deep and passionate exploration through the world of prompt writing. Prompt writing is where you take a word, or sometimes a phrase, and you allow that to inspire, or guide, your stream of consciousness flow. Discovering the world of prompt writing was totally unexpected, too.
One day my friend Denise mentioned she was going to a little presentation on women’s writing circles being offered at a local bookstore. I thought, sounds like fun, count me in. And it was, big fun. Big life-changing fun, as it turned out.
I discovered that afternoon that writing for seven minutes, or even five minutes, on a simple one-word prompt given by the presenter lit me up from the inside out! And sharing it! Reading my right-brain response out loud to the group startled me with cascades of exhilaration! Waterfalls of bountiful aliveness! Streams of joy!
Where had this secret language been my whole life?
I was bitten, I was smitten, In the stars, it was written!
Thus began what almost-overnight grew into my fervent, fanatical, zealous, ardent, staunch, wholehearted, profound and self-sovereign:
DEVOTION!
Devotion to this written art form that by-passes logic, and surpasses left-brain’s control-hat habit! Voila! Purity! Innocence! Freshness! Impeccable naturalness! Passion! In a word~ or three~
Freedom! Salvation! Liberation!
After that, it was all before and after. I was so smitten! I’d get Denise on the phone every afternoon. We’d decide on our one-word prompt, set our timers for 20 minutes, sometimes 30 if I was lucky, hang-up, write, and call back when the timer went off to read to each other what we’d written. This quickly led to me wanting more time to write as my pieces grew longer, and Denise wanting less time in this process every day. Soon, I’d be calling her back that night, or the next day, to read her my now-lengthy piece (she had read me hers already; how I loved hearing her writing, and felt sure she could find venues for publication.)
After a while she began opting-out of our shared prompt writing, and though I was secretly heartbroken, and at a complete loss to understand how she could come to such a conclusion, there was nothing for it but to continue on my own.
I reached out to a few other close women friends whom I knew also possessed the Writing Gene, but though they listened to several examples as I avidly read them my pieces over the phone, and though they were duly and sincerely appreciative that I’d thought of them, none responded enthusiastically re: partnering-up with me for prompt writing. Denise was my divinely-inspired link to the discovery of prompt writing, and my perfect partner through the early stages when I was just getting my feet under me before the rhyming birthed itself, arriving, like Athena, fully mature, into my consciousness and onto the page where it~ promptly~ established itself.
Which is when it took on a life of its own, needless of anyone or anything but me, me~ tuned to hear that first line, to recognize it for what it was when it presented itself, to be willing to stop whatever I was doing in the moment, open a Google Drive document and feed that first line into black-and-white text through voice dictation. And then to stay with it, to continue flowing in that particular frequency zone: receiving the transmission, midwifing the poem to life through my human/spirit filters, interpreting, translating, stanza by stanza birthing its body of living intelligence onto the page, in the form of four-line, rhyming-verse poetry.
This is my poetry story for now.
That’s how I do what I do.
And now, I’m sharing it with you.
My hope is that my story inspires you, arouses your curiosity, instigates a desire to explore prompt writing for yourself~ with me and with other women on our Web of Wonder who are similarly excited about words, language, and self-discovery! So fun! So freeing!
(And no, it’s not about writing in verse, or rhyming at all~ unless it just comes out that way.)
However it comes out is your way, and that’s good, and that’s what we celebrate!