On Writing a Poem-a-Day

For the last 13 days, I have been attempting to write a poem a day with a group of 8 writers who are scattered across the United States and France. Over half of the writers have been able to create a poem-a-day. And I am not talking about poems that are full of flat, surface-level language and images. My contrabutions to the group's efforts have been a decent one page poem and a haiku. This small production, however, does not reflect the agnast and physical discomfort (tension in my neck and back) I have experienced as I sat in front of my computer or paper pad and tried to will words into images, into lines.

In April 2009 I attempted to write a poem a day, and in the process, I created a poem which included a reference to what would occur at my mother's funeral. Five days after I wrote the poem, my mother died of a massive stroke. Here I am six months later sitting in front of my computer, finally able to admit my mother's death occuring right after I wrote that fateful poem scared me silent. This fear and my sense of life's flatness has kept me from writing a poem-a-day during the last thirteen days. (In total, I have written four poems since my mother's death).

Confession is good for my soul: At this junture in my life, my muse will not sing, and I cannot write a poem-a-day. I do not know if I will ever be able to write a poem a day. I pray to create a poem-a-week. Ashé


Poem 3/4 for my November 2009 Four Poems in Four Weeks. Note: I had to use underlines to make the spacing work in this blog entry. In the actual poem, I used white space, not underlines, to space out the words.

Creation

i.

Today, after months
of reading, I began
meditating.
Today, words,
my first mantra.


ii.

My words
are____my____breath.
I____inhale

deep

________ly.
____I____release
_____________________slow____ly.