Hello, dear community!
I am currently in Oregon, researching and writing a historical fiction novel. (At least I hope that’s what I’m doing; I scheduled this post to go out before leaving town.) I’m still planning to send you two poems per week while I’m away, but I don’t know yet whether my engagement in the comments thread will be as robust as usual. You all don’t need me to carry the torch, though! So much magic happens in those conversations—and that’s thanks to you. I look forward to seeing what unfolds in my relative absence. And now, a poem for you . . .
Lightbulb Moment
I’d never noticed the shining tips at the edge of a vulture’s wings, never seen a hawk join their circling, then tilt its belly to the sun so its breast glows white like a lightbulb in the gathering dark— a beacon just for me.
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash
The Prompt
One thing you might notice about the poem above is that it’s short, at least compared to anything else I’ve shared with you. I’m not known for brevity or succinctness. I like words, I like to talk, I like to write, and hey, more is better, isn’t it? It felt a little edgy for me to keep this poem brief and bite-sized, but growing (as a poet or as anything else) is all about exploring edges. So here’s a prompt to play with . . . notice if there’s a length that feels most comfortable to you as a poet. Do your poems tend to be short? About a page long? Many pages long? If you can identify a pattern, then play around with breaking it. If you usually write pretty long poems, challenge yourself to write a short one. You might even set a line limit for yourself in advance and see what emerges from the gentle pressure of that constraint. If you usually write a single-stanza poem then throw your pencil down in relief, then try staying with the pencil, staying with the page, and see if you can search out another stanza. As always, I look forward to reading whatever you come up with!
I adore this poem! Its so simple and such a brilliant observation. Bet of luck in your research and writing the next couple of weeks.
My poems usually are on the short side especially if I am writing about something that is in nature, or an observation around me. If I am telling a story, which I tend to do a lot more lately, they tend to be longer. I don't know if it is because I just have more to say or if those are less poetry and more just my thoughts that are abridged from a longer writing form. It's something I have been struggling with - whether my "poetry" is actually poetry. All that said, I am not doing anything new tonight because I just this morning wrote and posted on the last prompt and I'm all out of creativity for today!
I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning and 100 Poems was the perfect way to gradually open my eyes to the day. Perhaps because I was groggy still, I decided to write a short(ish) poem about shorts.
In high school my sister wore shorts
only, legs pricking pink-numb
through the gray city-winter. Shorts
on the subway, shorts
on the street, shorts
in the snow, shorts
to prom. This quirky thing,
and others, made me love her
even more.
What if our differences did not
launch fists and bombs? What if
our differences fed mouths,
held hands, opened hearts?
I think of Sami in shorts.