2 posts tagged “poem”
I wrote this quickly last night and sent it out to my writing group. I've received one response and it was about what I expected. I thought I'd see what you thought.
THE ROLE OF IMAGINATION
Why do we say
that bluebirds sing
when they couldn’t tell
a whole note from a quarter?
Why do we think
that geese mate for life
with an obligation to fidelity
more determined than our own?
Why do we think
a tree craves rain
and the grass wants sun
and the blooms on hostas
reach for the sky?
Why do we say
that squirrels are nervous
and hogs lazy
and goony birds goony?
Do we want all things
to think like us,
to feel what we feel,
to be in our image?
And why do we say
God loves us?
I’m a member of a small group of writing enthusiasts. We occasionally propose writing assignments—homework—to motivate us to write, take us a little out of our writing comfort zone and to help build our stores of stories. Here’s how they work. At one of our monthly meetings, one of us proposes a writing assignment. The most used assignment is to exchange first sentences. Then each person has until the next meeting in which to write their story and get it sent to the others for critiques. At the next meeting, we discuss each other’s writing.
As I mentioned, the preferred assignment seems to be exchanging first lines. Here are some examples of first sentences:
"I'm sorry," the doctor said, "it's stage four cancer."
After having his butt pinched by a short girl in an even shorter skirt and stiletto heals, he walked out of the hotel lobby and was immediately sickened by the mingling aromas in the oppressively humid Thai morning – orchids, salt, mangos and rotten eggs.
It was a beautiful winter day, and among the many other things Janice would do today was go for a walk in the park two blocks east of the neighborhood that she had called home for the past twenty-five years.
At our last meeting, we decided it was time again for another writing assignment. We talked for a bit about what kind of assignment it should be and decided rather quickly that it should be something different than our preferred assignment. Someone suggested that we should all have the same first sentence just to see what direction each individual takes from a common starting point. It might be very revealing. We all agreed. Then someone suggested that instead of using the same first sentence, we should all be given a short poem to use as inspiration for a story. We’ve all seen stories that have a poem just below the title that are supposed to be indicative, in one way or another, of the story that follows. One of us volunteered to find a poem we could all use and that became the method for our next writing assignment.
So, here’s the poem that we’re supposed to use as the header for our short story assignment:
Listen to the moon next time it sings.
Join the chorus of the stars.
Hum the tune of the pitted orb
in cheesy harmony
as it pulls you into
the blue of the night.
It’s an excerpt of a poem by Patty Fisher. Now imagine a story that might follow.
I’m stumped. I have to admit that while I enjoy reading poetry, and writing a little every now and then, I’m not very adept at seeing metaphors. In fact, I once wrote a poem about a poet who complains that despite the popular interpretation of one of his poems, he meant nothing more than what he wrote. So when I read poetry for my own benefit, I focus on the sound and the descriptions and the choice of words. But when I read a poem and know that I’m going to talk about it with others, I struggle to look for meaning whether it’s there or not.
So now I’m supposed to write a story that’s somehow connected to this poem and I’m struggling because I’m afraid there’s something more to the poem than a wonderful description of the poet’s musings on moonlight.
