Poetry Friday: A quote
Friday, August 17, 2007 at 07:55AM "Poetry is ordinary language raised to the nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words. "
-- Paul Engle
Last week I stumbled across The Wordy Girls blog. On Thursdays, they post a photograph and the challenge is to write a poem of 15 words or less (not counting the title). I decided to give it a go. I thought it would be hard. I thought I couldn't do it. But I did it and it was fun and I'll probably try to do it each week. I promised myself that I would do it as soon as I see the photo and would never spend more than 15 minutes on the exercise.
I'm not the poetic type; I am a logical, linear thinker and it's hard for me to express myself through poetry so I figure this will be good for me. I'll be posting my poems here on Friday so that I can remember them and find them again. You can see the photo that inspired the poem here.
Impermanence
Packing , dumping, planning, shaping.
Building impermanence.
Slipping, slipping, slipping
through the hour glass of life.
---Kim from Hiraeth
And my first entry: (photo of a door and dark windows, no sign of life)
Unforgiveness
Stark.
Dark.
Parked on the threshold.
Right hand fisted,
knocking resisted.
Entrance doubted.
Forgiveness withheld.
--Kim from Hiraeth
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Reader Comments (3)
Poety has always confused me. I'm stirred by its beauty, but confused by its lack of symmetry. I had a high school teacher who used to "correct" my poems to make them more symmetrical. I thought the whole point of poetry was that there didn't have to be a rhyme or a reason.
I love yours, however. I clicked over and looked at the photos - amazing what you can say in 15 words or less, isn't it?
Why don't you give it a go? Nothing says anyone has to read what you wrote! Write for yourself. You might be surprised, as I was, how easy it is.
Hey! You're good! I love writing within a framework like that - fun stuff.
why don't you play along? It's perfect for you. Not a big commitment of time but a way to keep writing.
Nice work, Kim. It's really neat to see where your mind goes when you concentrate on a photograph. I like the direction you took for both of your poems. XO