30 Poems in 30 Days 2009: Day Sixteen
September 16, 2009 by John Hewitt
To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one. – John Ruskin
Reality is subject to interpretation. I have flown from Tucson to Las Vegas at least ten times. When I’ve sat by the window on the left side of the plane, I’ve seen mostly desert scrub and a glimpse of the Colorado River. When I’ve sat on the right side by the window I’ve seen Phoenix, Lake Meade and the Grand Canyon. When I’ve sat on the aisle, I’ve seen people’s heads and harried looking flight attendants. It’s the same journey, but my perspective changes dramatically based only on where I sit.
One of the jobs of a poet is to interpret reality. Every time you write a poem, you are attempting to capture a piece of reality. Even if your poem is an absurdist mix of words or a journey to a fantasy realm, you are asserting that your poem in some way reflects the world around you. Your interpretation may be that the world is completely unreal, but it is still an interpretation.
Your view of reality helps you to create your own poetic “voice”. Your voice is a combination of your writing style, your worldview, and your experiences. Many people start out imitating other poets or styles, but if you write frequently enough, your own voice asserts itself and you become comfortable with the way that you write. It is an important part of the process of becoming a poet.
Today’s Poetry Prompt
Write a definition poem. A definition poem takes a word or a concept and attempts to define it, provide perspective, redefine it, or create a definitive example of it.
Hospital
A hospital is a white shell on a beach
Bleached bare and lodged in the sand
The ocean washes over it
It sometimes buries it
But a hospital remains unmoved by this
Whatever changes could occur already have
Any color it might have had has washed away
Or been ground into the sand
It shines in the sun but people walk around it
They sense that they should not touch it
They should not pick it up and add it to their collection
There is nothing wrong with a hospital
But it is a shell no one wants to own
They want to leave it
They want to walk away
Related links
- 30 Poems in 30 Days (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Why you should write poetry (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Yourself (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Issues (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry of Place (1.000)
Contact John Hewitt
Writing Content and Web Consulting
Email: hewitt@poewar.comPhone: (520) 261-6104
LinkedIn: poewar
Twitter: @poewar
Facebook: pwar2
A definition…
It seems to me that I wrote a definition back on day 3…
I will repeat it here, simply because I can.
however, I will write another later tonight..
Procrastinaiton:
Procrastination, eh?
That habit that saps away our life
returning nothing in exchange…
I thought, perhaps, i’d write something,
but not just yet…
I’ll get to it…
maybe tomorrow..
I don’t know….
sometime.
Thinking.
What we do when nobody is looking,
Cupping a shell to our ear and listening
To the sound of our own being, pulsing,
Flowing like the shores we stand unsure upon.
Or late at night, grating out homework
With shoveled-in sugary treats and
The hope of warm sheets soon, somehow
Surviving by exceeding, as culture demands
Perhaps pausing, pondering a problem
Before it becomes a calamity;
Measuring the depth of reason
And probing weak points of our personality
So we can be who we already are at heart.
Obsessing, trying to stop time or catch dust
With the frantic racings of a pacing mind
Trapped in a circus ring of flaming hoops
Of fear and doubt, animal tension
So many by the age of 40 are baffled, they
Startle into sentience and think:
Who am I? How the hell did I get here?
Not remembering choices they never considered
That led them to their current state;
Be awake and aware, or surrender your fate.
OK, the past ost was a filler.
Something I penned quickly, just because at the beginning of an earlier post.
It was a definition.
I have, at last, a serious effort… and actual response to the propmpt. Enjoy
Now
The reality for young children,
all that is left to the very old,
it becomes the demand of impatience;
the end of the yesterdays,
is constrained by choices past;
the start of our tomorrows,
that holds the key to success
or abject and terminal failure.
If projected to the future becomes
the fountain of hope untarnished,
or a well of fear unfathomable.
The ultimate intersection between
the carnal and the devine,
the breath and eternity.
The balance where we act and think
that shapes our very soul.
National Costume
National costume
A symbol of understanding
A way to see the world
And show the world who we represent
But what is the national costume
For a young misfit
A nation of barely five decades
Made of immigrants
With a really short history
What constitutes history?
What is a national costume?
But a social construct
An artificial symbol
For a nation made up
Of odds and ends
Or perhaps just an attempt
To create meaning
Perhaps the question is not
What is our national costume
But the age-old fundamental
Question of who we are.
The Definition of Lost
It’s this three-year-old girl
face screwed up
eyes and nose streaming,
turning in frantic circles
looking and looking and looking
for one familiar point
in the swirl of large legs and bodies
noisy faces thrusting, asking,
“Where’s your Mummy?” – as if
that wasn’t the whole problem –
in the strange new landscape
of the picnic ground.
It must have been only a moment,
then she’d have reappeared.
A little woman, as I discovered
when I was much older,
she’d been hidden, perhaps,
by the crowd. Maybe
I let go her hand
and so we were separated
briefly, but long enough.
I always thought my ridiculous
fear of losing my way
in unfamiliar places
came from that time the conductor
put me off the tram when I was seven
for tendering the wrong fare.
I cried and wailed then too,
feeling not only small
but somehow dirty,
until kind strangers took me home –
at least I was well taught
to remember my address.
But now, in old age, exploring
that distress, that panic,
that wretchedness,
I find the three-year-old,
her terrified abandonment
my defining moment
of being lost.