Reaction

I felt a little bitter about myself and my writing this past week and now that I am (sort of) out of the funk, I wanted to say a bit about what happened. 


To recap, in chronological order:

1. 2/9 - Wrote 3 poems after being inspired by Wednesday Poetry Prompt 122. 
2. 2/15 - Finished editing and printing two whole days before the meeting (before the actual day, a first since I've attended the group).
3. 2/17 - Wrote a quick blog entry (that I forgot to post) and headed to the meeting. My turn came. I read and my group critiqued and I reacted...badly.

Their reaction was mostly "I don't get it" sprinkled in with a word confusion issue but my reaction was very unwholesome and defensive. I came out swinging, with my eyes and inflection at least. I was shocked and felt a strong need to explain. I went home feeling unhappy with myself.

Ok, I understand that I was heavy handed in passing out three poems (everyone usually does just one piece). The first one had a confusing homonym, the second was a palindrome - a new form to us, and the third was "Tomorrow". I knew I was overreacting because I had spent so much time on them and I felt they didn't get as much butchering as they deserved (and probably not where they deserved it).

Nonetheless, the experience was sobering. I didn't want to write anything and I was consumed with school work so I excused myself from writing for a week. Within that time, I found out that I actually love writing. I am willing to put myself in that situation again and face worse critique, or *gasp* get a rejection letter because I love this stuff. Or I'm just a masochist.

Sew, This is Poetry Too!

Written last week, Feb 17th

I woke up extra early this morning to get some writing time before my critique group at 10am. I carved out about one hour but I see it just ticking away because my mind is unfocused! There are so many other things I could/should be doing now that it is keeping my creativity at bay. Sigh. Plus, I'm hungry.

In any case I found some very cool poetic links to sewing/knitting that are worth talking about:

A friend of mine is knitting her contribution to a HUGE knitted poem here that will go on display at the StAnza International Poetry Festival

This got me thinking about a poet and visual artist I read about in Poet and Writers' 2010 Inspiration issue. Jen Bervin sews into pages to create poetry in "The Desert."

Cummings Over?

I've mentioned my fascination with E. E. Cummings before, haven't I (I have: I posted another of his poems on "Poem in your Pocket Day")?

It began in Dr. Lavin's PreIB English class when she had us study "she being Brand" and continued because, well, first impressions are golden.

I'm reading a collection of his (for maybe the third time) and was inspired to write a poem. I tried to tailor it for the February prompt in my writing group "A walk in the park."

TOMORROW

little i, younger me,

if you knew what was coming,

you would duck.

the prize of a lazy arm

tucked away on your hip

scented of possession snuck

you out of the house

for a walk in the park.

little me hinted yes,

younger eyes nodded “i know,”

but you didn’t even flinch at the danger of a foreign lip

that kept you silent, lying, indulged, sore

at 3am on a school day/night.

little did i spy

from the corner of a graying sky

my tiny revolution:

the sun shining from its usual place.

My inspiration: set to music!