Oh, the words, the words, the achingly inadequate beautiful words.
Terry Hertzler from In the Palm of Your Hand
On Chapter Three of the poetry workshop book, In the Palm of Your Hand by Steve Kowit. In this chapter the reader is asked to write three prose poems. For some reason he is always trying to dig into childhood trauma as the creative center of these poems. Luckily I have a lot of grist in my writing mill. And it is also helpful that I am doing my memoir in poetic verse. (I know what you are thinking...I better learn the art of poetry before I go in that direction lol...thus the book I am working with now!!) I can maybe...use these poems...in that memoir.
I wrote the first two quickly within ten-20 minutes each. It was tricky trying to get these memories properly emoted and clearly described in three to four sentences. Try it yourself!
Ultimately, what you need to do is give yourself permission to write poetry-and to have fun doing it.
Steve Kowit
This exercise made me think of the prose poem...though I format most of my poems ( if someone would dare call what I put here poetry) in verse...they are probably more prose than poetry. I tend to like full punctuated sentences with a beginning, middle and end. Anyway....so I am going to try another prose poem here...maybe about yesterday's topic? ...three to four sentences. Whatever comes out here, stays here, k? Not edited, not revised...just down. Neither good or bad...just is. I am going to write it quickly as I have someone waiting for me elsewhere.
Drsta Dharma Sukha Virharin
I try to settle myself down on this cushion awkwardly situated between the background of a soothing emptiness and the world that dances like intoxicated fireflies in front of me, a world that drags my eyes up and down and all around. I close these hyper orbs of limited vision and breathe in deeply, searching as I do for that promised ease, for a peace so settling it will allow me to slip beneath this cover of here and now now, to rest a weary mind that so needs the silence and stillness the moment offers. I breathe out releasing the accumulated knots of tension brought on by the busyness of repressed and supressed living. My body and mind relax into the breath as if it were a comforting hamoc on a sunny July afternoon and I find the sukha I have been looking for in this place where it has always been.
All is well
Steve Kowit (2017) In the Palm of Your Hand. Second Edition. Maine: Tilbury House Publishers
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