April is National Poetry Month, and many poets write a poem everyday. I am one of those poets. I use the prompt provided on the Writer’s Digest site. I read the prompt in the morning. Let it sit for a while and then find time to write the poem. During that time I also consider different poetic forms to use. I have written three poems so far in forms I’ve never used before. I like using this month to work on my skill set and to experiment a little.
I wrote a poem yesterday (April 7) that I really like. And writing the poem has backstory that highlights the creative process.
The prompt for April 7 was a Two for Tuesday situation: Dawn or/and Dusk. Robert Lee Brewer is the editor for the poetry section for Writer’s Digest. He is the one that provides the prompts, and Tuesdays have always been a double sided prompt.
My first reaction was actually lackluster. Nothing really jumped out at me while I had my morning coffee. I also knew that I would be helping monitor a room for the ACT yesterday. Our school administers the ACT for our juniors every year. My only job is to walk around and make sure ovals are filled in correctly, handle any questions. I don’t even say anything regarding instructions.
As the testing got started I was not thinking about the prompt, instead I had this idea in my mind from a book I recently read, Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation by Kyo Maclear. She ends a chapter with a line about how there is never a day without birds.
As I walked around the room (I walked over 10,000 steps during the ACT) a poem started to take root. During the break I grabbed a piece of paper and got the ideas down. During instructions and the small break I made notes or added lines.
Because I felt like I had different ideas that still connected, I made the poem into a four part work. I was excited to sit down after track practice to write it and share to the community of poets on the Writer’s Digest site (and other social media).
After dinner I announced I would be writing my poem. The family is used to these kind of announcements, it is just our fun way of letting me have time to write. I grabbed my computer, my headphones, and no poem. I searched my computer bag again. I swore I placed the rough draft in my bag. Nothing.
I almost drove back out to school to get it, but I decided to trust my memory and write the next draft. When I got to school this morning, I checked the final draft to the rough draft, it was almost the same poem. There was a line or two that I changed or added but I would have done that anyway. Second (third, fourth…) drafts always have a change, that is the fun part of writing. Trying to bridge the muse with the audience.
Maybe because the poem took extra work, had extra stress, I like this poem. And with that, here is my dawn / dusk poem:
“Days”
Part I
There are days without snow,
and rain.
Days without sun, friends, and
even clouds.
But there is never a day without birds,
their songs perched on limbs and wires.
Part II
Dawn and dusk
are perfectly imperfect examples
of the way our lives revolve.
Like children
running on grass and blacktops
in a never ending game of tag.
Dusk’s speed of foot gives us
more time to star gaze,
other days Dawn’s endurance
allows us to play
under the sun longer.
Neither of them seem
to care to win the game.
Part III
We are children, too.
Playing tag with our days.
Running toward hopes
and aspirations.
Running from heartache
or doubt.
But we stumble,
scrape our knees on the concrete,
get tagged by despair,
cringing as it yells,
“You’re it!”
With lungs burning
we find ourselves running, again.
Tears warping our vision.
Part IV
But there is always the birds
with their songs
strumming our heartstrings
reminding us what these days
are really for.
It is all Connected 