Cross-Pollinating Several Poetry Prompts
I have not written in a while. Diana’s 50-day challenge has motivated me to start writing again — to start writing poetry again.
However, I do not conform my flow to meet a challenge. I intend to write in response to all 50 whether it takes me 50 or 100 days or anything in between. Hell, it could possibly take less as at times during the 30-day challenge
I answered two prompts with one tanka. While I drop a couple of those tanka here, for those of you who want to get the most benefit from them, the links contain my decoder rings.
Day-18 and day-21 prompts: “Wisdom is loving the whole” and “A path that marries science and spirituality,”
Wise ask right questions Wise alchemize the answers Wise see many truths Emotional foundations Balance and support structures
Day 19: Love is multifaceted Day 20: Doing what makes the heart sing
Sex like love diamond Many angles to explore We are fucking hard Yet passionate kissing while Enterlocked makes my heart sing
For the first time in many weeks my two-finger hunt and peck / touch-type combo has my fingers flying across the keyboard, thanks not just to Diana C. but also to my sister Wendy Bremen for answering my SOS with her used laptop (and happy birthday to my other sister Randi Maidman), running Windows 7 Professional no less. I had hoped for a Mac, but beggars should have nothing but gratitude, and I recall that Windows 7 blows away all that came after.
The Universe sends us what we need.
Notice I did not once use a conjugate of the verb “to be” above and rarely below. The passive voice speaks weakly. Avoid it at all costs, as J.B. Miller suggests in:
and as I commented therein:
Go beyond what stupid Grammarly says. Anytime one uses any conjugate of “to be” in conjunction with a verb as opposed to an adjective or a noun, that presents an avoidable passive voice and an opportunity to edit.
Side note — J.B. Miller I had difficulty tagging you. All writers on Medium should heed the advice of Holly Kellums:
I have thought about Diana’s first of 50 prompts for several days. I wanted to write a fresh poem but I already wrote my best prompsponsive piece many months ago.
Prompt #1: How can you have compassion for your own trauma history while also holding yourself accountable for the ways you’re harming yourself/others?
In January I wrote a poem of several tanka stanzas with this SEO description (for more on SEO descriptions please see
)
Poem of tankas accepting responsibility for damaged friendship while forgiving myself as aware toxic parent traumatized me; healing by draining pain pockets
That SEO description perfectly captures why the poem responds so well to Diana’s prompt for me to repeat it in response thereto:
emanating now anguished soulful expression source is somewhere new damage to relationship yet repair is underway
Philia soulmates I have only cried like this for my dear Lindsey I can only blame myself letting david ruin us
raised me to be weak other-reliance instilled Richard will be there such a burden I became loving reduced to caring
seeds of resentment we are correct to dig up unburdening both friendship will again flourish caring shall revert to love
Decoder Ring
Richard is my oldest friend. David is my father. My father, a covert malignant narcissist, possibly the rare male with borderline personality disorder, in order to feed his life-long imagined need to put me down to make sure my mother would love him more, raised me to be a dependent weakling and user of my best friend, yet shame on me for letting him fool me for so many years. I do not blame him. I accept responsibility for my actions. I also forgive him.
He perfectly played the roles we scripted for this life cycle.
I shall not reconcile with him.
Yet, I must rise to the challenge and write a new poem as well. As you might have guessed from my poem of tanka stanzas to Richard
In the last two days I read about two forms of Japanese syllabic structure poems in stories by MDSHall of which I had not previously known:
I responded:
Thanks for introducing us to these syllabic forms. This and the dodoitsu intrigue me. I responded to Diana-from-KTHT’s 30 day poetry challenge with all tanka. She has a new deeply reflective jump in at any time 50 day writing challenge. I am beginning to feel inspired to tackle it and your prompts together
Here goes:
Dodoitsu:
Father programmed me to fail Responsibility mine Canceling hurt my mother Avoid I could not
Cinquain:
Mother I crushed your heart My heart oozes blood too Yet both our hearts still beat as one True love
Tagging some dear friends and fellow poets for participation in prompts and because I value your meaningful engagement: Jean Carfantan Carolyn F. Chryst, Ph.D. Esther George Joseph Lieungh Anthi Psomiadou Claire Kelly Stuart Englander Tree Langdon Holly Kellums Frank Ontario Melanie J. Keri Mangis Ane and Dr Mehmet Yildiz for patiently awaiting my return
In Rama I create with Lindsey’s breath winding my sails,
