The Power of Poetry
My Most Cherished Possession
abashment poem
My abashment is my most cherished possession. Skin can be shed like a snake, but not this. It lives in my lungs, and I am afraid to exhale it.
The last time they laughed at me, my face turned red and prickled with shame, and the abashment moved from the earth to inhabit me. After that, I refused to smile or meet their eyes. Dear abashment, tell me where you are now, Tell me how you got there.
“You mean the air now?” “No. The air wasn’t here then.” “Oh, then was it the fire that caught your attention?” “The fire wasn’t here then.” “No. I guess it was the silence that made me think of you.” I want to hold you in my hand and examine you. I want to dare the possibility that I could be loved even if I can never love myself.
The abashment fled from the room as soon as the first laugh broke free. It ran down our throats, but we swallowed it down before it reached our hearts. The only sound left was a laugh streaked with shards of glass, slicing through skin and stinging blood.
“You love it, don’t you?” the abashment whispered. “I can tell by the look on your face.” That was the day I knew I could never live without you.
It is usually called an “abashment poem,” although the term “abashment” also denotes a certain stammer or stutter-like manner of speaking or writing. Abashment writing is an effective technique for disguising your voice and keeping it safe, but putting all of your style, tone, and word choice in the service of the story. Unfortunately, it produces poems that are slow to read, beautiful to behold, but incredibly difficult to understand. The abashment is not the same as monologuing. Instead, abashment writing is designed to hide your voice from readers so that readers can sympathize with the character without having knowledge of external details about them. Shame vs. Abashment Shame is an emotion that involves a sense of failure or perceived unworthiness. It may stem from a belief that one has damaged the social order, let down one’s family, community, or group, or been harmed by someone else. Abashment is a non-discursive emotional expression of the face and body in response to a situation. It is also called blushing. A subject who experiences abashment will turn redder in color and often avert the eyes from their surroundings. A poet who writes an abashment poem may still think of it as poetry, even though it defies most conventional poetic forms. This is obviously a type of poetry. However, it is very different from everyday poetry. The first thing that can be noted is that there is no meter, rhyme, or stanza. Abashment poetry has a syllabic structure but no clear indication of the number of syllables in each line. The fact that abashment is an emotion or feeling can be seen by how it is written. The poet may use phrases like “it says,” “it feels,” “it seems,”.
The abashment poem is different from other types of poetry because it represents an expression rather than an idea. The primary way abashment differs from standard poetic forms is to evoke a feeling or emotion rather than a particular thought or idea. Often this involves a person saying something but not meaning it at all. You can sometimes see this in the way that an adult may say, “I like you,” but really not like spending time with or talking to them at all. The poet who writes this type of poem is trying to convey an expression because they feel that what the subject really means is the expression, not what they have actually said. In effect, they are trying to hide their true feelings from us. There is nothing concrete in the poem that we can hold on to, as it is just an expression of the author’s feelings. The poet may have intended to create a sense of suspense in the reader about the subject so that when the reader finally gets to know what is going on, they will be impressed by this critical emotion.
Dear abashment, you have burdened me since I was a baby and long before that. My most cherished possession is my abashment. If you could only breathe, I would let you.
We love to use green in our poetry because it can evoke a more emotional reaction with the reader. The color green allows the authors to leave their poem open for interpretation and each person can form their own idea of what it means.
In the publication “The Power of Poetry”, it’s shown that the authors prefer to use green in order to not cause a literal color description. Please illustrate your poetry in green, or we will gladly render a useful illustration for you. By submitting your poetry, you agree to the color of hope.
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