We’ve been observing National Poetry Month at Thursday Writers, a weekly drop-in writing practice group I’ve been part of since the mid-90s. The last two Thursdays, before the prompt that sparks the writing, we read a poem. Though generally writers write all over the place—narrative prose mostly—I’m finding that reading the poems before we write seems to have an influence on the writing, at least with some of us. It certainly is having its way with me.
This is what I wrote the first Thursday of National Poetry Month, when Libby, one of our regular Thursday Writers, read “Lines Lost Among Trees,” a poem by Billy Collins, then Steve started us with the prompt: “She Sits Naked on a Rock” from “Last Gods,” by Galway Kinnell.
She Sits Naked on a Rock
I want to be that goddess. The one who claims the biggest rock in the harbor and chisels a chair for herself with her teeth and polishes her rock with her own spit to a shine that sun-blinds sea birds.
I want to claim that rock for myself and carve my name in it. I want to be Queen of that rock.
I’ll shape stairs in it with my bare hands and climb up its slippery sides to that chair I have chiseled and take my clothes off and sit naked on that rock.
And nobody—no man, no boy—goes by and whistles at me. They don’t even look at me, because gorgeous though I am in my nakedness and tempting to take in, legend says anyone who gazes upon me sitting naked on that rock will be blinded.
I wrote that legend. I laid it out in the sand with bones from a whale. You can read that goddamn legend from space. I wrote it big and bold and brazen enough that even God knows to turn his eyes away.
Every evening at sunset, I will take my wine and my sweet cakes and go to that big rock and climb those stairs and sit in that chair and disrobe. I will toss my wrap out to sea. My shoes will be left behind.
I will let my hair down and raise my voice up. I will sing the sun down and croon the moon up. I will howl if I want to and kiss a thousand stars. I will be the one they will write poems about. You will remember my name.
Never mind that it’s still a messy kind of poem; writing practice is meant to be messy. I just wanted to share with you how a regular writing practice serves my writing and how reading poetry affects me. Maybe the same for you?
OMG! Judy – I love this poem. Thanks for sharing it! I’ve never heard it before. Can’t wait to print it out and write my own version.
Hey Jill. Love to read your “Sitting Naked on a Rock” poem! Glad you like this one. Fun during National Poetry Month.
I enjoyed reading this….very imaginative…full of images…delightful, Judy!
HI Arlene,
Thanks so much for writing. I really enjoyed writing it in a burst of pen and energy at that Thursday Writers group a few weeks ago. One of the reasons I keep going is because surprises like this keep happening, even after all these years. Enjoy the rest of Poetry Month.
I hope
The naked lady
knows
How to swim.
For me
A meadow will do
With no bears
To lurk behind every tree
While a cougar
Sits atop the branches.
Love it, Linda G. Thanks for the poem. May you be safe in whatever meadow you enter and find there, lovely flowers to enchant. xoxo
Many thanks for your thoughtful words on writing poetry Judy….
I have spells of writing verse in an abandoned, non-judgmental way. I’m happy to think that it’s probably bad poetry but I nevertheless enjoy the process of shifting words around according to some, quite often, fleeting thought or idea. I try to suspend any thoughts about what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ poetry and allow the words to flow, or not to flow, as they wish…
An art college lecturer once said to me: “ Give yourself permission to do bad work. “ and I never forgot this. We should just turn up and do the work, that’s our commitment, our practice, and then, if we are lucky, something good can emerge out of this creative endeavour….
EXPRESSION OF FEELINGS
“ Only be willing to search for poetry, and there will be poetry:
My soul, a tiny speck, is my tutor.
Evening sun and fragrant grass are common things,
But, with understanding, they can become glorious verse.”
Yuan Mei
( 1716-1797 )
Good morning, Michael, thanks for your note, as always. I like that you wrote “I have spells of writing verse…” sometimes that’s what it feels like to me during writing practice–that I enter or am ushered into some kind of “spell” and become “charmed” or “enchanted” and the writing comes from a place my conscious mind can’t access. So many writers in various writing practice groups have said, after writing something wonderful and surprising, “I don’t know where that came from.”