NaPoWriMo #1

Okay, I know what you're thinking ... how can I be on poem #1 in NaPo when we're April 4th! Simple: I'm a perfectionist who was struggling over the first poem for two days, a poem I was give someone. But the poem itself turned into an exercise in self-discovery. So what I have decided to do for the rest of April is to write poems with a theme of self-discovery and introspection. If I get lost along the way or simply need a "break" from so much inward thinking, I will work off the NaPo prompts, or whatever I think needs to be poemed. (BTW, I don't think "poemed" is an actual word, but I tend to use my own made up variations of "poem" or "poetry").

Back to the poem at hand! This first poem is a definite draft of a list poem, a poem about blessings; things, people, experiences that make up my life: the good and the bad. Yes, I said "bad". By this I mean things that seem bad on the surface but have a blessing that lies just beneath. Weall have them, and we may not be ready to recognize them as blessings yet. But they are there. We just have to dig deep to find it.

I still have to round out the stanzas some more and give a more definitive finality to the piece. But this should give a taste of what is to come once it is more filled out.

Poem of Blessings

I am blessed

In my return to the house I grew

up in, with old plumbing and a fallen

carport roof that lets in rain,

I am blessed with a place to sleep

I am blessed

In my only job, part-time, a teacher’s

aide who tutors dyslexic children

I am blessed with biweekly pay

I am blessed

In being an only child, who had

grade school and college companions

I am blessed with lifelong friends

I am blessed

With parents, proud and stubborn

Who taught me service and faith

I am blessed with family

I am blessed

With talent, artful and poetic;

Instilled With a love of culture,

I am blessed with art and words

Poetry Challenge: Poem #5 of 5

This is it! The last poem I'm posting for the Poetry Challenge Katie tagged me in. And I have saved what I consider to be one of my best poems for last. But before I share it, allow me to tell you a little bit about its journey.

A summer or two ago when I was in a major writing slump, I was looking for a muse of sorts... something to inspire me beyond what I normally write. At the time, one of my best friends since college, Ileana Garcia-Spitz had traveled to Panama over that summer. I should also tell you now that Ileana is an extremely gifted and talented photographer. SO ... not only did she come back with gorgeous photographs of the area and its people, she also had a showing of those photographs soon after she got back home. This is where I fell in love with the photo that would inspire me. I had no choice but to ask her permission to write a poem about the picture.

The next thing I did was arrange a meeting with Ileana so that I could get enough information from her about the picture that would give me some general ideas, but not so much it would not allow me to create my own story about the picture. But a perfectionist gets in the way of herself, and the pressure was on (only in my head, of course). But still true to some degree because I was not writing a poem about some picture I found online, taken by a photographer I'd never heard of. No! I was writing a poem for one of of my best friends about a photograph she took that spoke to me. And it was my job to do attempt to do as much justice to the photograph as I possibly could.

Seeing as how the photo was taken in Panama. I needed to put my old reporter's hat on and dig for information about Panama and the area that would give me the detail I needed to make it as genuine a poem as I could. In digging, I found a photo of an white orchid called the Flower of the Holy Spirit (the national flower of Panama). What makes it so unique is the way the orchid seems to have a dove in the center of its flower. This was my basis for the poem. Below the image is the poem. I hope you enjoy it.

Source: http://panamatourismtravel.blogspot.com/2012/06/flower-of-holy-spirit.html

Wild Seeds

Flower of the Holy Spirit

peeks beyond Grocer’s window,

observes life from where the wind

blew its tiny seed, separated

from the tree-born terrain it calls home

Two women now stand where the sun

falls, the white dove in the Orchid’s

center turns to recognize shadows

cast, entranced by their stature,

powerful stares that seep deep into her

Spirit and are forever carried with her

                                                                                                       

The Orchid does not know of generational

differences or what brings the women

to shadow its path; yet unaware, the shadow

gives the Orchid its indirect light to thrive

Like the wild seed that grew alongside

Grocer’s window, the women live

unaware of their strength. In defiance

of one another, they stand together,

transplanted from their native land,

because they never knew they weren't

supposed to survive there in the first place

Poetry Challenge: Poem #4 of 5

Well, today was a girlie kind of day as I got to spend the afternoon with Katie Hoerth! YAY! We talked about poetry, chapbooks, first manuscripts  ... and then we went shopping! :D

But when I was contemplating this post and thinking about which poem to include, it was almost a natural choice to choose the one titled "More Than I Imagined." It;s a poem that I wrote fairly quickly at Starbucks one afternoon and a special place in my heart for. It talks about coming full-circle having the woman I am now address the child I was, telling her it is okay to be awkward, with a stutter and that her self-confidence will soar once she finally finds her niche. 

Did I give too much away?? Oh well ... hope you enjoy!

More Than I Imagined

Where do you go when I seek you? In the depths

of myself I can’t find you. You’ve shown yourself before,

but have faded into blankness of a turned

page in retreat from fear of success and what is

seen for you - A blankness the world sees through unfinished

canvases, unworked poems and attempts for the greatness

you think you deserve, seeking what is known you can

do. But your attempts get in your way, for it is what you finish

that makes your eyes smile in fulfillment and accomplishment.

And it is that accomplishment which is greatness.

But you don’t see it. You never truly could for the belittling and will-never-

be-able-to’s that eked away your childhood. But now who I see in me is

not the same hindered child afraid to speak beyond her scared,

trembled whisper. So now I ask you to tell me where you are

now that I seek you again. In the depths of myself I know you’re

there. Show me how to find you so I can tell you I love you and you’re

more than I ever imagined.

Poetry Challenge: Poem #3 of 5

Hi there! Welcome to the third poem in the Poetry Challenge!

This poem is what I am calling an "I Am" poem. And for lack of a better title, I am temproarily calling it "The Path Called Blessing." I initially wrote the poem in response to the "Digging for Names" exercise on page 247 in Wingbeats II: Exercises and Practice in Poetry by Scott Wiggerman and David Meischen.

Technically, the prompt asks the poet to research their given name or that of someone they know and use what they discover as material for a poem. Being the poet I am and one who is learning the importance of rebelling against from  - in the most natural and positive way to make a poem my own (in this case the prompt), I took the poem in a different direction.

Long ago when I first started taking creative writing courses, I wrote a minuscule poem (I was afraid to write anything else!) about family names. Remembering that poem, I decided to give it an overhaul, tweaking it for the purposes of the Wingbeats prompt. The following is my most recent revision. I hope you enjoy.

The Path Called Blessing

I am my Grandmothers'
namesake: Florinda, Feliciana
My mother's beautiful flower,
My father's joy I'd never know

I thrive in service to others,
My mother's daughter,
Kin to those buried
In still uknown-to-me
graves nearby, siblings
I know only as newly
born twins:
Marco Alejandro
Marisela Imelda

I am the oldest grandchild,
Cousin to Ana, Javier,
Mika and Nico
Primos-hermanos close
as brothers and sisters

I walk forked roads, paths
I make to find my own way
out of Adversity, widening
the one pointed toward
Blessing, ignoring the paths
heavy footprint-laden,
muddled by those before

Poetry Challenge: Poem #2 of 5

Hi there! Today I'm posting the second poem in the poetry challenge I'm sharing with Katie. I think I'm really getting into this challenge, as I know several of our fellow poets also are. I have half a mind to actually take part in NaPoWriMo in April for Poetry Month, poetry's answer to the yearly month-long novel writing challenge in November, NaNoWriMo! We'll see ... :)

In the meantime, here is my second poem. In the fall I was enrolled in a poetry class where I wound up writing a couple poems about my dad, This is one of the more finished ones. Working on a couple actually for possible submissions. Hope you enjoy.

The Man in the Picture

I don’t remember the man

in the picture, the one I stand

like, with a hand on my hip, one

knee slightly bent,

The one I repeated every swear

word to in English or Spanish

to either forget or not say

anymore – I guess it worked

The one who brought me surprises

after trips away – they mixed in with

gifts of “just because” or “I love you”,

so now I don’t know which was which

The one who bought me a ticket

to the history show at the IMAX theatre –

he looked in the Texas heat for the car

he didn’t want Mom to know he lost

in the paid parking lot in San Antonio

The one who when I went to Spain gave

me a calling card for emergencies –

He went speechless when the phone

bill was more than $500 because he

“just wanted to hear [my] voice”

The one who I saw his face age almost twice

its years – cancer treatments and a brain

tumor wiped out recollections of feeding

the cats, turning on the lights in the back

and coming home.

He still gives me money every week

“to get a hamburger”, and gets mad

I walk the half a block from work

because it’s too hot outside

More and more I know only the man

who stands in front of me, and more

and more I forget the man in the picture.

Poetry Challenge: Poem #1 of 5

Okay December is a tad bit longer than I wanted to go without blogging. So to make up for it, I have decided to take part in a poetry challenge that my good friend and fellow poet Katie Hoerth invited me to participate in. Seeing as how this poetic challenge originated on Facebook, I'm going to tweak it for purposes of this blog.

The rules are simple: Write 5 poems in 5 days. Yeah, that's pretty much it. They can be old poems already published or new, never seen by the world poems. On Facebook, whoever is invited to participate also gets to choose 5 other poets to accept the challenge. In this case, I choose you, dear readers! I invite you to take the challenge with me!  If you are a writer and want to choose poets or fellow writers to invite to take the challenge, I invite you to do so. Feel free to post your writing below in a comment as well. I would love to see what you might have to share with me!And likewise, I will also post my poems on FB and tag 5 fellow poets.

Since Katie and I have decided to take this Poetry Challenge together, I am posting a link to Katie's Blog for you to enjoy her poems. I am also posting a link to My Facebook Page for you to follow my posts there as well.

Here is my first poem:

I Have No Estate

I have no estate, no

Self-made life of home,

Baby keepsakes or something

Old given in marriage to leave

Behind – no children to pass

On memories of when I wore Papi’s

Hat and pretended to play guitar;

Sat on Grandpa’s lap with stories

Of bunnies in Spanish, and pictures

Of me in my red and white batter’s

Uniform; tunas grew on the cactus

And I played in dirt in my Sunday dress

But I have my words – undisciplined

Journal entries of young, Unrequited

love, struggles with math in college

And learning differences; to get anywhere,

One must struggle along the way.

But sharing joy is invaluable.

End of semester reflections

As partial fulfillment of my portfolio for my graduate poetry class, I have to write a reflection paper about how I have seen my poetry change and my experiences in the class. I have a hard time doing that without going back to my past poems and reflecting on those as well. Some were so hard to write, I can't bring myself to read them even to myself anymore ... such as those I wrote for the Twenty Poetry Project last year. Others I still tinker with here and there and continue to read in public. And then the new ones done this semester and mostly about my dad, are what I will reflect on for my assignment. I find I will be reflecting on myself as a person, as well as my role as a poet.