Writing as Healing

I ride on emotion as if it were language, a trusted transport into meaning—not definitions, but rhythms and feelings that lead me where I want to go as swiftly as a November wind.

But I do not know the name of the horse I am riding, be it tame or wild, love or .... A giddy rider now, screamingly happy, I fear that if I stop to name a vortex will flush me. 

If I stop, something precious will keep going, will drop my hand  and leave me tumbling, eye glasses smashed, teeth broken, nose and knees bleeding, blood writing.  

But if I don't dismount, I will lose myself as if a Frodo who could not destroy his magic ring.  As if a Dorothy asleep in a field of forgetfulness, I will lose my choice.  

So drop. I will myself.  Stumble.  Find name and voice.  Write names, say them, touch them, welcome the horse, then remount and ride words dangerously in wind and sea and city.  

Nothing is more precious. 

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Re-posted 5/19/2013 for Poets United  Poetry Pantry - #150,  after major revision--but still not quite settled.  Perhaps if you say what you see, I will know how to proceed.

This writing is inspired by Kim Nelson's 5/8/2013 suggestion to share a self healing  (which this is), a concrete instance (which this is not), and 100 words or less (which this is not)--I will go and write that poem next now that this is off my chest.  Thank you Kim and Poets United!   Visit my poem, "Getting On With It," here.

Wanting to get on with it!

I want to finish the draft of my novel this year, but cannot stir myself.  So I wrote this poem--though part of the problem is how to turn away from the poetry for a while.  It isn't taking me deep enough into the knowledge I want to put forth from my life.  Ah me.  Deep Sigh.  This poem needs a better title:

Wanting a Drink

Sitting in Meeting for Worship and seeking clearness on my path

Watching a cat turn an empty couch into an absent mother
One clump of fabric after another becoming her belly, her breast—

It is the teat of God I want to suck on for knowledge of my path now,

Why my reluctance to work hard every day in this luscious time to write

I've set aside, journals in the living room, computer in the study

Novel opens to page 46 on paper and screen; conflict is set—

Maybe I don’t know enough yet—ha!—If not, I never will

At least not without climbing into the writing itself

So let me pump your breast, my God, let Sophia meet me there

Rich and milky, let me re-nurture there like a son and a daughter

My thirst is beyond water and blood, beyond the earth.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

Visit my new poem, "Getting On With It," here.

Shakespeare to watch while waiting for a new post

From Shakespeare in American life at the Folger Shakespeare Library:

The Plays

2004. The Merchant of Venice

2000. Hamlet

1999. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1999. Titus

1996. Romeo + Juliet

1995. Othello

1993. Much Ado About Nothing

1990. Hamlet

1967. Taming of the Shrew

1953. Julius Caesar

Inspired by Shakespeare

2006. Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss. Animated version with feuding seal families.

2006. She’s the Man. Twelfth Night in a private boys’ academy.

2001. O. Othello in a modern high school.

2001. Scotland, PA. Macbeth in a fast-food restaurant.

2000. Romeo Must Die. Romeo and Julietadaptation with kung fu.

1999. Let the Devil Wear Black. Hamlet in southern California in a violent film.

1998. The Tempest. The Tempest in the Civil War South

1996. Looking for Richard. Documentary with interviews and scenes from Richard III.

1996. Love is All There Is. A comic romp inspired byRomeo and Juliet.

1977. The Goodbye Girl. Romantic comedy that includes a production of Richard III.

1961. West Side Story. Film version of the musical inspired by Romeo and Juliet.

1953. Kiss Me, Kate. Film version of the musical inspired by The Taming of the Shrew.

From Shakespeare in American life at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre.

Creating a collection

Perhaps I should divide all my poetry--all my writing--into two new blogs (1) Personal and (2) Political.  Poems like Kitchen Eden and At the Train Station are more personal; and titles like Origami Memories and Kindness are more political.  To obscure the edges a little and accept that the line between the personal and the political isn't clear cut, I might call the personal blog "Life Goes On" and the political one "Urgency."  Or maybe the opposite.
         The question came up for me today when contemplating how to select poems for my first to-be-published collection.  I was never one to separate the personal and the political, though some of my writing provides more story-like detail and some less.  Readers seem evenly split on whether they enjoy the specifics or generalizations more.  I like best how the personal writing can be read allegorically and politically, though at times readers miss the larger relevance.  Recently, Friends Journal rejected three poems because my writing is "too personal."
          I have been thinking of gathering my poems that reference childhood to create a collection I could call Child Play or Sun Fishing.  But would that contain enough urgency?  And is there any reason to publish anything anymore that is not urgent?     I am, of course, asking again, why write, what is this Way that God has opened before me, here and now?  
          If anyone has the answer, please help me along the Way to enlightenment!  It may be that the question needs a committee for clearness.  It may be that I should just do it, something, anything--and then wait and see.

Wonder

Wonder.
How/when did I come to understand wonder?  
The connection between WOW and wonder?
Wonder Woman?
Wonder bread?

I have been trying to write a poem about wonder, a word close to wander, wonderful, one world and a word dear to my heart.  Instead of writing the poem, I am stuck in wonder like a broken record . . . and if you wonder what that is: it is a vinyl disc that contained recorded sound, sound released by a needle while the disc is turning at a certain speed on a device known as a record player.  Wonder.  A"broken record" isn't, like, smashed, but it has a deep scratch that causes it to play one sound, word, or phrase over and over as if the needle were stuck in a groove.  Indeed it is.  Stuck in a groove.  Where I am today with wonder.  Walking with wonder as if wonder was a playmate who took me out to play.  Or if Wonder asked me out to play and Mom said no, but O Wonder!  We did it anyway though I did not move an inch.   

Groovy.  Dadada dada dada.  Life is groovy.

I went to Goodreads and copied these thoughts on wonder for me, and for you.  Let them be friends.  Please add more wonderful readings on wonder in the comments!

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in't!”

― William Shakespeare

 

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
― Rachel Carson

“A Second Childhood.”

When all my days are endin
And I have no song to sing,
I think that I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;
As I stared once at a nursery door
Or a tall tree and a swing.

Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangs
On all my sins and me,
Because He does not take away
The terror from the tree
And stones still shine along the road
That are and cannot be.

Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for wine,
But I shall not grow too old to see
Unearthly daylight shine,
Changing my chamber’s dust to snow
Till I doubt if it be mine.

Behold, the crowning mercies melt,
The first surprises stay;
And in my dross is dropped a gift
For which I dare not pray:
That a man grow used to grief and joy
But not to night and day.

Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for lies;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world
And a monster made of eyes.

Nor am I worthy to unloose
The latchet of my shoe;
Or shake the dust from off my feet
Or the staff that bears me through
On ground that is too good to last,
Too solid to be true.

Men grow too old to woo, my love,
Men grow too old to wed;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Hung crazily overhead
Incredible rafters when I wake
And I find that I am not dead.

A thrill of thunder in my hair:
Though blackening clouds be plain,
Still I am stung and startled
By the first drop of the rain:
Romance and pride and passion pass
And these are what remain.

― G.K. Chesterton, The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton

http://store.feminist.org/posterspecial.aspx

Please add more inspiring readings--or links to inspiring readings-- on wonder in the comments!


Thank you.