Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?
Day 6 Prompt
Finally, here’s our daily (optional) prompt. Our prompt yesterday asked you to take inspiration from another poem, and today’s continues in the same vein. This prompt, which comes from Holly Lyn Walrath, is pretty simple. As she explains it here:
Go to a book you love. Find a short line that strikes you. Make that line the title of your poem. Write a poem inspired by the line. Then, after you’ve finished, change the title completely.
I encourage you to read Walrath’s full post, which has some other ideas for generating new poems based on pre-existing text.
I used the Tao Te Ching 72nd verse
Hence the sage knows himself but does not display himself, loves himself but does not exalt himself.
Day 6 Poem
Hence the sage knows himself but does not display himself, loves himself but does not exalt himself/ Tao Te Ching verse 72
To know is to love
If it takes a lifetime
To look up from the page
And receive the inspiration
To describe what these eyes have seen
Is that failure
Follow a path
How do you know that the path
Will lead to a desired destination
Will the footsteps imprinted in the freshly fallen snow
Lead to home
Or the jaws of the leopard
Does the feeling of certainty
Come with a written guarantee
Reviewed by lawyers and philosophers
Or is it just a chemical imbalance
That caused visions from the afflicted
And led nations to kneel
A preference of quietude
Acceptance that the ending is unknown
Undetermined
That the accepted good
May just be the most insidious evil
Cloaked in the mindless praises
Of those who wished to be fooled
Of those who must always be on the side of right
Rather than common good
If the utmost wish is to see the wonders of life
Lift up the eyes from behind the page
Put down the pen
Forget waiting on inspiration
Open the eyes and see
The answers are simpler
And visible
Than what the stories of old have told
Reaching Out
To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.
- Email: timothy@createartpodcast.com
- YouTube Channel: Create Art Podcast YT Channel
- IG: @createartpodcast
- Twitter: @createartpod
- Mighty Networks: Create Art Podcast