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 11 Prompt
This is a twist on a prompt offered by Kay Gabriel during a meeting she facilitated at the Poetry Project last year. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a two-part poem, in the form of an exchange of letters. The first stanza (or part) should be in the form of a letter that you write either to yourself or to a famous fictional or historical person. The second part should be the letter you receive in response. These can be as short or long as you like, in the form of prose poems, or with line breaks – and of course, the subject matter of the letters is totally up to you.
Happy writing!
Day 11 Poem
To Ken and Joe
1
When I heard your voices
On Sunday nights in Chicago
Laying alone in my bed
Waiting for Monday morning
And the start of the drudgery
Before I would drift off to the dreams
You constructed
In the two hours
My attention was never more focused
On the little things you would add
A thought here, a discarded phrase there
What most people who did listen in would miss
Was the crumbs that I feasted upon
I wanted to recreate what you had done
But soon I found that
I was failing to sound like you
And I am glad for that failure
Because I sound like me
Inspired by you
To tell the world how I see them
You both have passed on
Just when this party down here was getting good
So now we are left to tell our stories
Without your voice
And twisted reality
2
Tim
Your voice is enough
Your vision is enough
It is souls like you
That keep us from feeling the isolation
From the creeping madness that chants
No one will understand,
Everyone will think you untalented
You are truly insane talking to yourself
We are glad you are finding your voice
As we have found ours
Since we are missing the party below
Write your open letter to us
Save the really juicy stuff
For no one else alive to hear
And save it for those who truly understand
Those yet to be born and those freshly deceased
PS can we send this to our good friends John and Leonard
We have been playing euchre with them
And are waiting for Tom to come
So we can figure out who reads
Your lines better
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.
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