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 4 Prompt
And last but not least, our daily optional prompt. Poetry often takes us to strange places – to feelings and actions that are hard to express except through the medium of a poem. To the “liminal,” in other words – a place or sensation that exists at or on both sides of a boundary or threshold, neither one thing or the other, but something betwixt and between.
In honor of the always-becoming nature of poetry, I challenge you today to select a photograph from the perpetually disconcerting @SpaceLiminalBot, and write a poem inspired by one of these odd, in-transition spaces. Will you pick the empty mall food court? The vending machine near the back entrance to the high school gym? The swimming pool at what seems to be M.C. Escher’s alpine retreat? No matter what neglected or eerie space you choose, I hope its oddness tugs at the place in your mind and heart where poems are made.
Here is the image I used
Day 4 Poem
Taking refuge under a pedestrian foot bridge
Another trip around the country for this Sagittarius soul
Another State I have never lived in is where the car stalled
Of course in the middle of the night and miles from the nearest rest stop
The amber hue of the highway lights blanketed the ground as the mists appeared
My usual friends, a wallet, keys, and a cell phone snuggle close to my thighs
No one would be awake if I tried to call home, no one would be able to drive out
I start the long walk to find help from strangers who would rather be asleep
Whistling old songs to keep the focus on the goal, get home
That’s when the drizzle began
My steps quickened, as the jacket that would have provided warmth was left in the abandoned vehicle
The fog thickened so much my eyes almost missed the covering, but my body felt it momentarily
Overhead was a thin walkway spanning the highway and provided a moment of relief
So I climbed the embankment, making my way to the crux of where the footbridge met the earth
The winds had decided not to arrive to drive the rain into my body
And I stayed there for what seemed to be hours as I dared not take out the phone that would reveal it had been minutes
I crouched there as a sentinel, keeping watch for others that could relieve my predicament
But none came, the rain retreated back to dampness falling from the clouds until it was again mist
Sleep was winning the battle, it had been hours since last I rested
As I lay there, night denizens approached and retreated as they saw the area was not safe for them
The night sky plodded toward the early morn
As I rose and gained my bearings I crossed the foot bridge and saw lights ahead
A short trot led me to a previously unmarked ( at least from my clouded memory) gas station
I entered, soaked through and through
Within hours I was back on my journey with yet another story for the children, another gray hair for my wife, another dance with destiny that bade me well, this time
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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