Week 16: Poetry

I was going to make this whole blog post into an epic poem, but...  I'm not that advanced yet in my poetry skills. I do however feel good about checking off goal #19 from my list of sixty:

Learn more about poetry and write a poem

Most of this week I was enjoying a vacation in Florida and brought along an old "How to Write Poetry" book.  I reviewed that and quite a few Websites and other resources and also dabbled in reading and writing a variety of poems in different styles throughout the week.

In my browsing, I serendipitously stumbled across a poetry contest for an Acrostic poem and I submitted an entry!

Here's my entry for a FRIEND (first letter of each line spells out the word, FRIEND):

Flirtatious, perhaps, regardless of gender

Ready to play, a willing weekender

Intimate with all of our (few!) imperfections

Endearing to them(?), no need for corrections

Never a judge, but wisely a guide

Dependably present with love to provide

 

What worked well about this goal:

* I love word play, writing, and poetry.  Since I've been writing professionally (IT geeky stuff), I've gotten away from creative writing, and I miss it. It felt good to spend some time and write for fun.

* I found this list of beautiful words. (Note: "Serendipity, one of my favorite words, is on the list. If you notice I overuse this word, you now understand why.)

* I dug up a lot of my old poems from the past.. it's motivated me to add to that collection.

* I subscribed to Family Fun Poems and hope their newsletters and prompts will keep me writing.

* I found this list of 12 poems to memorize (added to my 'backlog' as a future goal).

* It was fun to find a contest to enter that gave me an easy prompt for an acrostic.  (I'd written an acrostic poem for my friend Craig Dunham when he turned 50 in 2010, and it was a nice memory.)

What could have been better:

* Like any of my 'learning goals,' it's always hard to consider them 'done.'  The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know and I want to learn more. There's always that feeling of recognizing that I will never have the time to become as proficient as I'd like, because there are just too many other things I want to learn.  But it's a start..  

In poetic summary:

Learning poetry

I want to learn it all

But before I walk, I need to crawl

OK, then.. Start small

First attempt haiku

Simple and systematic

A humble success

Venture on to lyrical verses

Flowered with eloquent words and sounds

Onomatopoeia with evocative prose

Poetry has no bounds

The world is full of endless wonders

And words that fill my head

I wish that I could write with brilliance

But this I’ll do instead

Try not to do it all

There is no protocol

It’s OK to start small