#28POEMS

Poetry. What I love about poetry is that you get to say what you consider a poem. We’re leaving technical rules aside and simply using the term to give us permission to work with words.

An odd jumble of phrases
gathered and sorted
piled just so.

That’s poetry.

The Muse and our own deep smart parts are always trying to get our attention. And different practices open us up to hearing them in different ways. Meditation, for instance will give you very different information than painting, than collage, than letter writing, than poetry.

This series is about working the muscle of showing up and listening with your poetic ear. Practicing letting your intuition tell you things...using words. Practicing putting pen/cil to paper even when you don't want to. Practicing the catching and release of poems in the world.

It's not my intention to teach you how to write poetry. Instead it's my intention to create an excuse for you to find your way towards writing your kind of poetry, every day for a spell.  It's also my intention for it to be playful, easy, powerful, and above all, inspiring.

When you sign up you will receive the first prompt in your inbox. The first prompt is: write a poem that promises to write a poem every day for 28 days. Tomorrow you'll receive the second prompt. You can use the prompt or not. The only rule is that you write a poem each day for 28 days.

You can share your poem with us. You can post them publicly. Or you can keep it private. You can write them long hand, on steam in the mirror, on your phone, out of alphabet blocks. You can keep them in one notebook or scatter them on matchbooks and leaves. The only rule is that you write a poem each day for 28 days.

AND I have a special dare for the risk takers. Instead of paying the fee for the course up front, you can accept my bet. The bet is this - if you skip any days, any days at all, for each and every day that you skip you will pay forward the price of the course for someone else!  (There will be an accountability link in each day's prompt.)  Putting your money where your mouth is and all that.

I created this game because I am a different human being when I spend my days paying attention to the poetry of life. I always find that there's more meaning. There's more attention. Words come more smoothly and with more pleasure. I hope that during the course of this experiment you find that the same thing is true for you.

Let's begin right now.

Post #27 Gratitude

Great-full by Semerit

I am late:
having overslept,
after not sleeping well enough.

A voice insists i hurry to work
while my fingers follow
a now well-worn neurologically dictated
path toward the prompt
and the keys that deliver the daily message.

Poems have become the way
I start my day:
opening me to awe and curiosity as
I wonder what my fingers will reveal.

I've gone deep
I’ve gone rebellious
I haven’t felt like it
I have wondered where is it all going
and does it even make sense

I have most of all
taken notes
been the scribe
receiving rather than producing

I have been blessed beyond measure
not just with content, depth and rhythm
that blew my socks off. Not just
with new sightings of inner world wonders and dynamics
but with a way of listening
and obeying faster than immediately
I have tasted freedom

I have flown
on wings I did not suspect
I had.

Full of the great
of the habit of poems,
I bow in humility
and gratitude
to the structure and the way
that has gotten me here.