Week 2 of Bonnie’s intuitive Poetry Writing Exercises
Looking Deep
Wow.. I worked Saturday and Sunday and my body aches and my mind is weary… So, forgive me as my endurance for physical exercise is lacking… Enough of my complaints/of and onto the fun…Writing poetry…
Forgive my typos as my eyes are crossed after this weekend… LOL… I will edit it tomorrow…
Isn’t poetry writing incredibly rewarding? I want so to share what we do for many reasons and I’m certain that you, do too. I want to tell someone about the joys of writing, the fabulous release from doing so, and the feelings of accomplishment when we create anything … The writing is us… It comes from our souls and our spirits.
It could possibly follow us past death. Our grandchildren’s children may read what their ancestors wrote and that ancestor might be you and I…
Poetry and lyrics have told history lessons from many pasts. Folk songs are an example of tunes that will go down in history. I remember listening to Joan Baez sing “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me …. etc” Joan told a history lesson about human rights that I didn’t understand at 9, but the song stayed with me and later on in life, I understood her lyrics and the reason that she sang about “Joe Hill.”
So, we too want to leave our descendants with a part of us that speaks how we felt about life, religions, our views on love and so much more…
The reason that we practiced writing without the sense of hearing of deafness last week was to stretch our abilities to sense the world. We will begin to think and feel like a deaf or blind person. It is not an easy task.
This week Alan and I will post new intuitive photographs and images. You may continue to feel through the image in a different point of understanding, and not our own… Perhaps you will be blind, or perhaps from the point of view of a family member who is disabled. You will wear their shoes, instead of your own.
The lesson is to take any of your past poems, maybe from last week or another, and make that poem better. It will be necessary for you to use a Thesaurus.. My suggestion is, if you’ve not used the Thesaurus, is to highlight the first and last word of each sentence and choose a more descriptive word.
Consider your poem being read by someone. What tone of voice would it be spoken? Would it be in a dialect other than your own?
Is there another and better way to express your poem?
Rule 1 of editing … BIG Huge Gigantic RULE… don’t get overly attached to the phrases that you have created. They are subject to change for the best and will be discarded.. Yep. It’s like hoarding words. We get possessive with our phrases.
Rule 2… It can always be improved.
Rule 3… Try to stay in one tense.. Hard for me…Really hard.
If I were to have and image of a raindrop or rainfall many would write about tears. Why? Because, water is emotion and often rain and water brings out the past and sadness.
If I were to post an image of winning the lottery, then many would become anxious, stop, and halt, thus being unable to write about winning, because it creates anxieties of the future. Think about this. Are we conditioned to believe winning is a sin, or unattainable? Does it create a lack of self worth? Does our writing take on that anxiety and do we stop writing because we feel … ? You fill in the blanks…Anxiety can stop the writing process… Fear of the future…
If I took that raindrop in the previous example, how could you write about it in the here and now? Now, take a blindfold or invasion it on your eyes… See that raindrop now, in the moment, tell me what you see and feel. Do not write about the past using emotion, and don’t write about the future in anxiety, but write about that drop, in the now.
What can you write about that 1 drop of water?
Well, how about the weight, the size, the color, the illumination, the transparency, and what do you see? Look inside it as if it were a glass globe. Can you see the future, can you see your contentment, or dissatisfaction? Can you say, I am … in the present, I feel no sadness, or anxiety, I, like the drop, am one, and we, are in the now for this moment? And, for right now, all is good, and as it should be… Can you become one with the person, place or thing which is the object of your writing? I ask again… Can you become one with it’s vibrations, it’s color, its beauty, its place in our environment and it’s purpose…? Water fills all living things doesn’t it? What can that 1 drop do for 1 moment in the now…?
This is where your breathing exercises from day 1, help with writing in the present tense…
As I said, a few paragraphs ago, our exercise is to take 1 or 2 poems this week that you have previously written and improve on them… Share them on the threads. If you post them separately with an image, then make a reference to the fact that you are improving on them and want to share…
Ultimately, at the end of the intuitive lessons, my wish is that we would find a poetry contest that is unfamiliar territory and enter our new revised work.
So, this is week 2… and it will be more reflective. It will be more intuitive as when you edit your work, you are going to sense what needs to change and you will have better clarity…
Once again I thank Alan Boles at The Poets Haven on FB for allowing me to facilitate this group, and I want to thank all of you for supporting me, and thank you for going on the journey with me…
I am learning, as well… you are welcome join us at The Poets Haven.
Photo by me
The poem, I will revise, for the Intuitive Poetry Group. My poem was written in 2014 and is called “Manifesting Sophia.” It is a Gnostic Christian poem… It is about manifestation and The Holy Sophia’s movements. She comes through our petitions and in this poem I am summoning her as I’m in need of her presence.
Manifesting Sophia
Standing next to The Rivers of Babylon we prayed.
I told you to whisper, Sophia, and there on the banks edge,
She will breathe.
In your loneliness, you will cry,
In solitude, you shall find her.
Standing, by the fresh spring waters,
Her voice, will arise new,
Believe, child.
Unless you know, she won’t come.
She cannot sojourn the dead,
Not, without your certain, hope.
Only, in the voice filled with life,
Shall she manifest.
The lifeless carry no spirit.
The initiator needs the spark.
Speak, and Sophia will sing.
Listen, and her song, you will hear.
Smile when you know.
She came because you asked.
.
Link on FB: The Poet’s Haven
https://www.facebook.com/groups/313544755508623/
The link on WordPress is:
https://wordpress.com/sta…/day/bonniegjennings.wordpress.com
I’ve entered it in contest and I had thought that my poem was deep and smoothly enjoyable.
I found out that the majority of people didn’t understand the poem and were way away from the meaning and content.
Sophia is a shared meaning for The Holy Spirit and is also thought of as Wisdom of God… She is feminine and all-knowing. She moves like the wind and is silent…
Mimsi Flowers and Notions 